15 Years Ago: The Colbert Report
Today in 2005, Stephen Colbert introduced 'truthiness' into the lexicon on the debut of his new talk show
We forget how utterly weird it was.
On a fake news show called The Daily Show, an actor/comedian named Stephen Colbert invented a fake right-wing pundit named Stephen Colbert. That character would become extremely popular and go on to launch his own talk show, where he would interview guests in character. The guests (serious people! Stephen Hawking and Michelle Obama!) were forced to play along with the ruse, pretending they were on some demented late-night Fox News hellscape.
It’s like… Work with me here… It’s like… imagine Johnny Carson inventing a character to satirize William F. Buckley Jr., and then Carson interviews Carl Sagan and Lady Bird Johnson as that character… every night.
Like I said, we forget how utterly weird it was.
The very first episode of The Colbert Report — which aired 15 years ago today — injected the word truthiness into our vocabulary in a segment called The Wørd. It could be roughly translated as that which seems true, or what one wants to be true, regardless of reason or facts. It would resonate.
In a review of the premiere, the New York Times cited trustiness, misspelled, as Colbert’s debut word. After the paper of record issued a correction, Colbert scoffed that trustiness is “not even a word.”
MORE ANNIVERSARIES
100 Years Ago Today: Montgomery Clift was born. If you need a refresher, Anne Helen Petersen wrote the essential profile of the posthumous gay icon, “The Long Suicide of Montgomery Clift,” in Vanity Fair.