Dec 14

Stephen Colbert

STEPHEN COLBERT

 
Stephen Colbert  (born May 13, 1964) is an American political satirist, writer, producer, singer, television host, actor, media critic, and comedian.  From 2005 to 2014, he was the host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.  It was announced on April 10, 2014, that Colbert had been chosen to succeed David Letterman as the host of the Late Show on CBS after Letterman retires in 2015.   (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
The term “one-hit wonder” is usually taken to mean a band or artist who manages to create one good song, and then makes a big hit with it.  I remember Stephen Colbert joking one time about Carl Douglas and his huge hit song in 1974, “Kung Fu Fighting”.  Douglas managed to hit the intersection of two big crazes of that period – disco dancing and kung fu movies – and made one of the biggest hit songs of all time, with 11 million copies sold.  Colbert was saying that his album had a lot of other songs on it, and none of the rest of them were about kung fu at all; the way he was saying it implied that they were all quite bad.  I cannot say myself that I ever heard anything by Douglas other than his hit song, but he is often cited as a true one-hit wonder. 
 
(May 2012)
 
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With some limitations for articles having highly contentious positions on all sides (such as the one on evolution), anyone at all can edit any of the articles in Wikipedia and put in whatever they want.  Stephen Colbert has famously done that very thing during the broadcast of some of his programs. 
 
(August 2012)
 
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My interest in Wikipedia was piqued by several stunts fomented by Stephen Colbert on his show The Colbert Report.  In one famous incident, “The Wørd” on July 31, 2006 was “Wikiality”; Colbert explained that on Wikipedia, “any user can change any entry, and if enough users agree with them, it becomes true.”  He then encouraged his viewers to modify the Wikipedia entry on “elephants” to state:  “Elephant population in Africa has tripled over the past six months”.  The changes mounted by the “Colbert nation” spread to other pachyderm-related articles:  African forest elephant, African bush elephant, Babar the elephant, white elephant, Dumbo, etc. 

 

I remember another time when Stephen Colbert changed a Wikipedia entry on camera during The Colbert Report so as to fit his worldview – that is to say, the worldview of his buffoonish character “Stephen Colbert” who hosts the show; he is a different person from the actual human being.  

 
(September 2013)
 
Last edited: March 22, 2021