Mother Jones
Stephen Colbert Escaped Late Night and Immediately Started Having Fun
In a delightful Easter egg for fans of Stephen Colbert, local television, or the improbable combination of the two, following Colbert’s last-ever Late Show, he popped up the following day as the guest host of “Only in Monroe,” a public access show in Monroe, Michigan. Colbert presented an hour of local news, assisted, sort of, by his “volunteer musical director,” a deadpan Jack White hunched over a reel-to-reel tape deck with headphones clamped over his ears.
“It’s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV,” Colbert declared. “So I am grateful to be here on Monroe Community Media before they are also acquired by Paramount.”
“It’s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV. So I am grateful to be here on Monroe Community Media before they are also acquired by Paramount.”
“We don’t have any sponsors? We actually lost a lot of money making this show tonight?” he also asked, peering offscreen at the crew. “Now I know how CBS felt.”
Colbert previously guest-hosted “Only in Monroe” in 2015, and joked at the outset that he hadn’t slept since then. He led the guffawing camera crew through a series of jokes about local weed dispensaries, Monroe’s version of Comic Con, and a segment about a feud between two local hot dog businesses.
Colbert’s guests on the program included “Only in Monroe’s” usual hosts, Michelle Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko. Jeff Daniels, who was raised in Chelsea, Michigan, also sat down for an interview, while Steve Buscemi read an ad for a local pizza place, Buscemi Pizza, while reminding viewers, “I’ve got nothing to do with it.”
At another point in the broadcast, White, a native son of Detroit, joined Colbert to sample Monroe-style hot dogs. They consumed them, as White dryly put it, “Lady and the Tramp-style,” as the entire camera crew cracked up off-camera. Colbert also treated viewers to a helium-addled rendition of The White Stripes’ “Fell in Love With a Girl” as White struggled not to laugh. At the close of the program, Colbert gifted the show’s creative director Genevieve Benson a ham topped with a birthday hat and a lit sparkler.
The whole thing was hilarious, awkward, and gloriously pointless. While the president of the United States seethes over Colbert, the man himself made it clear that he intends to use his sudden wealth of freedom to enjoy himself.