Stephen Colbert Accepts WGA East’s Walter Bernstein Award: “The Revolution … Was Going To Be Televised, And Then Paramount Bought It”
Upon receiving this year’s Walter Bernstein Award from the Writers Guild of America East, outgoing Late Show host Stephen Colbert took the opportunity with his time on stage to champion his staff and lob one final jab at CBS parent corporation Paramount.
Anyone expecting scorched earth might have been the tiniest bit disappointed, but the whole segment reflected the weight of the moment as the late-night host drew multiple standing ovations. Though Colbert was receiving an honor named after a screenwriter who was blacklisted during the McCarthyist Red Scare of the 1950s, he took pains not to play too much the martyr. However, he did not let the moment pass without taking a jab at his soon-to-be former employers.
“This is not the 1950s,” he quipped. “This is not the Red Scare. And, as far as I can tell, no one in late-night is fomenting a revolution. As we know, the revolution will not be televised. It was going to be televised, and then Paramount bought it.”
The audience erupted into loud applause and cheers, as he continued, referencing the figure the network cited as reasoning to cancel The Late Show franchise: “Evidently, the revolution was losing, like, $40 million a year — it had to go. I hear the revolution is thinking of starting a Substack.”
Comedy writer Robert Smigel, who presented the award, started off his lengthy introduction by observing, “You can just feel the gravitas!” The decision of CBS to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last year, mere weeks before parent company Paramount gained final government approval for its merger with Skydance, informed the whole night even though the honoree did not touch on it in any detail, and also ignored the more recent $110 billion merger agreement Paramount set with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Smigel’s introduction covered a number of career touchstones, starting with his breakthrough hiring (at Smigel’s recommendation) on The Dana Carvey Show, a network sketch series that flamed out after eight episodes but left an enduring legacy due to its all-star roster of writers and performers. He also covered the transition to The Daily Show, then The Colbert Report and eventually to CBS, with memorable stops along the way like roasting Chevy Chase on Comedy Central or bombing valiantly at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2006.
During his acceptance speech at the March 8 ceremony, Colbert also drew growing laughs with the innuendo: “Of course, no one achieves success in this business by themselves, late-night hosts especially. We hosts are merely the tip of the iceberg, though the tip is the most sensitive part.”
Later on, he also read out some jokes that had been cut by Paramount during his time on the late-night series. They included jabs at the landmark Dobbs decision to repeal abortion rights, Kristi Noem’s alleged affair with aide Corey Lewandowski and President Donald Trump‘s lewd comments toward his daughter Ivanka.
Referencing one cut joke written by female staffers about Louis C.K. amid the #MeToo era, he read out: “Oh my God, he masturbates like a toddler poops.”
During the bit, Colbert also read out a proposed line about OpenAI, which featured in its punchline an NSFW joke about McDonald’s new slogan. While the joke made it past ad sales approval, Colbert had cut it during the 9 a.m. pitch meeting, only to see it had showed up again in the 3 p.m. rehearsal script. It showed up once more during Christmastime, when staffers gifted him a long-sleeve tee with McDonald’s logo and the caption: “We suck dick now.”
Colbert concluded his 15-minute-long speech by shouting out his 19 writers. “If you liked any of these ideas, please employ these lovely folks,” he urged.
“They are the best writing staff I have ever known at any show, and I have loved our time together, which wasn’t as much time as I would like,” he said. “I started in late-night as one of them. Thanks to Robert, Dana Carvey and Jon Stewart, and many other people, I ended up in front of the camera every night, which is a very good job with its own responsibilities, meaning you can’t be in the writers’ room as much as you used to be.”
“And to some, hosting may seem like a hard job, and sometimes it is, but what’s also hard is hearing the laughter from the room down the hall and not be able to open it,” he added. “If you’ve ever been lucky enough to be in that room, you will always want to be in that sound. And what is really gonna be hard is missing these people, who despite the fresh hell — whatever it is — that the news washes in, make that beautiful sound happen every day. So to them, and all of you, and Walter Bernstein, and to our guild, thank you so much.”
The Bernstein Award, which was established in 2017, is presented to a member “who has demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.” It is not an annual honor and has only been bestowed twice before to Jelani Cobb and Ron Nyswaner.
WGAE President Tom Fontana made it clear in a statement that Colbert is receiving the honor for the same reason he got a standing ovation at the Emmys in September — his bullishness on Donald Trump and, particularly, Paramount Global’s $16 million settlement with the POTUS over the way that CBS News‘ 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris.
