Deck Chairs on the Hindenburg
The idea that Comedy is whatever people will laugh at at a given moment is as depressing to me as saying Art is whatever people look at on walls. In the immediate sense, yeah Colbert did bomb, in that the room was silent at most of his jokes. The Helen Thomas taped thing wasn’t that great and was a lousy way to close, but goddamn that was an amazing performance. It’s not totally fearless, you can see him sweating sometimes, but hell if Steve didn’t do what nobody else has in 6 years: He called the bastard out to his face.