← The Brett Cooper Show
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This episode is brought to you by. Prime Obsession is in session. And this summer, prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus. Elle every year. After the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more slow burns, second chances chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Well, guys, the day is finally here. Tonight, CBS will air the very last episode of Stephen Colbert's late night show. And he has made the most of his farewell tour by being completely and utterly gay. And do not laugh, because I am being serious. This man is up on his set kissing everyone. So the first question on everybody's mind is obviously, who is he going to kiss tonight? But the second and obviously more important question is what does this mean for late night comedy if the number one show in late night has. Has officially been canceled? Now, as I'm sure you have seen and I have partaken in this, but people in both sides of the aisle have been quick to talk about politics and blame politics. People are gloating about him being canceled. But honestly, like, if I really sit here and think about it, Stephen Colbert being canceled does make me sad. And you might think I am utterly insane for saying this, but I promise I have a point. And what is even more tragically ironic is that if Colbert had just been smarter, had he been a little more self aware, he wouldn't have fallen prey to the same shtick that he used to mock. So. So before we get into why Colbert getting off the air is depressing to me, we need to talk about how he is locking lips with everyone. Because if I had to see this, so do you. This is just my little, like, fun addition to the episode because this man in the last week has now kissed Jimmy Fallon. Pedro Pascal, Julia, Luigi. Right. Like literally this week, nine months ago, he was also kissing Andrew Garfield. Like, I'm watching this unfold and I'm like, this is the most Hollywood thing I, I have ever seen. Like, the man gets fired publicly and suddenly he turns his show into the fricking casting couch. Like, what are you, Are you trying to get another job? Do you think Pedro Pascal is going to like, get you a role in the next season of the Last of Us if you kiss him on air? Like, it's just weird. We cannot Harry Weinstein our way out of the situation. Steven, you lost your job. Go home. Anyway, that is not the main point of today's episode. The main point is that we are saying a tearful Goodbye to Stephen Colbert. And more tearfully, Late Night as we know it. Now, you might remember that back in July, when the news broke that Colbert was being canceled and pulled off the air, it stirred up a lot of controversy because the announcement regarding his firing came just days after this monologue that he did on his show where he slammed his employers for settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump. Just watch.
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While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his 60 Minutes lawsuit. As someone who has always been a proud employer of this network, I am offended, and I don't know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company, but just taking a stab at it, I'd say $16 million would help this settlement. This settlement.
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I know that we're beating a dead horse when we talk about Late Night, but is this supposed to be funny? He has no timing anymore. The audience is booing. You would think that a man who started his career writing for Jon Stewart working on Comedy Central would understand timing, would let the joke breathe, even though it's not really a joke. But he's, like, sort of setting up a joke. He would let it breathe. He would let the boos continue. No, he's so angry. He just wants to bash Trump that he is bulldozing through people's laughter, cheers, boos. Just to get to the point, which is that he hates Trump with every fiber of his being. Anyway, that is just an aside. But the point is, he did this monologue. He slammed the fact that Paramount had settled with Donald Trump, and soon after, it was announced that his show was getting pulled off the air and he was effectively fired. CBS at the time said that this was due to declining ratings and budget, but everyone online felt that it was political since Steve Jobs, Steven, directly called out Paramount, obviously, who owns cbs, his parent company, and because at the same time, this is where he got even angrier and all the lives got all riled up. But at the same time, Paramount was trying to merge with a company called Skydance Global. That merger required approval from Trump's fcc. So the rumor was that in order to get the merger through, they wanted to appease Trump. They were settling with him, paying him $16 million. And they were like, we'll throw in firing Stephen Colbert just to make you happy, to, like, stroke the Trump ego. I have no idea if that happened, but that was the rumor that the libs came up with in their mind, just because they wanna blame Trump, literally. And so immediately, the celebrities and politicians, actors and actresses alike, they all came to his defense, blaming Trump, the root of all of their problems, saying that this was an assault on comedy and free speech. Colbert was being punished for being this brave comedic warrior against Donald Trump, and now he was having to take the fall, even though he was speaking truth, all of the normal things. Okay, well, maybe, maybe people, they were just tired of hearing you yap. Maybe you had no viewers anymore. Maybe the format in which people get their comedy and their news simply changed. Now it's very easy to blame Trump. Like, it's very easy on both sides of the aisle to just make the man a scapegoat. I have no idea what happened behind closed doors. I have no idea if Colbert's firing was the little cherry on top to make him happy. Maybe it was a request from Trump. I have no idea. What we do know is that late night no longer brings in the money that it used to. What we do know is that late night no longer has the cultural relevancy that it used to have. And so while, yes, Stephen Colbert's show was the number one late night show in terms of viewers, it had the highest number of viewers coming out of a very small, small pie. Maybe crazy idea, but maybe the execs at Paramount are smart and they know when to get out of a dying business. And they are not the only ones who have gotten out of the game. Now, I was reading a Washington Post article about this whole decision about Colbert's departure, and they talked to Conan o' Brien because Conan o' Brien noticed the shift years ago, and it became especially evident to him after his appearance on the show hot ones in 2024. So listen to this. Former late night talk show host Conan O' Brien saw the shift for himself after his 2024 appearance on Hot Ones, the YouTube talk show featuring celebrity guests eating progressively spicier chicken wings. His unhinged appearance went Viral, racking up 10 million views on YouTube within months and generating tons of press. Quote, that was the moment the scales fell from my eyes, o' Brien told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. If a guy can do World Series numbers with overhead, that looked to me to be about $600 and you have every big star lining up to do his show or chicken shop date, which is another YouTube interview show. That is when I profoundly understood that late night shows are in trouble. He added, I am of the mind that, yes, these shows are going away and will become something else. So Conan o' Brien jumped ship. Now, luckily for him, while one of his shows was on a hiatus Back in 2018, he started a podcast. He still has his podcast. He's now like deeply in the Internet space. Meanwhile, all of these other late night hosts are trying to start podcasts now. They're all sitting around roundtables lamenting about how late night has gone away. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. You are irrelevant. Like my friends, the people, at least in my generation, are not watching your talk shows. We do not care. We are watching Therapists with Jake Shane, Joe Rogan, Hot Ones, Jay Shetty's podcast. Like we are watching Friggin Chicken Shop Date if we want to see what a celebrity is up to. We are no longer forced to choose between the, I don't know, four late night comedy shows when there are endless YouTube channels, TikTok accounts, podcasts that are specifically catered to our interests and what we want at that specific moment in time. And that is also where the money is moving. That, Stephen Colbert, is why you were pulled off the air. Because it, it is simply not profitable. Like, just listen to this. Advertiser spending on late night dropped to 209 million in 2025 according to guideline, down from 519 million in 2017. That is a drop of nearly 60%. And obviously, where are those advertisers going? YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, where spending has increased 28% year over year. They are coming to the Brad Cooper show. And so on that note, I want to take a second to thank my sponsor, Jevy, because without them, I would literally be a mess. No, but literally, like on the days that I know I'm a wreck, like I am struggling to keep it together, I have headaches, my hormones are raging, I'm like tearfully doing things. Alex looks at me and goes, you didn't take your Jevony supplements. And he is always right. That is always the thing that I have missed. Now my Jevony supplements are so instrumental to my health and my well being because they were literally created for me based on extensive blood work that was done by Jevity. Now most of these blood work companies, and I know that there are so many of them out there that you can choose from, most of them are really good at one thing, which is testing. Like they will give you 100 plus biomarkers. 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Lowe's we help you save valid through 527 while supplies last selection varies by location. Seeloes.com for details visit your nearby Lowe's. All right, now all of the budget and advertising and money aside, there is something else that I do not think helps. Late night and Stephen Colbert. And this is really like the crux of the story. This is what interests me because it's just like a fascinating character study of Stephen Colbert, to be honest. And it's something new that I learned about him. Like guys, my favorite type of episode is is where I've picked something to talk about and as I'm putting it together, I learn something new about the subject or I get to like explain something to you. And this is something that revolves around Stephen Colbert that I didn't know about because it was just like way before my time. Like me at 4 years old did not know this about him. So if you guys are My age, maybe this will be new to you too. But this is really the story of how late night TV became so partisan, so alienating, so self important. The person that we have to thank for all of that is Stephen Colbert. But there is such an interesting story here because he kind of fell on his own sword. I don't even know if that's the right phrase to use here. That makes him sound a little more no. He is like this tragic character in a Shakespearean play. And his fatal flaw is that he totally lacked self awareness and he became the thing that he once despised. So this morning, in an article about this entire situation, a variety author wrote this. The sense that late night plays to a particular type of audience wasn't supposed to be part of the mix. That was not part of the creation of Late Night is what they're writing. Johnny Carson made fun of politicians, but mostly their public goofs, not their policies. Leno, Jay Leno rarely became political. And Letterman, often irascible, feuded with politicians, but not over what they did in Washington. John McCain, for example, became a Letterman target because the former U.S. senator canceled a 2008 appearance on the Late show in favor of talking to Katie Couric. When Letterman squabbled with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, it was because of a demeaning remark he made about Palin's teenage daughter. Late night shows in 2026, however, are a wholly different creation. Quote, these shows were built to be a vaudeville in the box in your living room, says Young. They were a place to watch jugglers and clowns and funny people doing impressions. They were not made for this. And so my point in reading that passage specifically is because if you are like me and you obviously generally know what late night used to, but you were not raised in the era of Leno and Letterman and Johnny Carson, obviously. And to point to how these great men, these pioneers of late night dealt with politics and to point out that politics was never supposed to be part of the game. But Stephen Colbert specifically changed that. And what is so ironic, this is what gets so interesting to me, is that Colbert literally became who he got famous for mocking. Because before he was at cbs, before he was doing the Late Show, Stephen Colbert, this is what I did not know. He had a show on Comedy Central called the Colbert Report. And the entire premise of this comedy show was that he was making fun of self important TV political pundits, specifically conservatives. You can see the poster right here for the Colbert Report. And just for added information, Apple TV's description of the show Reads on the show. Colbert plays well, Stephen Colbert, a God fearing, patriotic American who's not afraid to tangle with the truth. His political leanings are conservative and he hates the liberal media. Something awful. Now, to be even more specific, apparently this character that he was playing was based off of Bill O'Reilly from Fox, who was obviously at his prime there. And honestly, like, as a right winger and as somebody that is in the media and has done, you know, the political pundit things, like I've been watching old clips from the Colbert Report which again, I did not know existed until earlier today, and I think they are so funny. Like, that was Colbert at his prime. Like some are from over 20 years ago. And it is hilarious how spot on he was and how little, like traditional TV political media has changed. And like, let's face it, like, it's good to laugh at all of this. It's good to laugh at people on our own side, especially on our own side right now. It's good to just make fun of the news media in general. As one example, just watch this clip. I think this actually might have been the very first monologue ever released from the Colbert Report because you're looking at a straight shooter.
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America. I tell it like it is. I calls them like I sees them. I will speak to you in plain, simple English. And that brings us to tonight's word truthiness. Now, I'm sure some of the word police, the word anistas over at Webster's are going to say, hey, that's not a word. Well, anybody who knows me know that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist, constantly telling us what is or isn't true or.
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Okay, my favorite part of this entire clip are the things that they put up on the screen, like he's talking about something. And they write reference books, high and mighty, which you obviously see on the news all the time. Like, they write the most ridiculous things. I appreciate the fact that these days they play around with it and they actually have a good time. But for so long they took themselves so seriously and it was just so ridiculous. Anyway, it's just great.
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Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I want to say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today. Because face it, folks, we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans or conservatives and liberals or tops and bottoms. We are divided between those who think with their head and those who know with their heart. What about Iraq? If you think about it, maybe there are a few missing pieces to the rationale for war. But doesn't taking Saddam out feel like the right thing right here? Right here in the. Because that's where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen, the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your stomach than in your head? Look it up. Now somebody's going to say I did look that up and it's wrong. Well, Mr. That's because you looked it up in a book. Next time try looking it up in your gut. I did. And my gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Now I know some of you may not trust your gut yet, but with my help, you will. The truthiness is anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.
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What is also so remarkable is the way that news media has not changed in the slightest in terms of the delivery. Like you could pull that off of any mainstream channel and, and it would sound just like that. Anyway, it was just phenomenal. Like the entire point of the show was to make fun of how self important and ridiculous these political pundits were. And Colbert as the comic, as the satiricist who was hosting the show, he was far above them. He knew better. He knew that it was ridiculous, that everything that they were saying was absurd. He was far above them all. Like for example, in an old 60 Minutes profile that they did on Colbert, when he started the show, he was asked whether the character he plays is smart, proud or stupid. And Colbert responded and said I think of him as a well intentioned, poorly informed, high status idiot. And again, it is just so perfectly ironic because that exactly is who Colbert became. And in 2016, just about a year after he inherited the Late show from Letterman, he completely torpedoed the entire brand, his brand and the entirety of late night as a genre into this self important vapid mouthpiece of the political left. Like can you just see how hypocritical that is? He literally built a career, built his brand. The only reason why he got the Late show was because of this mocking of self important political pundits. But apparently the character that he was playing just really stuck with him. So he carried it over to the Late show and it is just like how he described his character. Well intentioned obviously, because he had to save America and save democracy from the fascist Donald Trump. Ill informed obviously, and a high status celebrity. And there's so many interesting layers to this story, because I was reading about the episode that changed everything. It was the episode that he was doing the night that Trump won. He was live. The audience was there. He was live reacting. He was trying to do jokes. But the audience freaked out when they called the race for Donald Trump. And this is all in a recent Washington Post article. Audience members were yelling out, like, go get an abortion before it's too late. World War 3 is being ushered in. Democracy is over. I mean, like, all the normal things they were yelling out to him. And in that moment, Stephen Colbert goes and does this unrehearsed monologue to his audience, and he goes, okay, I understand. I can't make jokes. This is too serious. And in hindsight, when he looked back and he's reflecting on it, he said, that was a foundational change for me for the show. I realized that I could not just do sketch comedy and ignore the important issues. I had to dive in. And that's so interesting to me personally. And now I'm getting, like, really real with you guys, because sometimes I'll see political things that are going on in the world, and I'm like, oh, gosh, like, I need to talk about that. And I don't really want to. Like, I see so many other people that are more well informed that, you know, share my take on it, but come from a place of, you know, being more educated about it to have a bigger platform. I'm like, I'll just stick with the things that I really love talking about that I feel like I have a unique angle on that I'm really good at. Like, I'm good at. I feel like these types of things. And then I feel bad. I'm like, no, no, no, it's too important. I have to do it. And I end up recording these episodes, and I don't really enjoy them. And I'm like, no, it's really important work. And so in this moment where I was reading this about Colbert, I was like, that is a really interesting lesson, because look how that worked out for him. I mean, I watched those old videos of Colbert, and he's lighthearted and he's funny. He's having a great time. You see his show now. He's just angry 24 7. It's like, did he even enjoy what he was doing for the last decade? I mean, it's crazy. And it all stems from that moment in 2016 where he chose to become what he had mocked for so long. Now, shockingly, even Variety pointed this out. They wrote these Days, most of the late night hosts are seen as battling President Trump in a war for First Amendment rights. What they are fighting is for freedom of speech and the opposition to Brendan Carr at the FCI in a recognition that in the Constitution, satire has special protections. Now, obviously they still believe they are doing satire in comedy. We all know that that is not the case, but that is the veil that they are operating under. But variety goes on and says it's noble, it's important. But is it funny and entertaining? That's the big question. And will it soothe viewers before they turned in for the evening as early era late night stalwarts like Steve Allen and Jack Parr tried to do? No, it won't. It's not funny, it's not entertaining, it is not escapism. It hasn't been escapism in over a decade. We lost that. But the thing is, it's not like you can't talk about politics or politics can't be funny. Politics is funny. I actually think politics is hilarious. Most of politics is super funny, which honestly is the only thing that keeps me going on a day to day basis is a doom scroll on X. But the Lettermans and the Lenos of the world, they knew that and they did it right. They made it about the people. Kind of like in my opinion, how Tim Dillon does say. Now you guys know I'm obsessed with Tim. I just love him as a person and as a creator. But he brings in millions and millions of views per episode. He is obviously doing something right. And he does that with virtually zero production cost compared to a Colbert or a Fallon or a John Oliver. And just to give you a short example, and I'm going to compare this to Colbert in a second. But just watch this clip. This is from one of his live shows where he talks about RFK Jr.
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I don't have any friends in LA. I'm just friends with RFK and his wife. And that's all I need. That's all I need. He's going to ban the cheesy gordita crunch and then I'm going to have to march like fat people don't know what's coming. Like he's serious. He's deadly serious about what you're gonna pull up to Whataburger one day at 1am you're gonna go, can I have a sweet and spicy bacon burger? No. Can I have a honey butter chicken biscuit? It's 1am Can I have a chocolate shake? They killed my family.
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They killed my whole. I mean, he is doing it right. He is comedically talking about people in politics, politics in general. Like, that feels similar to the essence of what Colbert and others were doing 20 years ago. Like, maybe if Colbert had not been totally unselfaware, if he had not lost track, he would still be competing in the big leagues. But no, he did lose track. And this is his comedy now. This is what he's trying to convince all of us is actually satire.
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Oh, there's bad news of fans of living because Health Secretary RFK Jr. Just pulled $500 million in funding for vaccine development. Now, we have 10 more months of this show, and I want to give a measured, nonpartisan response here. You, you roid adoles nepo Comedy.
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Wow, that was really, really funny. I laughed so hard. You were really doing. You were really doing great comedy there, Colbert. No, that's not comedy. That's lazy. You're just being a political pundit. Which is fine. Go do politics if you want, but stop trying to gaslight Americans and tell your employers, the entire world that you are still doing comedy, that this is really funny and that everybody loves it. No, you are just a preachy asshole talking shit. That's all you. Sorry. Not actually sorry, but that's what you've been doing for the last 10 years. That is why the magic, the unity of late nights is gone. Like, these days, people get enough political content and commentary from social media. And to be honest, and this is the part that genuinely does make me sad, But Americans, your viewers, they actually don't need anything from you anymore. These stalwarts of late night, the late night comics, we don't need you. Now, obviously, I think that politics played a role in Colbert's demise. I think he lost a lot of viewers when he just became an angry asshole 24 7. But unlike the gloating conservatives on X, I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we just simply get our entertainment elsewhere now. Like, I don't pay for cable. We're all watching things on different platforms. We don't huddle around the TV with our families anymore to watch, like, the funny guy on TV before we go to bed, hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite celebrity. No, the comics are on TikTok, on Instagram Reels. They're doing standup specials on Netflix. They have podcasts. The celebrities are no longer just doing press hits with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon. They're doing get ready with me's on TikTok. We have access to them. We know too much about them. We are touring their homes thanks to Architectural Digest and Vogue Interiors, whatever it is. Like Kylie Jenner is literally avoiding late. She is foregoing those types of appearances and instead doing a podcast with a guy who went viral on TikTok three years ago for talking about octopus like that is how the world has changed. The world and the career that Stephen Colbert stepped into 20 years ago, it simply does not exist anymore. What you offered the world we do not need in this same medium. Stephen Colbert and all the other late night hosts, like, I guess they were just too self important to realize that we had moved on. And while obviously I think that Colbert and his counterparts are obnoxious liberal mouthpieces, this does genuinely make me sad. Because it's just another piece of a nostalgic, homogenous American culture that we have now lost. Times have completely changed. Your shows have been bleeding money and they are just now cutting the cord now. Washington Post even wrote about this as well yesterday, and in one quote a Syracuse professor said, like all broadcast television, it was a cultural glue. That's the thing that makes me sad. We all fed from the same cultural trough at the same time. That's gone and only remains in a few pockets. And those pockets are falling one by one. When Colbert leaves, another one of those important pockets will have fallen. Now I don't think that Colbert as a mouthpiece is important, but what he represented, like the institution of late night and this idea of being something that everybody would convene around, that America would all come together to watch, that is the thing that we're losing. And that personally is what makes me sad. And that's just like such a complex pill to swallow because on one hand, like yay, now we have more access. We're not all just being fed the same propaganda. We have freer access to information, different opinions, but we are also, and this is, that's a cliche obviously, but we are also less connected than ever. Like it is sad that there is not a Letterman or a Jay LENO on our TVs like humanizing politicians and staying out of policy and just being an escape at 11pm and making Americans laugh like that in and of itself is a loss. So I guess my question is, as I'm watching all of this unfold, it's like, what does come next? Is there something that replaces this in our culture? Or who comes next? Or are we just destined to be completely in our own pockets, scrolling on our phones forever and ever and nothing is going to even come close to your place now? I have no idea but like I briefly said earlier, one of the people that I see possibly filling this gap is Tim Dillon. The other person I would add into this mix is Theo Vaughn. And both of their numbers and their virality back all of this up, in my opinion. Like, both of them have such great hearts, they're also able to make sense of the chaos in the world while still being true entertainers. They humanize people with comedy. Like in Theo's case, he's able to sit down with Bernie Sanders and then Donald Trump and still have an amazing conversation. And you walk away learning something new and appreciating something, at least in my opinion, about both of those games. They don't preach from any kind of high horse. They both have that it factor that these late night hosts have been fighting to reignite for over a decade and it just hasn't worked. But they're done. And for better or for worse, so is that nostalgic American homogeny. And so I guess, you know, good riddance. Stephen Colbert, you had a great run. Hope your last episode is great. I'm sorry you fell into the trap that you laid for yourself.