Colbert fights back on Colbert
Late-night host’s character challenged by corporate lawyers from his past show
Stephen Colbert apparently isn’t allowed to play “Stephen Colbert” on TV anymore, so he’s introduced a new character: Stephen Colbert.
Last week, the 52-year-old comedian brought the blowhard conservative pundit character he portrayed so memorably for nine years on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report back on his new CBS Late Show, to a rousing reaction.
On Wednesday night’s show, however, he announced that corporate lawyers had contacted the show to claim that the character Stephen Colbert — that lover of rimless glasses, “truthy” rhetoric and jingoistic iconography — was the intellectual property of a different company.
To a chorus of boos, Colbert therefore announced that the character would “never be seen again.”
“I feel the same way, but what can I do? The lawyers have spoken,” said the host, who was born Stephen Tyrone Colbert. “I cannot reasonably argue I own my face or name, and as much as I’d like to have that guy on again, I can’t.”
It was then that Colbert announced his new correspondent: Stephen Colbert’s identical twin cousin, Stephen Colbert.
Joining “via satellite” from the Democratic National Convention, the new Colbert professed his nerves over his first TV appearance and submitted to questions to prove he truly was a new Colbert.
For instance, the other Colbert wondered, how do cousins wind up identical twins?
“It’s simple, Stephen,” replied Stephen. “Our moms are identical twins, who married identical twin brothers, then had sex at the same moment, and gave birth to us at the same time.” CBS declined to comment on Thursday. Representatives from Comedy Central and its corporate parent, Viacom, did not immediately return messages.
Experts, while amused, aren’t convinced that Colbert’s creative workaround will hold up to legal scrutiny.
“I’m sure he’s gotten legal advice around this, and somehow that legal advice argued that this was reasonable to some degree,” said Julie Mac- Donell, a Toronto-based lawyer and trademark agent. “At the very least, it’s highly entertaining to someone like me. It’s a very creative workaround and I’m really interested to follow it and see where it goes.
“I suspect it won’t be the most successful approach.”
MacDonell surmises that intellectual property ownership would have been written into Colbert’s Comedy Central contract.
Having represented both networks and talent in past contract negotiations, MacDonell says performers frequently feel they have no leverage.
“Often when I’m representing talent, they don’t feel they have bargaining power — and in some cases they actually don’t — to negotiate that they own their own characters,” she said. “The networks really push back on those points because the characters that are developed have an incredible value.
“The value of Stephen Colbert’s character as he presents it and as the public knows him is huge.”
Well, the publicity value of this whole Colbert legal debacle might be pretty sizable as well.
The return of Colbert’s character provided a huge viral boost that finally seemed to signal a turning point for Late Show. Since Colbert took over from David Letterman, the show has been dogged by criticism that its host has struggled to establish an identity.
And now, thanks to corporate lawyers, he’s got three.