To open and close his inaugural Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, the host sang: “The Star-Spangled Banner” to kick things off, and, with a stage full of musical guests, “Everyday People” to wrap things up. It was a Sly opening-night move…
…And not just because “Everyday People” is a golden oldie from Sly & the Family Stone.
“Everyday People” is a song whose lyrics are a celebration of, and call for, acceptance and inclusion. It’s an effervescent number that pokes fun at prejudice (“There is a yellow one / that won’t accept the black one / that won’t accept the red one / that won’t accept the white one…”), then serves up an all-embracing moral.
“You love me, you hate me, you know me and then / you can’t figure out the bag I’m in…”
That particular lyric might well have served as Colbert’s theme song, as he presents himself, in a reincarnated version, as the host succeeding David Letterman on the Late Show stage. Whether you loved or hated him as the faux conservative commentator on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, what bag is Colbert in now?
The success bag.
Only so much can be gleaned from night one of an enterprise as organically dynamic, and relentlessly growing, as a TV talk show. It’s a little like judging an oak tree from its initial leafy shoot out of the forest floor.
But you can judge certain things, and decisions, and everything on Tuesday’s first Late Show with Stephen Colbert felt right. (Well, okay, maybe The Mentalist bit fell a little flat, but that’s all.)
Bandleader Jon Batiste (left)? Great move.
Dynamically different guest list? Brilliant. Tonight and in coming days, business CEOs and a seated U.S. Supreme Court Justice will share billing with actresses and rappers.
Colbert as host? As enthusiastic as Batiste, as self-assured as opening-night guest George Clooney, and, as an interviewer, refreshingly attentive. I like the affability between Colbert and reigning Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, but if there’s an instant distinction between them, it’s that Fallon, in conversation, is always listening for the next joke opportunity. Colbert seems to be just listening – which leads to much more, as it did Tuesday night when he interviewed Republican presidential aspirant Jeb Bush.
We’ll see for ourselves, in the coming days, weeks and months, how Colbert’s Late Show will shake out. But I suspect CBS won’t have to replace that new Ed Sullivan Theater marquee – or hit its Mentalist button – for a long, long time.