Stephen Colbert will broadcast the final episode of The Colbert Report on Thursday night (US time).
On paper, this bold experiment almost shouldn't have worked.
For a start, it was a spin-off; a popular character from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was given his own nightly timeslot. And the character itself was a complicated one. Not only did he share his name with the actor playing him (good luck getting past that in breakfast radio interviews), but he was a parody of one of the least likable archetypes in modern broadcasting: the bloviating right-wing opinionator, typified by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.
Much of the early press expressed the same concern: sure it's a good gag, but can it sustain a whole show every night of the week?
Yet after 10 years and over 1400 episodes, the show's accolades are mind-boggling: two Emmy Awards, two Peabodys, two Grammys, a self-portrait from Colbert's set hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington (outside the toilets) and he has had ice-cream flavours named after him as well as a spider (Aptostichus Stephencolberti), a beetle (Agorpormorhus Colberti), a fly (Diamphipnoa Colberti) and a wasp (Aleiodes Colberti).
But the true enormity of the artist's achievement can be seen in the arc of the show itself. The first item in episode one was a segment called The Word, a biting parody of O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo that would go on to become a mainstay of the show. First time around the Word was 'Truthiness', a non-existent noun that encapsulated how firm views and actions needn't be based on facts when gut instinct is all you need. It was an ironic statement of support for the flawed rationale for the Iraq war and the Bush Presidency itself.
Last week, when Stephen broadcast from Washington as part of a final fortnight victory lap, US President Barack Obama hijacked the show and performed The Word in place of the host. The President went on to read Colbert's anti-Obama monologue verbatim, comfortably mocking himself in the process. The writing was as good as you'll likely see on television, but the willingness of the US Commander In Chief to perform the script makes it extraordinary. The satirist had gone from making jokes about the President from afar, to getting the President to make the jokes for him.
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All modern satirists, whether they know it or not, are creative descendants of Mark Twain. He spoke truth to power without fear or favour, famously saying that 'patriotism is supporting your country always and supporting your government when it deserves it'.
Possibly Twain's greatest creation was Huckleberry Finn – a naive character whose child's view of the world gave the reader an understanding of race, society and the ubiquitous human trait of corruptibility that is still relevant today. And it is in the company of Huckleberry Finn that the character Stephen Colbert belongs: the wide-eyed innocent superseded by the dim-witted know-it-all, sadly so abundant in today's political discourse.
This character was a flawless prism through which the infinitely complicated grey area of the world could be instantly refracted into black and white. In doing so Colbert and his team laid bare the absurd binary nature of our politics and public discourse. He did what the talking heads did, but demanded never to be taken seriously under any circumstances.
This approach tacitly insisted you do the same for the megaphones who demand that you do take them seriously. Ten minutes with Colbert and you couldn't watch any serious right wing commentator without laughing. It turns out there were clowns everywhere all along, but only one clown who knew it.
Stephen Colbert the artist leaves the show to take the reins of The Late Show from David Letterman. There are simply no bigger shoes to fill in all of television. It is a mark of Colbert's achievements that few have doubted whether his feet are big enough. One cannot wait to see what he is capable of playing himself for a change.
Charlie Pickering is an Australian television presenter and comedian.
