Correction Appended
There was never much chance that Stephen Colbert would bungle his own show. Mainly, there were concerns that the "The Colbert Report" (pronounced with a French accent, as in ra-PORE) would turn out to be the Double-Stuf Oreo of Comedy Central - too much of a good thing.
"The Colbert Report," in the tradition of "Saturday Night Live," lampoons commentators like Bill O'Reilly and Aaron Brown.
It's not.
If anything, after one week, Mr. Colbert's half-hour sendup of cable news commentators already suggests that "Saturday Night Live" has outlived its usefulness - or at least is in need of a shake-up. When a comedian from "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" has a big enough following to warrant his own spinoff, it may be time to renovate NBC's 30-year-old comedy show. Even last Saturday, when Tina Fey, the head writer, was back at the "Weekend Update" anchor desk after her maternity leave, most of the political jokes were as labored and predictable as the comedy skits.
Yet young people increasingly rely on comedy, and particularly "The Daily Show," as their main source of news. That could explain why nowadays breakout stars like Steve Carell come from Comedy Central and not "Saturday Night Live," as they did in the days of Mike Myers and Adam Sandler. Humor has moved away from long, one-joke skits and wacky impersonations to jujitsu satire: using the glib complacency of television news against itself.
And some of the best material on Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert's shows lies in their sadistic use of snippets from real newscasts and political speeches. On Thursday, Mr. Colbert showed a montage of alarmed reports about the avian flu epidemic on CNN, C-Span and MSNBC, then showed a more upbeat Fox News headline: "Bird is the word on the street. Why the avian flu could send stocks soaring."
Mr. Colbert praised Fox News for always finding something positive in bad news, be it about the Bush administration or the nation. "Every global pandemic has a silver lining," he said approvingly. "Remember, the Medici made their money investing in the bubonic plague. A lot of people did. Until the boil burst."
Even though Mr. Colbert stays in character - a smug, bombastic and ultrapatriotic cable news commentator - he packs more wit and acid commentary in 22 minutes of his one-man show than multiple skits by the entire cast of "SNL." On his regular feature "The Word," Mr. Colbert routinely mocks the kind of anti-intellectual populism perfected by Fox News. "Trustiness" was his word of the day, he told viewers with a poker face, sneering at the "wordanistas over at Webster's" who might refute its existence. "I don't trust books," he explained. "They're all fact and no heart."
"SNL's" Darrell Hammond is still an amazingly gifted impersonator who can mimic anyone from Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney to Aaron Brown, but the writing is rarely as clever as his performance.
The premiere of "The Colbert Report," which featured a gravitas face-off between Mr. Colbert and Stone Phillips of "Dateline NBC," provided a quickened pace and a refreshing change of tone. The faux anchor and his guest took turns delivering absurd selections from news scripts with straight faces. ("We invited Mother Teresa to respond to these charges.") Not all the shows that followed were as funny; last Wednesday night's interview with the columnist Fareed Zakaria fell a little flat. But as first weeks go, Mr. Colbert more than held his own. ("The Colbert Report" is shown at 11:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.) His sendup of the Bill O'Reilly/Joe Scarborough/Aaron Brown persona is very funny, as are the show's Fox News-ish graphics of swirling American flags and screeching eagles. But what puts Mr. Colbert over the top is that he is not just impersonating well known television personalities, he also uses parody to score larger points about politics and the press.
On Tuesday night, he asked "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl about the Valerie Plame scandal and listened blankly as she likened the White House leak of a C.I.A. agent's identity to Watergate.
"What is the big deal about this particular case?" he asked Ms. Stahl with mock indignation. "I mean, all that they are saying is that somebody in the White House had to do what they had to do to get the war they wanted."
Some of the wordless jokes are just as dead-on, from the show's graphics to Mr. Colbert's way of greeting his daily guest. Instead of having the visitor sashay onto the set before an applauding studio audience, Mr. Colbert rises from his desk and does his own victory lap over to a corner table where the guest is kept waiting in the dark.
So far, there have not been any regular co-stars to fill out the show, but Mr. Colbert has woven in some hit-and-run surprises. After showing a clip of Fox News anchor Juliet Huddy warbling Lisa Loeb's song "Stay," Mr. Colbert tried to sing it too, then turned and asked Ms. Loeb, waiting in the wings with a guitar, how the lyrics go. She sang a few bars, he thanked her, and went on with his newscast.
Mr. Colbert's on-camera persona may not wear well over the long term, but for now at least "The Colbert Report" is a worthy spinoff, an icy-cold beer chaser to the shot of whiskey that is "The Daily Show."
