Stephen Colbert Pokes Fun At Elon Musk, CBS Crime Dramas, Soccer & Jimmy Kimmel Copying His Double Covid – Upfront

Nellie Andreeva
·2 min read
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CBS — bringing the rest of Paramount with it — is back at its longtime upfront home, Carnegie Hall, and the network’s late-night host Stephen Colbert is back onstage ribbing his employer.

“The moment my bosses at Paramount asked me to introduce this upfront, I leapt at the chance… to read my contract and find out that I had to,” he opened his monologue with. “Love this year’s theme, ‘It’s time’, so much better than last year’s theme, ‘You are on mute,’ he added, referring to the virtual nature of the network upfronts the last two years.

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“At this point, after seven years, I’m a veteran of these upfornts. I started working at this company when it was just called CBS, then it was ViacomCBS, now it’s Paramount and then next week it’ll be whatever Elon Musk renames us.”

Tesla CEO Musk, of course, could become a media mogul via his on-again, off-again acquisition of Twitter.

Colbert also skewered the crime procedurals that dominate CBS’ lineup.

“The Paramount lineup includes so many great procedurals based on all of your favorite government acronyms, CSI, FBI, SWAT, NCIS, NCIS, Los Angeles, NCIS: Hawaii, NCISCSI, NCIS Hearts Abishola,” he said. “And coming this fall, the National Institute of Standards and Technologies’ Offices and Weights and Measures as you have never seen them before in NISTOWM when the scales of justice need balancing just you wait.”

And if “sexy people solving the murders of sexy corpses” isn’t viewers’ thing, “Paramount is also the home to so many high octane pulse pounding sports like the NFL, March Madness, MMA, pickle ball. Or, if you’re not into sports, there’s always soccer.”

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Colbert also referenced fellow CBS late-night host James Corden’s pending departure. “We still got another year of rental in the karaoke car,” said Colbert, who also acknowledged Comedy Central late-night host Trevor Noah.

Colbert followed fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel who announced during his roast at the ABC upfront presentation yesterday that he had gotten Covid for a second time, which also happened to Colbert the last couple of weeks.

“I don’t know if you’ve read recently, I had Covid twice. And you know what they say? Give me Covid once, shame on you. Give me Covid twice, please stop giving me Covid. Jimmy Kimmel knows what i”m talking about. You stole my bit, Jimmy.”

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Because he’s had Covid twice, Colbert said that his doctors told him that he is “evidently super immune now.”

“I could lick each and everyone one of you. And if that’s what it takes to get you to buy ad time on Blue Bloods, then line up,” Colbert said.

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