Stephen Colbert was honored by the Writers Guild of America on Sunday night. The outgoing late-night host used the opportunity to take a few shots at Paramount and share some risqué jokes he personally squashed at the “Late Show.”
The WGA bestowed the Walter Bernstein Award on Colbert, meant to honor artists with a “willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.”
Colbert was suddenly cancelled after more than a decade at CBS. The network has maintained that the move was a “purely financial decision” but the timing of his ouster was suspicious. It came as CBS parent company Paramount was seeking approval of a massive merger from the Trump administration. Colbert has been a long-time critic of the president and his Cabinet.
Colbert refused to see himself as a martyr and began his acceptance by letting a bit of the air out of the award, named after a blacklisted journalist.
“While to be associated with Mr. Bernstein in any way is a great honor, I want to be clear that I do not deserve the implied parallel,” he said. “This is not the 1950s. This is not the Red Scare. And, as far as I can tell, no one in late-night is fomenting a revolution. As we know, the revolution will not be televised. It was going to be televised, and then Paramount bought it.”
The rest of his speech was focused on his soon-to-be unemployed writers. He highlighted their work with a rundown of the best jokes he nixed during his hosting run. One gag, centering on Donald Trump‘s creepy remarks about his daughter, Ivanka, drew groans and gasps from the audience.
“Even though Trump famously and disturbingly said of Ivanka, ‘If she wasn’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her,’ I refused to tell the following joke when Trump brought her to the 2017 G20 summit: ‘I guess it was Take Your Daughter to Climax Day,’” Colbert said.
When the audience expressed their shock, Colbert added, “That’s why I didn’t tell that joke.”
Start your day with essential news from Salon.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.
He shared a more recent nixed joke, focused on Kristi Noem‘s recent congressional testimony. While her husband looked on, the former DHS head was asked by lawmakers about an alleged affair with aide Corey Lewandowski.
“‘I’m guessing that’s not the first time she’s made him sit in a chair and watch,’” Colbert quipped. “That one came really close.”
