Comedy Central’s Colbert Preaches “Truthliness” On Premiere ‘Report’

The Colbert Report, starring — who else? — Stephen Colbert, premiered on Comedy Central tonight. If the Daily Show is a satire of the news, The Colbert Report is a satire of the news-about-the-news.

The intro graphics featured Colbert standing on a USA map. A bald eagle soared across the screen and fluttered on a plasma display below the desk.

The first segment, called “The Word,” is a ripoff of Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo. Today’s Word was “truthliness.” Colbert said he wouldn’t let elitist dictionary readers insult his choice of language.

Colbert said the nation is divided, but not by “liberals or conversatives, or tops or bottoms.” It’s divided by “those that think from their head and those that know from their heart.” On the screen, the text said “head bad, heart good.”

“Like any good newsman, I believe if you’re not scared, I’m not doing my job,” Colbert said as he introduced a segment called The THREATDOWN — a list of the top five threats facing viewers.

Later, Stone Phillips sat down with Colbert for the nightly interview segment. Colbert said he admired Stone’s neck — “not only your neck, but what you do with it.” After a demonstration, Phillips laughed: “Thank you very much, pencilneck.”

> “On this show, your voice will be heard, in the form of my voice,” he declared.

> Colbert promised to “feel the news…”