'Colbert Report' Host Named "Person of the Year"

Stephen Colbert was named "Person Of The Year" at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival late Friday (March 2, 2007).

Colbert stated during his acceptance speech: "What an honor. An honor to receive and an honor for you to give to me."

Colbert also emphasized that his character on television is not him.

"He's not malicious, he's ill-informed, you know. It's just a produce of his own education. And he thinks he's saying and doing the right thing, he's not actually trying to hurt anybody." said Colbert.

During the ceremony, he stated that he is also writing a book.

According to him, the book will be "what is best and what's worst about America."

"I never in a million years imagined that a character who was essentially based on O'Reilly a year and half ago would have this honor."

Stephen Tyrone Colbert (born May 13, 1964) is a three-time Emmy Award-winning American comedian, actor, and writer, known for his satirical style and deadpan comedic delivery.

Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater when he met famed Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the critically acclaimed sketch comedy series Exit 57.
Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult TV series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet; it was his work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show, however, that first introduced him to a wide audience.

In 2005, he left The Daily Show to host its newly-created spinoff series, The Colbert Report. Following from The Daily Show's news-parody concept, The Colbert Report styles itself as a parody of such personality-driven political opinion shows as Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor. Since its debut the series has been successful, earning Colbert three Emmy nominations and an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in its first year, in addition to establishing itself as one of Comedy Central's highest rated series. Colbert was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2006.

Since October 17, 2005, Colbert has hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, a Daily Show spin-off which parodies the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor and Scarborough Country. Colbert hosts the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived of by co-creators Stewart, Colbert and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news," the series focuses less on the day-to-day news cycle than the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.

The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the as-of-yet-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which greenlighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.

SOURCES:

Associated Press (http://www.ap.com)