Gulf of America? It Was Stephen Colbert’s Idea First

Donald Trump may have signed an executive order this week to officially rename the Gulf of Mexico, but the idea was first proposed some fifteen years ago by a certain late-night host: Stephen Colbert.

In this case, Stephen Colbert refers not to the real Colbert, but to the fictional right-wing character of the same name that the now-Late Show host played on The Colbert Report. Even so, Colbert’s case for a “Gulf of America” came from a very different place than Trump’s—one designed not to take ownership, but to take blame.

Colbert first uttered the name at the end of a June 2010 episode of The Colbert Report, when his Colbert character was knee-deep covering the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that had occurred forty-eight days earlier. The largest oil spill in history was a major news story and late-night fodder at the time—and Colbert’s Comedy Central program addressed it with a tongue-in-cheek fundraising effort.

“I just wish there was some way I could donate someone else’s money,” Colbert told viewers early on in the show. “Fortunately, there is a corporation that has offered to help me help the Gulf: the website Bing.”

Colbert went on to explain that the Microsoft search engine had offered to donate $2,500 to the charity of his choice each time Colbert uttered the word “bing.” During that explanation and throughout the show, a ‘bing’ sound effect played every time Colbert uttered the syllable, proper noun or otherwise. (Even when Colbert boldly mocked “Bing is a great website for doing internet searches. I know that because I Googled it.”)

In the end, Colbert’s “Bing” binge amounted to a $100,000 donation from the search engine. “I’m proud to announce that we will be using that hundred grand to set up the Colbert Nation ‘Gulf of America Fund,’” Colbert declared. “I don’t think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore. We broke it, we bought it.”

The Colbert Report later encouraged viewer donations to the fund, which directed proceeds to the people and wildlife of the Gulf States via the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

In case Colbert (real or fake) wants to take credit for the Gulf of Mexico’s apparent new name, LateNighter has dug up the segment in question as proof:

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