The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series, giving Stephen Colbert’s now-ended CBS late-night show one more major victory on its way out the door.
The win came Monday night at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, where The Late Show was nominated alongside The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and Saturday Night Live.
Colbert was joined onstage by members of his Late Show staff, and he used much of his acceptance speech to turn the spotlight back on the more than 200 people who worked on the program over its 11-year run.
“Thank you so much on behalf of the over 200 people who threw themselves at this show for 11 years to try to do the best show they possibly could for you,” Colbert said.
He also made a pitch for the value of late-night shows as training grounds for the next generation of television workers. “Besides being a really good, steady job,” Colbert said, late-night programs “require so many people that they’re a fantastic incubator for young people to come in, to learn to work professionally on a deadline, in cooperation, in collaboration.”
“And that is the future of our business that we have to look after,” he added, before putting in a plug for his now-available staff: “Hire them. They will make your show better, and they will make your day easier.”
Colbert also noted that his former head writer Ariel Dumas served as head writer for Monday night’s Emmys, joking to the room, “If you like the comedy tonight, my old writers wrote it tonight.”
His most personal thanks were reserved for his wife, Evie McGee Colbert, whom he called his “favorite cast” after thanking the many actors and other Hollywood figures he has interviewed over the years.
“Thank you for being my only crew and my only guest during COVID, my only audience, and the only audience I really care about,” he told her. “Yours is the laugh that I want for the rest of my life. I love you.”
Then, in what amounted to one last sign-off to the people who watched The Late Show, Colbert said, “Thank you so much for watching. We hope you enjoyed the show. We had a great time doing it for you.”
“That’s it,” he added. “Thank you. We’ll catch you all on the flip.”
The victory caps an extraordinary final Emmy run for The Late Show, which entered the main ceremony after dominating the first of this year’s two pre-telecast Emmy ceremonies.
Colbert’s team won six Emmys on September 5, quadrupling the show’s lifetime total from two to eight in a single night. Among those wins were Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series, Outstanding Technical Direction and Camerawork for a Series, Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Series, Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming (Segment), and Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series for Colbert Before Air.
The show’s writers also won Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for the first time, ending Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’s ten-year winning streak in the category.
That win carried some added symbolism. In video from the pre-telecast ceremony, Late Show executive producer Tom Purcell used the writers’ acceptance speech to salute the programs still carrying the late-night banner.
“I’d also like to thank everybody who keeps late night going,” Purcell said, citing Oliver, The Daily Show, Kimmel, and others. “It is a super important institution in this country. And keep the flame burning, guys.”
Monday night’s Outstanding Variety Series race was unusual.
The Television Academy combined the former Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Scripted Variety Series categories into a single Outstanding Variety Series field, and rather than asking voters to choose one winner, the Academy used an area-award system under which each nominee was considered individually.
Any show receiving at least 90% approval could win, meaning the category had the potential to produce more than one winner.
It didn’t. The Late Show was the sole winner.
Watch Colbert’s full acceptance speech at the top of this post.
