Stephen Colbert has had a long career in comedy, but his first credited TV role was surprisingly dramatic.
Long before he was a household name, Stephen Colbert was Chet Davies, a minor character in the short-lived Stephen J. Cannell ABC crime drama Missing Persons. The show was just beginning when Colbert appeared on the 1993 episode “Cabe… What Kind of Name Is That,” the series’ second episode, and the first after its two-hour pilot aired as an ABC Monday Night Movie a month earlier.
Missing Persons followed the missing persons unit of a Chicago police department, and it was not only set in the city, but filmed there as well. With local actors rounding out the cast, it makes sense that Colbert might be in the mix. Though he hadn’t appeared on screen before, the comic was several years into his tenure at Chicago’s Second City.
The role came a year after Colbert had auditioned for Saturday Night Live to no avail, and just ten days after the premiere of a different show that the writer-performer had interviewed to be a part of, Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
The episode’s cold open sees a three year-old waking up and searching his house, calling out for his mommy or daddy. Unable to find them, the child runs into the street, where he’s later found wandering by joggers. This leaves the detectives with the reverse of a missing persons case: a found child who doesn’t match any person reported missing. The police ultimately manage to track down the mother, discovering her trapped under a fallen cabinet in her home, causing her to become hypothermic. While she recovers in the hospital, an officer leads in her husband—an airline pilot who had been away working—giving television audiences their first glimpse of the man who would later command The Late Show.
Stephen Colbert’s first line on television? “Omaha.” That’s where his character, Chet, tells detective Ray McAuliffe (Daniel J. Travanti) he just flew in from.
“Where’s Mary Lou? Is she alright?” asks a frantic and concerned Chet, who had been given little information until this point. “And Caleb. Where’s Caleb?”
Colbert’s dramatic debut gets a lot lighter when he’s reunited with Caleb, picking his son up in a tight embrace. The two then reunite with Mary Lou in her hospital room as the episode comes to a close.
Less than a year and a half later, Colbert would begin his TV comedy career as a star, co-creator, and writer of the Comedy Central sketch show Exit 57. Though it only lasted 12 episodes, it was the beginning of a legendary trajectory for the comedian. By 1997, Colbert made his debut as a Daily Show correspondent, which would ultimately lead him to success with The Colbert Report and The Late Show.
Missing Persons, however, wouldn’t be so lucky. The series was cancelled in 1994. The entire series is available for streaming on YouTube.
