Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart’s fake rivalry came to the Emmy Awards last night, when the former slipped into character to rag on his Comedy Central bestie as he accepted his honor.
While Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart work very closely together, the pair also have an ongoing humorous feud between their shows — on which Stephen played during his Emmys acceptance speech.
As Colbert spoke to the crowd, he joked about Stewart’s decision to take the summer off and work on another project, quipping :
“I’m grateful Jon took the summer off during the voting period… Not that John Oliver didn’t do the greatest job ever, but maybe that helped.”
But Stephen was quickly able to downshift to praising his pal and collaborator, and he continued:
“[Stewart] invited us to have a passion and an opinion about what we were writing, and he wanted to make sure we had our own thoughts behind what we were saying. And it was from him that I actually learned how to write satirical comedy, which I had never really been a fan of. And he’s still there for me.”
Colbert concluded:
“I can call him anytime, to ask for ideas, to ask for moral support, or ask for the energy to keep doing 160 shows a year. And I’m the luckiest man in the world that he’s my lead-in and he’s the guy I can turn to for advice and for strength.”
There was a final bit of Colbert-the-character in the speech, as he added:
“Jon Stewart’s [Emmy] streak is not broken. He’s an executive producer of our show, so he won tonight.”
Were you happy to see Stephen Colbert take home an Emmy last night? (Skip ahead to 2:50 to watch the speech.)
