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👹 The Apocalypse of Late Night

Attack on Late Night: Democracy Decaying, and Stephen Colbert Yeeetee Off of CBS

Welcome back, you beautiful burned-out bunker builders– where, in this episode, we explore the neon-lit hellscape we now call the entertainment industry. This is Apocalypse…Now?, the podcast where comedy, culture, and chaos hold hands and walk into the sea. On this episode, I summoned Emmy-nominated comedy writer and grief expert Alison Zeidman to the pod to talk about something terrifying:

The death of late-night television.

More specifically, the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Yes. That Colbert. That show. That number-one-in-the-ratings Colbert.
Gone.

Slain not by market forces or ratings dips, but by a weird, murky cocktail of corporate cowardice, lawsuit settlements, and good old-fashioned fascist vibes. If you’re not screaming yet, don’t worry — Alison and I did plenty for you.

🎭 Colbert’s Cancellation: Coincidence or Coup?

Let’s get this straight: The Late Show wasn’t canceled because of budget cuts. Not really. It wasn’t some spreadsheet casualty or “pivot to digital” BS. Three days before the show was axed, Stephen Colbert publicly criticized CBS’s parent company for settling a lawsuit with the Trump administration. This tidy little maneuver greased the wheels for the Paramount-Skydance merger.

And then—poof. No more Colbert.

A “financial decision,” they said.
I say: financial fascism is still fascism.

And Alison Zeidman agrees. From Full Frontal with Samantha Bee to Adam Ruins Everything, she’s worked inside the very machine that just pulled the plug on Colbert. So when I needed someone to help me decipher the smoke signals from Hell, she was the obvious choice.

🧠 Behind the Curtain: What It’s Like Inside Late Night

Alison peeled back the corporate veil and told us what it’s like to write politically-charged satire for networks that are… let’s say, extremely nervous about upsetting their sponsors.

We’re talking about legal departments, brand advisors, and executives who panic over an Olive Garden joke because they “have a relationship” with never-ending breadsticks. You want to do a segment about Amazon’s worker abuses? Great — make sure every fact is quadruple-checked and legally bulletproof, and maybe don’t accuse Jeff Bezos of being a lizard person.

You know—basic comedy stuff.

Still, even amid the risk-averse bureaucracy, shows like Adam Ruins Everything and Full Frontal managed to get away with more than you’d think until they didn’t.

Because when corporate media merges with authoritarian politics, jokes stop being jokes. They become liabilities.

🥩 Meanwhile, at South Park…

While CBS was sacrificing Colbert to the capitalism gods, South Park dropped an episode that made Satan blush.

They deepfaked Trump in a deranged PSA where a nude Trump wanders the desert. The satire was poignant, stupid, brilliant — and, most importantly, allowed to air.

Why? Because South Park has a $1.5 billion deal and zero fucks to give. As Alison pointed out, they’ve achieved juggernaut status — untouchable. They don’t care if Comedy Central gets firebombed by lawsuits or angry boomers. They’ll still be animating cursed genitalia in a bunker somewhere.

But what about the rest of us? The women, queer creators, comedians of color, and indie podcasters who don’t have $1.5 billion and a demon puppet army?

Yeah. We’re not so safe.

⚠️ What Happens When You Silence Satire?

Satirical comedy used to be the pressure valve of democracy. A place where we mocked the powerful, exposed the absurd, and reminded people that no, they’re not insane — the world is that corrupt.

Take away Colbert, take away Bee, take away the weirdos with microphones and Netflix specials, and what’s left?

Slap fights on TV. Literal ones. CBS replaced Full Frontal with a show where people slap each other in the face. If that doesn’t scream cultural collapse, I don’t know what does.

Alison and I agreed: we’re not just watching the end of a late night. We’re watching the broader collapse of institutional comedy — replaced by content that doesn’t challenge anything, offend anyone powerful, or provoke meaningful thought.

Yay!

📉 Is Public Media Next? (Spoiler: Yes.)

This hits close to home for me — because I work in public media. And while I’m not naming names, iykyk.

Public media is being defunded, demoralized, and hollowed out. And just like Colbert, the rationale is always “financial.” But that’s just a pretty mask for political pressure.

Take the Skydance–Paramount merger, which was approved on the condition that pro-Trump PSAs would be created and DEI programming cut. That’s not capitalism. That’s state-influenced propaganda laundering.

💀 Are We Living in an Apocalyptic Comedy Timeline?

Yes.

Alison said it best — this isn’t just a bump in the road. This is a signal flare. A mile marker. Another domino in the march toward authoritarian media control.

She doesn’t think satire will disappear entirely — it’ll just be pushed off network TV and into darker, more independent corners of the internet (hello, Patreon 👀). But when that happens, the people most at risk — women, BIPOC, queer creators — are the first to get punished, censored, or ignored.

Late night was never perfect. But it gave comedians like Colbert, Bee, Hasan Minhaj, and yes, Zeidman herself, a mainstream platform. Now? The new gatekeepers are billionaires and fascists….and their comedic timing sucks.

🔥 So, What Can We Do? (Besides Scream Into the Void)

If you’re reading this, you probably already know the answer: create.
Create art. Create podcasts. Create freaky little videos that mock the state and confuse the algorithm. Create community. Create resistance.

As I said to Alison, creating art right now is rebellion. It is a protest. It is the one middle finger you can still legally wave (for now).

So if you’re angry about Colbert getting axed, or worried about where satire is going, or just tired of being gaslit by billionaires and bad-faith actors:

👉 Sign up to watch the full episode
👉 Join my Patreon (free tier available!)
👉 Support independent creators who are still telling the truth — with jokes

🎥 WATCH THE VIDEO VERSION

This entire conversation — from fascism to penis puppets — is available in full video format on my Patreon. All it takes is a free membership to unlock it.

🔗 Join Me on Patreon
(You are my backup plan now. Seriously.)

🩸 CLOSING THOUGHTS

Colbert’s cancellation is not a glitch in the matrix. It’s the matrix barfing up a warning. And Alison Zeidman helped me decode it.

If you’ve ever laughed at a joke that punched up, challenged power, or gave you just a little hope in the end times — now’s the time to protect the weirdos who make those jokes. Because if they go quiet… we’re next.

Join me in the chaos.
Create something weird.
And remember: the world doesn’t end all at once.
It ends with a spreadsheet, a merger, and a talking penis on TV.

Until next time, War Pigs.
🩸🔥
— Jo Anna Van Thuyne