Colbert Col-lectibles: Twenty Years of Stephen Colbert Merchandise
Story By @GIJoeRepairShop
As a college student in the mid-1990s, The Daily Show was required viewing. More young people got their news from The Daily Show than network newscasts. Then, one day, there was a sketch for a fictitious news program called “The Colbert Réport.” Stephen Colbert played a news host that was the embodiment of Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and humanity’s worst instincts all rolled into one television-savvy package. He challenged viewers to watch the new show “if you’ve got the balls.” The accent in the title was dropped and The Colbert Report launched in October 2005.
By 2007, it was taking the world by storm and Comedy Central started selling a wave of merchandise. This included tee-shirts, a book, and a DVD. Pictured here is Colbert’s first book “I Am America (and So Can You),” as well as The Best of The Colbert Report DVD. The DVD only covers 2005 to 2007. However, no subsequent DVDs have ever been released, despite The Colbert Report being on the air for another 7 years.
However, 2012 saw the publication of another book, titled “America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t.” Some editions even included a pair of 3D glasses so that readers could contemplate issues of the time in more “high-def depthiness.” Colbert Report merchandise also included a poster that was made to look like the painting that hung on the mantle of the show’s set. The one for sale was a painting of Colbert standing in front of the mantle with an earlier painting on the mantle. If I remember correctly, there was one more version of this painting with three Colberts, but that one was never offered for sale.
In 2015, Colbert moved to CBS and took over as host of The Late Show. By 2017, the first book based on a Late Show sketch was published. “Stephen Colbert’s Midnight Confessions” captured material written for a recurring bit in which Stephen would “confess” to various things, such as “I buy family-sized bags of potato chips, but only when my family’s not around,” or “”I know how to fold fitted sheets, but I will never tell my wife.”
An opportunity to sell a book for charity arose in 2018 when Donald Trump, while touring the devastation of Hurricane Florence looked at the wreckage and asked someone “Whose boat is this boat?” Shortly afterwards, The Late Show published a satirical childern’s book titled “Whose Boat Is This Boat?: Comments That Don’t Help in the Aftermath of a Hurricane.” All proceeds went towards helping the hurricane survivors.
Finally, what’s fame and fortune if you don’t have your own Funko Pop? In early 2026, Funko released a Stephen Colbert Pop. He’s looking a little older, a little greyer than the Colbert of old. But, he’s still the same Stephen we’ve come to know and love watching for over twenty years.
