Is anyone watching the Colbert Report right now? Stephen has had two really strange sounding stammers. When he was interviewing R.E.M. a few shows back I heard one too. It was really long and awkward like he just couldn’t get the word out. But, other than these isolated incidents he sounds fine. I’ve been watching the show from the start and I’ve never heard this before. Anyone else notice?
I hope everything is okay with him.
Funny, I’m not a regular viewer, but I noticed an occasional stammer when I turned into some early eps of the Colbert Report in 2005. Seemed like a pretty average stammer to me (happens to me more often than I’d like), but it stood out as being unusual for a TV presenter.
I’ve never seen this show but I’m reminded of the Irish humorist Patrick Campbell who, amongst his other activities, captained a team on the TV panel game Call My Bluff during the 1970s. Campbell had a pronounced, or maybe that should be an unpronounced, stammer which pervaded his speech in practically everything he didn’t utter.
YouTube (2 min 35 sec).
Watch it all the way through because Campbell gets two speaking spots in this short extract from the programme. As a former skilled exponent of the stammer myself I take my hat off to the man. It takes bottle to do what he did.
I’m almost positive that I’ve read that Colbert has had a stammerall his life, and worked very hard to overcome it. I’ll try and dig up a cite.
Here’s a link to the REM interview: http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=164877
Are you talking about the part where he says “bona fide?”
Yeah that was it. The one last night was much more pronounced than that.
He never stammered when I interviewed him, and I can’t remember any interviews making reference to him doing that. He did struggle with “bona fides,” but I didn’t think anything of it.
He had trouble with “bona fides” during your interview too (as well as during the REM interview)? That’s interesting.
No, I mean I noticed he struggled with the word when talking to R.E.M. the other day. The toughest word he used on me was probably “Gian Carlo Menotti.” 
Hmmm, the hesitation before “bona fide” sounded like he was thinking of a term to use, more than a stutter. (Maybe he was debating over using the standard English vs. snooty Latin pronunciation there.)
Here’s the one from last night:
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=165053
It’s about 26 seconds in.
He got tongue-tied on the word “waistcoats.” I don’t see anything to be alarmed about here.
You interviewed Stephen Colbert?
More to the point – you interviewed Stephen Colbert and he mentioned Gian Carlo Menotti??
If he’s an opera fan I had no idea. He just got 20% even more awesome.
Yes, I interviewed him in 2005. It was the day of (one of?) his last Daily Show appearances. His final field piece, I think. The Report was a month or two away at that point.
His first significant acting gig was a role in Menotti’s The Leper. He told me he still has his fake sores.