This is one of my favourite segments, and I’m trying to locate the little piece of plucky cartoony music that opens and closes it – you can hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx8K7TerjBA
Was this written just for the show? I swear I’ve heard it before… Any idea what the name of it is, or how to find it?
It is reminiscent of a 50s sitcom theme. I can hum the whole thing but can’t quite latch on to the show it belongs with.
I’d be willing to bet it’s specific to Colbert. It would take a studio musician about 5 minutes to knock that out for them, and they would own the copyright, rather than pay any sort of royalties for somebody else’s work.
eta: My wife informs me that it is “library music,” ie music that is specifically without copyright, just generic crap.
It’s a knockoff of “Holiday for Strings.” Here’s the definitive version. 
“Holiday for Strings” was the theme song for the Red Skelton Show, written by David Rose.
Ah, thanks so much everyone – another example of why this message board is so great!
I like the upbeat sillyness and lack of vocals of Holiday for Strings too – any other suggestions for similar sounding/feeling music?
There is a whole series of albums of such music called Music for TV Dinners.
Most of the tracks can be heard on YouTube.
Thanks Fear Itself, that’s awesome!