The 78th Annual Writers Guild of America’s annual awards ceremony was held Sunday night in New York City. Among the recipients was Stephen Colbert, whose CBS “Late Night” program was recently canceled amid a controversial ownership shake up that put the network into the hands of Trump-friendly billionaires, David and Larry Ellison. It’s final episode will air on May 21, 2026.

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Colbert was honored with the prestigious and rarely presented “Walter Bernstein Award” that is presented to a Guild member who has “demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.” There is no one who better exemplifies those principles than Colbert. Particularly at this point in his career. Although the punishment meted out by his corporate bosses might have backfired on them…

SEE THIS: NICE WORK CBS! Banning the Stephen Colbert Interview with James Talarico, Got Them Way More Views

Robert Smigel (Saturday Night Live, Conan O’Brien, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, etc.) gave Colbert a lengthy and entertaining, anecdote-laden introduction, reminding the audience of Colbert’s work on many programs, including The Dana Carvey Show, Strangers With Candy, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report. Then he brought Colbert to the podium for his acceptance speech, who led off with a bit of the back story on the award’s namesake. (Colbert begins at about 14:00)

“Thank you for the honor of the Walter Bernstein award. Bernstein was a brilliant writer and, as you know, was Blacklisted. I did a little research, and as I did research I discovered – I don’t know why I didn’t know this – it dawned on me that the Blacklist was not a government policy. The Blacklist wasn’t a law or a regulation or an executive order. It was a voluntary industry-wide agreement to deny work to left-leaning artists out of fear that certain members of the government might publicly attack the parent corporation of these artists for the union that they belong to. It was that threat, only the threat, of trouble, that ended so many careers.”

Colbert was quick to note that he didn’t believe that he had been subject to anything on the level of the 1950.s Blacklisting. Adding that “As far as I can tell, no one in late night is fomenting a revolution.” Then delivering the best line of the night…

“As we know, the revolution will not be televised. It was going to be televised, but then Paramount bought it. Evidently, the revolution was losing, like, $40 million a year. It had to go. I guess the revolution is thinking about starting a Substack.”

Colbert spent a good portion of his speech praising his writing staff, and even pitching for them to be hired after his show ends. He named them all with short personal “tributes” punctuated with fun facts about each one. He also went through a number of jokes that didn’t make it to the air. They included jabs at the Dobbs decision to repeal abortion rights, Kristi Noem’s alleged affair with aide Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s incestuous comments toward his daughter Ivanka, Melania meeting the Pope, and a profane reference to a McDonalds tag line.

All in all, it was an entertaining night of humor and history and a well deserved tribute to a comedy legend. Consequently, we can expect a full blown meltdown by Donald Trump whose aversion to comedy in general, and hatred for Colbert in particular, is well known…

Trump is having a bad night, so he's up rage-posting about TV comedians.He wants Stephen Colbert to be "put to sleep." And he thinks that networks have broadcast licenses (they don't) that should be "terminated."Poor baby isn't getting enough sleep at his Cabinet meetings.

— News Corpse (@newscorpse.bsky.social) 2025-12-24T10:18:01.635Z

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