{"id":603158,"date":"2026-09-17T11:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T11:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603158\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T11:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T11:28:10","slug":"us-comedian-stephen-colbert-recounts-comedic-traffic-stop-with-new-zealand-cop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603158\/","title":{"rendered":"US comedian Stephen Colbert recounts comedic traffic stop with New Zealand cop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cG\u2019day! So, we\u2019re doing a little bit of speedwork here,\u201d John recounted the officer telling a confused Colbert, who neither understood the term nor realised he was driving 15km\/h over the 30km\/h speed limit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m American, is that a lot?\u201d Colbert replied when told he\u2019d been clocked at 45km\/h. <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it\u2019s more than 30 isn\u2019t it, hey?\u201d John replied, imitating the officer.<\/p>\n

After describing Colbert as a \u201cclever cookie\u201d for anticipating his ID needed to be checked, the officer landed another jab when a search of the high-profile political satirist\u2019s name revealed nothing, according to John\u2019s re-enactment.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, look at this. You\u2019re not in the system, you\u2019re a bloody ghost \u2026 Casper the friendly ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n

After asking the 62-year-old to have a \u201ccheeky blowy\u201d on a breathalyser, the officer told Colbert he\u2019d be getting a ticket of about $80 \u2013 since paid \u2013 and 20 demerit points.<\/p>\n

Colbert\u2019s confusion over the latter brought a sassy finale to the policeman\u2019s roadside<\/a> performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, what\u2019s a demerit point?\u201d Colbert recounted saying to the officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d replied John, in the officer\u2019s Kiwi twang.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what the word merit means? You\u2019ve got 20 less of them now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and his family have since nicknamed the policeman \u201cOfficer Speedwork\u201d, Colbert said, describing \u201cKiwi cops\u201d as the \u201cnicest people in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

The retelling captured the attention of the New Zealand Police social media team, which posted a clip of Colbert\u2019s confession on its Facebook page. <\/p>\n

\u201cThanks Stephen Colbert. We are really passionate about our speedwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colbert has been in New Zealand co-writing the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past movie alongside his eldest son Peter McGee and franchise veteran Philippa Boyens.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen Colbert is a fanatic of the Lord of the Rings franchise, which includes Elijah Wood (pictured) playing the hobbit Frodo.<\/p>\n

The Lord of the Rings superfan<\/a> told Kimmel he was recently quizzed by Steven Spielberg on the film over lunch.<\/p>\n

But Colbert demurred, fearing he\u2019d breach non-disclosure agreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I just said \u2026 \u2018Frodo teams up with a time-travelling dinosaur\u2019, and he goes, \u2018You can tell me \u2013 I\u2019m Steven Spielberg, I know Peter Jackson\u2019 \u2026 [but] I was afraid I would get into trouble, so I didn\u2019t tell him anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then later I told our writing partner, Philippa Boyens, she goes, \u2018You idiot, he might have had a good idea \u2013 he\u2019s Steven Spielberg\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cG\u2019day! So, we\u2019re doing a little bit of speedwork here,\u201d John recounted the officer telling a confused Colbert,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,2681,682,20440,18151,40367,103102,22970,21137,2837,5420,194,117,111,43,139,69,1523,26525,85328,8145,312,18150,1324,3946,3040,102,80],"class_list":["post-603158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-airport","tag-being","tag-cheeky","tag-colbert","tag-comedian","tag-comedic","tag-cop","tag-criminal","tag-during","tag-hes","tag-kiwi","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pulled","tag-recounts","tag-run","tag-says","tag-stephen","tag-stop","tag-traffic","tag-us","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}