{"id":593896,"date":"2026-05-20T06:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593896\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T06:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:56:10","slug":"stephen-colbert-shares-the-hillary-clinton-joke-that-never-made-it-to-air-as-he-kicks-off-final-week-of-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593896\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert shares the Hillary Clinton joke that never made it to air as he kicks off final week of shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Stephen Colbert <\/a>kicked off his final week of The Late Show<\/a> with a salute to his graphics team.<\/p>\n

During Monday\u2019s episode, Colbert welcomed out the head of his arts department, Andro Buneta, to go through some of the best graphics that never made it to air \u2014 including one about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day at The Late Show, our graphics team churns out hundreds of premium visuals projected onto your TV screens,\u201d the host said, \u201cand every single day I throw about half of them in the garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a segment called \u201cGraphics Graveyard\u201d \u2014 named after the team\u2019s group chat \u2014 Colbert revisited some of the jokes that were cut over the years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the darkest version of the graphics graveyard,\u201d he said, pointing to an image prepared in celebration of Clinton winning the 2016 election <\/a>to become the 45th president. Instead, Donald Trump defeated Clinton to succeed Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen Colbert shared the ‘dark’ joke about Hillary Clinton that was cut from the show (Getty)<\/p>\n

As the audience groaned, Colbert teasingly quipped: \u201cOh, grow up! It all worked out fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the other humorous graphics that were never aired included an edited version of Martha Stewart\u2019s now-defunct Living magazine cover with the headline, \u201cDonner or Dinner Party,\u201d as well as a spoof pornographic magazine titled Gibblets featuring a turkey in a bra. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a mock-up got cut, we would print it out and put it up on the wall,\u201d Buneta explained. \u201cAnd then once we got Slack, we made a \u2018graphics graveyard\u2019 channel so that everybody could enjoy.\u201d <\/p>\n

CBS\u2019s long-running Late Show franchise will come to an end Thursday. The network announced its cancellation last July, just days after Colbert criticized the network\u2019s parent company<\/a>, Paramount, for reaching a $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over accusations that its newsmagazine series 60 Minutes deceptively edited a 2024 interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

While CBS has maintained that the decision was purely \u201cfinancial,\u201d<\/a> the timing led numerous politicians and celebrities to suggest that it was politically motivated.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ColbertColbert pointed to the graphic, which celebrated Clinton as the presumed winner of the 2016 election (CBS)<\/p>\n

Colbert himself was caught off guard by the cancellation, telling The New York Times<\/a> last month that CBS had initially encouraged him to sign a five-year contract in 2023. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do not dispute their rationale. I do make jokes about it,\u201d he clarified. \u201cBut I also completely understand why people would say (A) that doesn\u2019t make sense to me and (B) that seems fishy to me, because the network did it to themselves by bending the knee to the Trump administration over a $20 billion, settled for $16 million, completely frivolous lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that \u201cit\u2019s possible that two things can be true. Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming. They\u2019ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut less than two years before they called to say it\u2019s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, something changed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-593896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}