Bears and Balls

Before Stephen Colbert made The Late Show #1 in late night, he revolutionized political satire as the host of The Colbert Report. Whether you're just discovering Colbert's genius, or are a veteran member of the Colbert Nation, Bears & Balls is the essential fan guide. This encyclopedic journey through the show's best-known segments and obscure favorites is crammed with details only the show's most knowledgeable fans can deliver. What was The Word modeled after? Was Jay the Intern really an intern? What ever happened to Stephen Jr.? From the technical to the tangential, Bears & Balls: the Colbert Report A-Z covers it all, and answers questions you didn't even know you had.

Bears & Balls was written with one goal: to heighten your enjoyment of The Colbert Report. We've combined the show's best moments and behind-the-scenes insights into more than 200 encyclopedic entries. On every page, we want you to say, "whoa, I totally forgot about that!" or, "whoa, I didn't know that!" (Though if you're reading this on public transit, we prefer you just think those things.)
It's been our joy to watch the show for nine years. Now we're fortunate to share that joy with you. We created the very book that we'd want to read as fans: it's for anyone who's been impressed by Stephen Colbert's skilled rhetoric, appreciative of how he fully embraces his character's idiocy, or awestruck by his staff's ability to make anything happen. 
Much has been written about the show's impact on culture and politics, or goes deep into analysis of its comedic techniques. We've taken those approaches when we've written about the show elsewhere, but we purposely made Bears & Balls the antidote. It's a book entirely without a thesis statement. Ultimately, we're chronicling The Colbert Report because of the impact it's had on us personally: it's made us laugh really, really hard, and we sure are going to miss it.