Comedy Central Insider blog gives more details about the Vanity Fair article

Our friends over at the CC Insider totally scooped us got some really great inside info about the Stephen Colbert in Vanity Fair article that we just can’t stop talking about, dammit:

Exclusive: Vanity Fair Finally Gets Stephen to Open Up About Tony Bennett’s Sack

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Mnookin’s story covers a lot of ground well-known by fans, but is about as intimate a profile of Stephen as has been published. Stephen talks about his family (and why he drives himself home every night). His friends since childhood are interviewed in addition to the usual suspects (did you know Stephen recently built a 12-foot rowboat with his best friend?)

Mnookin also digs up some surprisingly specific details of the story of Stephen’s family tragedy, going so deep as to quote from the transcripts of the cockpit voice recorder of the plane that crashed in Charlotte, NC, 1974. The crash ended the lives of Stephen’s father and two older brothers, and is often mentioned in profiles of Stephen as, obviously, a huge influence on his life. But Mnookin reveals that the FAA ruled that the crash was caused by the “pilots’ discussion of ‘non operational subjects’, which were revealed by the cockpit recorder to be politics and the economy (“We need to be takin’ definite steps to save the economy of this country. I think the A-rabs are takin’ over every damn thing.”) Mnookin makes no explicit connections between these details and Stephen’s role in politics, such as it is, but the reader is left to wonder if it’s all a coincidence.

But back to being a comedy blogger! This was my favorite quote from the article. I’m bolding Stephen’s quotes the way Jesus’s quotes are red in some Bibles. It just seems appropriate:

Stephen on Tony Bennett’s Scrotum, the Smell of:

While enjoying a pre-show champagne toast with his full staff on the occasion of the show’s Emmy nominations, Stephen talks about his competition. (He’s up against Tony Bennett in the same category he so famously lost to Barry Manilow last year.)

“Colbert took a sip of champagne before raising his glass. ‘And the winner is…Tony Bennett!’…Who’s going to give it to me over Tony Bennett? Nobody. Are you kidding? It’s Tony Bennett.’ [Bringing his champagne glass to his nose] ‘Yummmm…that smells like Tony Bennett’s aged sack…Come on! That wouldn’t be so bad, if your aged sack smelled like champagne.”

WHEN IS THIS ARTICLE COMING OUT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGGH?!