‘Colbert Report’ returns to salute Bill O’Reilly: ‘Stay strong, Papa Bear!’

In a brief salute, via satellite, from what was supposed to be his Comedy Central character’s cabin, Colbert accused his former audience of failing O’Reilly, who was let go from Fox News earlier in the day following a sexual harassment scandal.

“Hello, Nation, and shame on you,” Colbert began. “You failed Bill O’Reilly. You didn’t deserve this great man. All he ever did was have your back. And if you’re a woman, you know, have a go at the front, too.”

“And what? Suddenly sexual harassment’s a crime?” he asked. “But that’s the country we live in now. Obama’s Trump’s America. I guess I always knew this day would come. When I first saw Bill on TV, I knew in my heart that no one could possibly sustain such a broad character for that long.”

After inviting O’Reilly to live with him and fellow retired Comedy Central host Jon Stewart at their mountain cabin, Colbert signed off using the name his character used to when referring to O’Reilly: “Stay strong, Papa Bear!”

“The Colbert Report” aired on Comedy Central for nine years, from 2005 to 2014, and was a spinoff of Stewart’s “Daily Show.” Colbert became host of CBS’s “Late Show” in September of 2015.

While Colbert’s Comedy Central character was sad to see O’Reilly go, Colbert himself, as host of “The Late Show,” was far from it — though he did say he owed O’Reilly for inspiring the character that solidified his place as a leading political satire comedian. He added that after playing the character he went through “12 months in therapy to de-bloviate myself.”

And while he did acknowledge O’Reilly’s strong ratings, “by moral standards, he was a self-righteous landfill of angry garbage,” Colbert said.