I have a soft spot for the Colbert Report, not just because I was there at the beginning,

but just because it felt like it was really, really trying to do something different in that

late night space. And when you go to these big institutional shows, ultimately you're kind of

a slave to that format. And you can make it your own, I think Stephen has done a great job doing that,

but I just am so much more partial to a whole idea of Colbert Nation. Like, there was just so

much about it that felt kind of ahead of its nine.

Hello and welcome to Obsess the podcast. I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and today on the show,

I am talking to a writer and producer who not only helped launch The Daily Show with John Stewart,

but also co-created The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert. His new show is a very different kind of

comedy series called Bate, starring the British actor Riz Ahmed as a fictionalized

version of himself who gets the chance to audition to be the next James Bond. Ben Carlin,

welcome to Obsess the podcast. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for being

here. So I have to tell you, I'm kind of a late-night TV obsessive. I grew up watching the

Daily Show and the Colbert Report and love those shows. So I knew your name from sort of behind

the scenes of that show. So I was, I was sort of surprised to see it in the credits for this new show

Bate, which I also love. But I'm curious if it felt like a departure for you something

different. Not really for me just because, you know, you have a choice when you're in that

late night world for a while, which is like stay when the water is really warm and nice,

or tries doing something else. And I'd always really been interested in narrative storytelling.

So after, you know, eight, you know, nine years in late night,

I wanted to take a chance and do more narrative work.

So I'd since I left those shows, I'd been writing sitcoms,

...