Correction Appended

There was never much chance that Stephen Colbert would bungle his own show. Mainly, there were concerns that the "The Colbert Report" (pronounced with a French accent, as in ra-PORE) would turn out to be the Double-Stuf Oreo of Comedy Central -- too much of a good thing.

It's not.

If anything, after one week, Mr. Colbert's half-hour sendup of cable news commentators already suggests that "Saturday Night Live" has outlived its usefulness -- or at least is in need of a shake-up. When a comedian from "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" has a big enough following to warrant his own spinoff, it may be time to renovate NBC's 30-year-old comedy show. Even last Saturday, when Tina Fey, the head writer, was back at the "Weekend Update" anchor desk after her maternity leave, most of the political jokes were as labored and predictable as the comedy skits.

Yet young people increasingly rely on comedy, and particularly "The Daily Show," as their main source of news. That could explain why nowadays breakout stars like Steve Carell come from Comedy Central and not "Saturday Night Live," as they did in the days of Mike Myers and Adam Sandler. Humor has moved away from long, one-joke skits and wacky impersonations to jujitsu satire: using the glib complacency of television news against itself.

And some of the best material on Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert's shows lies in their sadistic use of snippets from real newscasts and political speeches. On Thursday, Mr. Colbert showed a montage of alarmed reports about the avian flu epidemic on CNN, C-Span and MSNBC, then showed a more upbeat Fox News headline: "Bird is the word on the street. Why the avian flu could send stocks soaring."