TRUST Trivia: Stephen Colbert

Without fail, Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show has bagged the Emmy for “Outstanding Variety Series” every year for the past ten years. Winning streak no more. After a decade of fierce competition and let-downs, household name Stephen Colbert deservedly proves victorious, breaking the Daily Show curse and taking home this coveted award for the first time in Colbert Report history.

Here’s some “truthy” Trivia about the brains behind the Report:

He is one of many.

Colbert is the youngest of eleven children.

He is a diehard Lord of the Rings fan.

Stephen has an encyclopedic knowledge of LOTR. When Viggo Mortensen made a guest appearance on Stewart’s The Daily Show, Colbert recited to him the entire biography of LOTR character Aragorn. From memory. It must have gone over well, because later, Mortensen sent Colbert a heaping platter of chocolates sculpted into LOTR characters. (Side-note: Colbert also beat James Franco in a LOTR Trivia competition. Sorry Franco, no amount of PhDs will save you here.)

His family was a part of history.

On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was 10 years old, his father and two of his brothers died in a plane crash. As a result of that crash, the Federal Aviation Administration established the “sterile cockpit” rule, prohibiting flight crews from participating in any activities or conversation outside of their flying duties while the aircraft is below 10,000 feet. This was a topic for Oprah.

He is a verbal entrepreneur.

The American Dialect Society asserted that “Truthiness,” a word coined by Colbert, was the “Word of the Year” in 2005.

He swindled his portrait into two Smithsonian museums.

In January 2008, Colbert campaigned to have a portrait of his character hung in the “Treasures of American History” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. The plan was to display it amidst items like the top hat worn by Abraham Lincoln and an original light bulb made by Thomas A. Edison. When that attempt failed, Colbert got it into the National Portrait Gallery (also a Smithsonian museum) on a temporary basis, but it was unfortunately hung between two bathrooms near the Hall of Presidents. The National Museum of American History did eventually agree to hang the portrait, and when it did, it went up next to a Dumbo car from the original Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride at Disneyland. He just can’t win, can he?

His siblings are top contenders, too.

Stephen’s older sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, is a South Carolina Democratic congressional candidate.

Looks like another win for team Colbert is in the works.