The election of Donald Trump was Stephen Colbert’s “come to Jesus moment.” It helped him make his first run at the ratings since the show’s start, and offered him his first real shot at dethroning late night’s then undisputed frontrunner.

As The Late Show’s success would become clearer, they’d begin to present themselves in clear opposition to their competitors, namely NBC’s The Tonight Show — with Colbert’s unique brand of intellectualism and comedy proving itself exactly what Americans were looking for at a time of such contention.

Colbert was a gumbo of all the now former faces of late night: the political savy of Stewart, the pointedly conversational tone of Letterman, the offhandedness of Ferguson, and resounding timing of Leno. It just worked.

And with The Late Show’s newfound success, Jimmy Fallon’s resoundingly silly brand of comedy was no longer boding as well as it once had. His perceived softball questions, the goofy head banging laugh, the backyard-style games — none of it. Nothing was funny about what was happening to the country, and the Tonight Show’s now tired format failed to adapt to this change in the collective American psyche.

Everything that’d once made Fallon America’s charming ‘dad next door’, now made him the weak example of a dying liberal America. No substance, no backbone, and a failure to connect.

Jimmy Fallon’s Trump moment especially worked to expose this same chink in his once perfect armour. Fallon joked with then nominee Trump, treating him as he did every other — roaringly laughing with a man many saw to pose an existential threat to Western democracy itself. Even going so far as to ruffle his hair, in what would prove his most costly moment ratings-wise in his time as host of the Tonight Show.

Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon ruffling the hair of then Presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Photo: ABC

The moment played bad with viewers. Like, really, really bad. He was seen as cozying up with Donald Trump at a moment where people wanted to see Trump challenged; normalizing a man that was anything but, and only adding to Trump’s then growingly commercial allure. And the almost immediate downward trend in the show’s ratings were a reflection of this.

With a single interview, Fallon had decided to protect the commercial appeal of his program, over even the smallest possibility of polarizing a small segment of his base. Ironically, the fallout from that decision would become far more damaging than its alternative.

Furthermore, for Fallon, things had grown increasingly challenging, and his once model Tonight Show seemed to be running its course. The wow factor, or “virality”, of the once preeminent program was all but gone — and Fallon was officially getting less and less of the moments that his show had once so dearly depended.

His space in the market had officially become homogenized. In a world of Carpool Karaoke’s, Mean Tweets, and Clueless Gamers, Fallon’s vice grip on the internet had lessened, substantially. A corner in the market he’d once stood alone, had all of a sudden become prime real estate for all of late night. With Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter ripe with clips from a variety of the previous night’s shows. Not just his.

While Fallon was focused on old reliable, Colbert and his team were focused on their new formula — one that still looked to foster viral moments, but didn’t look to them as a saving grace. They made an effort to look for more than just a single Hail Mary moment.

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And with a now defined difference between the two, Stephen Colbert had officially presented himself as an all-too-willing “anti-Fallon”. Everything about one seemed to work in contradiction to the other — a difference only exaggerated by Colbert’s post-election surge.

The Late Show, and Colbert as its face, now stepped into America’s collective living room as the country’s leading late night voice. Bolstered by a fortuitous misstep from a once late night juggernaut, Stephen Colbert would begin to step into his potential — the same potential that’d been so widely debated just a year prior.

The show had finally found its once fleeted footing. And in the months and weeks that would follow Trump’s election, everything began to work.

Even The Late Show’s bandleader, Jon Batiste, a once unknown New Orleanian Jazz savant, and member of one of America’s foremost jazz families, would become a darling of late night in his own right— with a number of viral-worthy moments all of his own.

Batiste was there for more than just the punchline, and often given reign to create moments of his own. Whether it be charmingly humbling Simon Hedberg with Mozart, performing a teary eyed rendering of America’s national anthem(s) with Stevie Wonder, or any number of starring skits he’s delivered in his time on the show. He was a star, and his unassuming, southern charm, worked in the show’s favour.

Colbert’s interviews and his interview style also began maturing into its own. A sort of Jon Stewart/David Letterman mash-up; an intellectual charm paired with easily digestible rhetoric. He learned to hold interviewees to account, but navigate conversations with a rare comedic finesse that’d soften his sometimes deafening blows.

In a wider sense, Colbert’s Late Show works as the counterweight to America’s now ever-popular traditional news format, and a late night format viewers had grown all to accustomed to. And by occupying a newly discovered middle ground between the two, Colbert has taken steps to help re-shape two of television’s vanguard industries.

He’d started cashing in on a cachet he’d built with his viewers — driven by the endearment of those that’d endured his rough opening year. He’s made a point, now, of appealing to the humanity of his viewer, letting viewers through the looking glass and into his personal life.

Proof of which can be found in his telling an unbelievable story about how he’d met his wife, and even having her in for cameos thereafter.

Colbert gushes as he remembers how him and his wife met — he’s almost reduced to tears. And he jumps with a teenage giddiness at the sight of her. And it’s his relationship with his wife, particularly, that plays into the show’s aforementioned Southern charm.

Colbert’s South Carolinian attitude is anything but Hollywood, and goes a long way in letting viewers up and over the sometimes towering wall of distance that television can create.

And for a man that’s made a living from that wall of distance, playing an exaggerated and caricatured version of himself, Colbert now oozes an authenticity that late night TV has rarely seen — and it’s a recipe that’s continued to work.