EPISODE NUMBER: Season 1, Episode 38 (Thursday, November 5, 2015)
GUESTS: Bryan Cranston | Shamir
STAFF CAMEO(S): Daniel Kibblesmith
SEGMENTS: Monologue | Stephen’s Got A Fishbone To Pick With Guinness | Qdoba Has An Imaginary Customer | Bryan Cranston | Stephen and Bryan Cranston Ponder The Big Questions | Stephen & Jon Batiste In New Orleans | Shamir – “On The Regular”
SUIT REPORT: Grey Suit | White Shirt | Navy/Silver Striped Tie

This was an incredible episode, Hubsters! Stephen tells us he loves us. As if there was any doubt! Guinness panders to vegans and Stephen’s Irish side comes out, because he is furious! So, sign the petition to stop those vegans from stealing fish bladders from our Guinness. Qdoba introduces it’s imaginary customer and Stephen introduces his ultimate fantasy viewer. Bryan Cranston and Stephen look at the stars and contemplate some existential questions. Jon Batiste takes Stephen on a tour of his hometown, the beautiful New Orleans. Lastly, Shamir gives a marvelous performance of his song “On The Regular.” Here it is, Hubsters - your Episode Guide!

Monologue

• I just want to say, “I love you.” Now, this might seem sudden. We’ve only been doing the show for about two months.

We love you, too, Stephen! And we’ve loved you long before you started the Late Show. Stephen was full of love tonight. He has been trying to say “I love you” more often. He said it to his family this morning, before he left the house. He said it to his barista and then to her manager when one of the customers complained he was making her uncomfortable.

• After scanning billions of our emails, Google found that one of the most common email reply is “I love you,” right behind “Please unsubscribe me from LinkedIn.”
• And this news restores my faith in humanity after all of those things I’ve Googled. I mean, every movie makes a big deal about how hard it is for people to say “I love you,” but evidently, we do it all the time on the internet. Maybe the distance of the online world makes it easier for us to express our true feelings. And it makes sense, because the internet is full of people expressing their love in a starling variety of ways, unless you put the safe search on.

Stephen’s Got A Fishbone To Pick With Guinness

• This is “Stephen Colbert’s Hot Takes.”
• Tonight’s Hot Take: beer. I love beer. It dates back to almost 6,000 years to ancient Sumeria, where it led to a lot of late night Cuneiform tables reading, “U up?”
• So, because I love beer, my blood ran frosty when I heard the news that Guinness is changing its iconic recipe after 256 years. My Hot Take: I don’t like it.

As a (mostly) Irish-American and a beer lover, I don’t like it, either! Damn you, Guinness!

• Look, you don’t change Guinness! Guinness changes you, usually into someone who wants to spend three hours singing “Come On, Eileen.”
• Brace yourself, because staring in 2016, “Guinness …will stop using fish bladders to filter it’s iconic dark stout…”
• Frankly, I’m a little surprised. I always thought Guinness was made of chucks of peat, ground up four-leaf clovers, and whatever you squeeze out of a Leprechaun to make it brown.
• Even worse, is the reason they’re changing it: To please vegans. Oh, come on, vegans! Don’t take it out on us just because you need something to drink to help you forget you’re vegan.
• So, how did this happen? All of the news outlets point to this petition from change.org: “Make Guinness vegetarian/vegan friendly,” which only has 1,746 signatures. Which really isn’t a lot, especially considering they were hoping to reach 2,500 signatures.
• Well, I’m not gonna sit here and let vegans walk all over us in sustainably-sourced faux leather sandals. Tonight, I am starting my own change.org petition to put fish bladders back into Guinness. This is an actual petition and I want you all to sign it!

Sign it, Hubsters! Here is the link: Tell Guinness to Keep the Fish Bladders Flowing. Then go have a refreshing pint of Guinness!

Qdoba Has An Imaginary Customer

• There’s one marketing tactic out there that really intrigues me, because it happens a lot and most people don’t even know about it. That’s when a brand, in order to focus their marketing efforts, creates an imaginary character that represents the kind of customer they want to attract.
• For example - and this is true - when I began the show, CBS created a marketing presentation that said there were two kinds of viewers out there. There were “Donnys” and “Debbys.” Apparently, my last show was something of a “Donny” fest.

My dear Stephen, I take issue with this! Colbert News Hub is a “Debby” fest. I understand that the statistics said that more men watched The Colbert Report and that more men watch late night shows in general. But there is a huge online fan base of women who love Stephen Colbert. The Hub is good representation of that!

• They’d like me to get more “Debbys,” which is why I’m wearing a man Spanx. You’re welcome, ladies!

Thank you, Stephen!

• And I’m not the only one with imaginary customers. So is casual Fresh-Mex chain, Qdoba, which for years has been playing second taco to Chipotle.

Apparently, Chipotle had a recent outbreak of E. Coli. Not to be outdone, typhoid fever spread at Qdoba. In my own ignorance, I did not know that typhoid fever was still a problem. Perhaps, it’s because I relate it to the infamous Typhoid Mary, who infected 51 people in the early 1900s.

• So, Qdoba created the “Quentessa,” an imaginary character, with a certain flair, capable of wooing their target customer, as opposed to their real customer: someone whose flight has been delayed.
• The Quentessa has even effected the look of Qdoba’s restaurants, because the marketers asked themselves: “…what is the type of space, literally, that the Quentess would want to invite people into…”
• The answer was, literally, the bathrooms. Which Qdoba redesigned because:

“That’s where we felt we had a chance to go in and inject a copious amount of flavor.”

• So, obviously, I have to attract young women, too, but compared to the Quentessa and Ocean, “Debby” is just not gonna cut it.
• That’s why my marketing team of me and Jack Daniels have come up with the new Late Show guiding spirit: My ultimate fantasy viewer Empress Firecila, the Elven Conjurer.

Interview - Bryan Cranston

Colbert: Now, congratulations on the Tony. The last time I interviewed you, you won a Tony. [For playing Lyndon B. Johnson in the Broadway drama, All The Way]
Cranston: Thank you. Yes.
Colbert: For LBJ.
Cranston: One hell of a big character.
Colbert: You’ve played some big characters. Is he a more dangerous man than Walter White? [From Breaking Bad] LBJ?
Cranston: In some ways he was. But we don’t know where the bodies are buried there.
Colbert: Oh, for LBJ? No, we don’t.
Cranston: Walter just liquified everybody. LBJ pierced them with his cunning.
Colbert: Well…is that what he called it? Yeah, he was proud of his endowments.
Cranston: I bumped into Sharon Stone in a parking garage.
Colbert: Who hasn’t?! Everyone’s got a Sharon Stone parking garage story.
Cranston: And she was very effusion and complimentary. She said, “Oh my God! I saw your Johnson on stage!”
Colbert: And did she like it?!
Cranston: And I said, “Were you impressed?”

Stephen and Bryan Cranston Ponder The Big Questions

Cranston: What if God is a woman?
Colbert: Well, if God’s a woman, then she definitely didn’t write the Bible.

Colbert: Hey, Bry – do you think you’ll get into heaven?
Cranston: Not after what I did in Tampa.

Colbert: Can I ask you a personal question?
Cranston: I wish you would.
Colbert: What’s your biggest fear?
Cranston: That someone will find out what I did in Tampa.

Stephen & Jon Batiste In New Orleans

First, Jon sat down in the interview chair for a chat with Stephen. They discussed how Jon came to be the band leader on the Late Show. About a year and a half ago, as you Hubsters will remember, Jon was on The Colbert Report. Then about eight months ago, Stephen called Jon and asked him to come in to talk about being the band leader. They had a “very deep” conversation! Jon asked Stephen to come down to his hometown, New Orleans, to have some red beans and rice with his parents. Stephen wanted to learn about Jon’s musical background, so they took a camera crew and went down to New Orleans. Tonight, they present the first installment of “Stephen & Jon Batiste In New Orleans.”

Colbert: Let’s tell the people who you are. You are a member of The Batiste Family of Musicians here in the New Orleans area. Tell me about your family.
Batiste: My dad is on the musical side - has seven brothers; they had a band; they played together - have over 30 cousins; they played.
Colbert: Now, what do you play?
Batiste: Well, I play piano and an instrument called melodica, a harmonaboard. It’s a harmonica and a keyboard put together.
Colbert: Okay, some call it “the face piano.”
Batiste: Yeah. I think you. Just you.

Batiste: Hanging is waiting around, but with style and social purpose.
Colbert: Loitering with style.

Batiste: Yeah, but we don’t have to stay in position. We can move.
Colbert: I feel like my suit is getting dirty.

Colbert: Yeah, it’s a little humid, I have to say.
Batiste: Well, we’re wearing these blazers.
Colbert: I have an historic case of swamp-ass right now.
Batiste: Is that so?
Colbert: Yeah, you could run a fan boat through my butt crack right now.
Batiste: Yeah, I don’t know if we’ll do that today.
Colbert: No, no. Maybe not. I just can’t imagine what my talcum powder bill’s gonna be at the end of this shoot.

Shamir - “On The Regular”

Hip-hop artist, Shamir, performs “On The Regular,” from his debut album, “Ratchet.”