Stephen Colbert / Remembering MA Rep. Barney Frank

This election season you can streamline your news intake with up first. Our team of reporters and editors works overnight so you can start every morning with three stories you need to know in short episodes, 12-14 minutes long, to save you time and your sanity. Follow up first on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David Biancoley.

Last night, Stephen Colbert said goodbye to his CBS series The Late Show, a show he's hosted since 2015 and which will not continue without him. But in getting to that job, Stephen Colbert has compiled a fairly unusual career path as both a writer and performer of comedy. Stephen Colbert loved both from the start, especially comic improv. He started out as Steve Carell's understudy for the touring company of Chicago's Second City and teamed with him on some of his early short lived TV work, most infamously on ABC's The Dana Carvey Show in 1996. That outrageous comedy series included animated shorts starring a pair of superheroes called The Ambiguously Gay Duo,

Colbert co-wrote those cartoons and provided the voice of Ace, one of the costumed crime fighters. The voice of his sidekick, Gary, was provided by Steve Carell. After the Dana Carvey show was cancelled, the ambiguously gay duo was picked up by Saturday Night Live. Look both ways before crossing the street. And always hold hands with your buddy.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (51 minutes, 8,719 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.