* AuthorsSavingThrow: In response to various criticisms of certain jokes that brought up the trans community in a way that some found insensitive, Colbert invited trans activist Janet Mock in 2014 as a guest to discuss the issues transgender people face, but this time in a less facetious tone.
* {{Corpsing}}:
** Stephen tends to break character and laugh over some of the more ridiculous lines, or at least grin the whole time he's saying them. This frequently happened in the ''Cheating Death'' segments. There is an actual video tag on his site called [[http://www.colbertnation.com/video/tag/cracks+up "cracks up"]] for when he does this, as well as a [[http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/erpk54/on-topic---stephen-cracks-up 13-minute long montage]] of all the times he has done so. He and Jon Stewart have done this to each other quite often; if one of them loses it, the other will soon follow.
** An extreme case: when combining the names of celebrities who are in relationships, for William H Macy and Felicity Huffman, he corpsed for a minute before finally spitting out the result: Filliam H Muffman.
* DyeingForYourArt: See ImportantHaircut
* FakeNationality
** Occasional guest star Esteban Colberto, host of the (fake) Mexican sister show ''Colberto Reporto Gigante'', also played by Colbert.
** French-Canadian affiliate Stephane Colbert.
* NoExportForYou: Several (but not all) countries outside the US can't watch the videos on the site. Many fans aren't happy.
* RealLifeRelative: Stephen's children occasionally show up, such as in the ChristmasSpecial. One of Stephen's brothers, a lawyer, has appeared at least twice, the last time at the start of the Vancouver Olympics series to tell him he can't legally use the word "Olympics". Or "Vancouver".
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: The UK airing. On the FX channel. Meaning the network in question [[ArchEnemy was FOX.]]
* ThrowItIn: When Stephen starts {{Corpsing}}, he'll usually manage to stop laughing long enough to wave his hand and call some variation of "No, keep going! Keep rolling!" to the production crew.
* WrittenInInfirmity: In 2007, when Stephen broke his wrist, he milked it for humorous effect by pretending to become addicted to his painkillers and [[MushroomSamba delirious from overdosing]], and made sure to call attention to this "Wristrong" (Wrist Strong) bracelet at every opportunity.
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