If you were to visit Fleabag star Brett Gelman’s IMDb page and scroll down to see some of his earliest onscreen roles, you’d come across one credit for The Colbert Report from 2005 for “Spencer (uncredited).†So, what’s that all about? During his visit to last night’s The Late Show, Gelman got the chance to revisit the extremely short-lived role, which took place at the end of The Colbert Report’s sixth episode on Comedy Central. The show originally had plans to turn the segment into a recurring thing at the end of every episode, where — similar to how Jon Stewart used to toss the show to Colbert — Colbert would then toss to a nonexistent morning show called Yet Another Day, with Gelman’s Spencer serving as its very first co-host.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m a star now! I’ve made it! I’m on The Colbert Report! This is a bit; they’re gonna be bringing me back all the time,’ you know? And then … nothing. Nothing for quite a while,†Gelman says, reflecting on the experience. After Colbert apologizes for cutting him, Gelman says, “I appreciate it. But I understand, because you have a whole show to run, you got this really talented guy in there, and you’re like, ‘Oh God, I like him, but I don’t totally know how to use him. I like him a lot, but I don’t want to see him all the time.’†Colbert: “That’s exactly what we said after you shot: ‘He’s really good! He’d look better with a beard, but he’s really good!’â€