Welcome back to the Ed Sullivan Theater! What tasty conspiracy would you like to start with today? On Monday’s The Late Show, Stephen Colbert welcomed his old brother-in-arms Jon Stewart to be his first studio guest, where he was promptly told to “stop with the logic and people and things†and give in to what Stewart believes is the correct coronavirus theory: It came from a lab, and not, say, “a pangolin kissing a turtle†or a group of feisty bats in a market. “I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science,†he explained. “Science has in many ways helped ease the suffering of this pandemic, which was more than likely caused by science.†Stewart was particularly transfixed by … well … we’ll just let him tell it his way:
There’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we do? Oh, you know, who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think? Look at the name! Show me your business card! Oh, I work at the coronavirus lab in Wuhan. Oh, there’s a coronavirus loose in Wuhan. How did that happen? Maybe a bat flew into the cloaca of a turkey and then it sneezed into my chili and now we all have coronavirus.
“This is the problem with science. Science is incredible,†Stewart concluded, “but they don’t know where to stop.†We’d say there’s something ironic about that sentence, but, hey, he has a new show, he’s got to promote it somehow.