Will Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination process go down in the history books? The Late Show clearly thinks so, as it opened its show on Thursday night with a Ken Burns-style documentary on the Supreme Court hopeful.
The subject of the parody is a party-hearty 1983 letter penned by Kavanaugh to seven friends that was reported on by The New York Times. In the letter, Kavanaugh instructs his Georgetown Prep classmates on how to arrive at an Ocean City, Maryland, condo that he had rented for the school’s “Beach Week,” telling them, in one part, “warn the neighbors that we’re loud, obnoxious drunks with prolific pukers among us.”
The Late Show cold open signals its homage to Burns’ many historical documentaries first with a plaintive fiddle soundtrack, and then a narrator who reads the letters in a country, old-timey voice. Images of the letters, Ocean City, Kavanaugh and more appear in faded sepia while the narrator puts an eloquent spin on Kavanaugh’s actual words.
“My dearest Squi, my heart sings with anticipation as our upcoming ‘Beach Week Blow-Out’ approaches,” the narrator says at the beginning of the video. “Like me, you are a prolific and prodigious puker.”
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on the parody, Burns said, “As always, Stephen Colbert is hilarious, and in these tumultuous times, humor helps.” Watch the full video above.
