"With our country more divided than ever, I think it's important to remember the one thing that unites us all, the credo that we live by: Gimme more stuff," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. "But now that gimme-gimme lifestyle is threatened, because America is facing an unprecedented supply chain crisis." Briefly, he explained, "because of COVID lockdowns and labor shortages and a lack of shipping containers, everything you want is either not made yet, stuck on a boat, or waiting for a trucker who can't drive because the Gatorade bottle he needs to pee in is stuck on a boat or hasn't been made yet."
Colbert ran through some of the things the supply chain breakdown might deprive you of: frozen meals, carbonated beverages, certain types of candy, and Ben & Jerry's, for example. "I scream, you scream, we all scream: where is the f---ing ice cream? This is not a joke!" he joked. And it got worse: "No! No! Frozen foods? Fine. Candy? Who needs it? But a wine shortage?!? Me and my book club are buying zip ties and storming the Capitol!"
"One reason there's no place to put the wine we do have is because of a glass bottle crunch," Colbert said. "Incidentally, Glass Bottle Crunch is also one of Ben & Jerry's least-popular flavors."
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In The Late Show's cold open, Franzia mocked the snootier winemakers and celebrated their bottle shortage.
The Daily Show's Trevor Noah tackled the labor shortage side of the issue — specifically, "strike-tober" and some of the reasons workers are using their newfound leverage or walking off the job. "Honestly, some of these CEOs get so greedy that they become short-sighted," he said, "because if they thought about it they would realize they could probably get away with exploiting their workers for longer if they just exploited them a little less." He also reworked a Kellogg's commercial to reflect its labor issues.
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