About

The Coal Bare Questionnaireis a tribute to the Colbert Questionert — a segment from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in which Stephen asked guests fifteen questions designed to “fully penetrate to the very soul of a person.”

As the show comes to an end, this site exists to keep the segment alive: digitizing the ~100 celebrity appearances, letting you find your own celebrity match, and watching how the world answers over time.

The segment itself is part of a long tradition. Marcel Proust popularized the Proust Questionnairein the 1890s — a fixed set of introspective questions used to reveal character. Vanity Fairran its own version for decades. Colbert's Questionert (note the intentional misspelling) is his modern take: fifteen questions that cut through the usual talk-show small talk to get at something genuine. Same impulse, different era.