The Colbert Effect

What happens when something causes Obscurity, much? for something else to be subverted.

Usually this can be a result of a popular celebrity taking note of a obscure program or television series.

Can lead to My Life Meme when the object in question becomes a *meme*. The opposite of this is Popularity Killoff, which causes something popular to lose its popularity (but not become *obscure* per se until a few years later). Not related to The Kanade Effect.

## Examples

* Anime has its own page, with Discotek Media having *their* own page.
* The Trope Namer is Stephen Colbert and his show, which was one of the longest-running series on Comedy Central.
	+ South Park itself caused this for Comedy Central.
* As obscure as Chloe is, it ironically led to a certain bus stop actually putting up bubble wrap for people to use while waiting.
* Toys "R" Us wasn't doing *too* bad, and it was *nowhere* as obscure as the other examples. However, there wasn't really much news about it aside from news about its bankruptcy filings between 2005 and 2018. Fast forward to March 2018, and the liquidation announcement *and* Geoffrey subsequently appearing on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night series suddenly resulted in a *flood* of news about said liquidation, only slowing when the last stores closed (in the US) for good. Though as Company Man explains, bad holiday sales were to blame for this.
* Disney has "the Mickey Mouse effect", in which an obscure work bought by Disney would oftentimes be marketed heavily, surging in popularity. An example is any Disney movie re-released (oftentimes on home media), the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise (the first time that formerly-obscure Marvel characters were marketed *super-heavily*), and even *Oswald the Lucky Rabbit*, the latter thanks to Epic Mickey.
	+ Unfortunately, they're just as bad to avert this as well, thanks to not releasing (most) shows fully on DVD (mostly TV movies, ex. Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation).
	+ This caused *Tron* to get a soft reboot, thanks to its world appearing in (what else?) Kingdom Hearts.
	+ No mention of Playhouse Disney would be complete without mentioning one of its most popular series, Bear in the Big Blue House. To be fair, the show also caused Disney's preschool block (and Disney Channel itself) to experience a *huge* rise in ratings.
* Nintendo started off as an unknown (outside Japan) card company, then experimented with video games. The first Nintendo product to see release overseas was the Game & Watch, which proved how obscure it was back then. If that's the case, then how did Nintendo become one of the largest video game companies in the world? That could be owed to Super Mario Bros. and how it saved the U.S. video game industry from crashing. The NES could also be a factor in Nintendo becoming one of the most popular video game companies- after all, SMB *was* an NES title. Today, it boasts *several* popular franchises, all having this trope happen to them- among them The Legend of Zelda (cartridges printed in gold), Metroid (because of Samus), WarioWare (an offshoot of Mario), Pokémon (see the anime examples), and Kirby (more or less thanks to being one of the few cute-em-ups released in North America).
	+ Donkey Kong got some attention for two things: One, it caused Nintendo to win a case caused by a lawsuit dished out by Universal over infringing King Kong, because it was, at best, a parody, and two, it was the first appearance of what would later be a successful Nintendo franchise. Unfortunately, it also has some attention for the arcade version ending abruptly at level 22.
	+ The Nintendo GameCube port caused this for Animal Crossing.
	+ Fire Emblem went through this as the translators forgot to dummy out Marth and Roy from Super Smash Bros. If the OVA wasn't enough proof that the West wanted the games, then Super Smash Bros. Melee *was*.
	+ Tomodachi Life caused this for the otherwise-obscure Tomodachi Collection.
* Pac-Man caused this for the video game industry for the first three years- no wonder why there was a song called "Pac-Man Fever".
* The Simpsons caused this for the Fox Broadcasting Company (20th Century Fox has long been a respected movie studio, even before the creation of Fox as a network). Rupert Murdoch had trouble with keeping the network from being the modern version of DuMont, a long-defunct network that was 100% low-budget. Then Matt Groening stepped into the Fox offices (he was originally asked to adapt his comic strip Life in Hell to TV, but hastily sketched the idea of The Simpsons once he found out that he would give up his strip should he pitch his idea) and came up with an animated sitcom (technically he pitched to Tracey, but still), and that's how this animated comedy became *the* longest-running American animated sitcom.
	+ As of 2019, Disney now owns The Simpsons (and the rest of Fox save quite a few networks), causing Disney to become even more popular with Fox fans, especially since they now have the longest-running American animated television series that is still running.
* This is what led to the uncancellation of Groening's other series, Futurama. The Adult Swim ratings were through the roof and Fox was actually *profiting* from DVD sales, leading to said revival... on Comedy Central.
	+ Seth MacFarlene had this kind of luck as well, only this time with Family Guy. When it debuted alongside American Dad!, however, the fandom only called out the increased use of cutaway gags, which were mocked by South Park in a two-parter. Unfortunately for the fans, Fox has refused to cancel it again, Seth *himself* even stating that the show was running out of ideas.
* *Unus Annus* (a channel run by Markiplier and his friend Ethan) caused this to a certain girls' toy that reads as more of a boys' toy. Keep in mind, this was from a channel that only had one year to live.
* This can even happen to *songs*. How? In March 2020, Canadian rock/metal musician Stevie T listened to a song called "In Managua". While it helped the song became well-known, it was for much of the wrong reasons. Stevie T ended up covering the song, gave it a completely different title for the cover, and declared it "fixed".
	+ He also helped boost the infamy of the "Cars4Kids" commercials. The second commercial he reviewed was not only enough for a big video on it, Stevie T ended up doing a rock cover of the commercial's jingle as well.
* An odd example lies within "Despacito", which was already popular before Sherbert Shenanigans used a small sample of it in this video, causing it to get a miniscule bump in popularity among the furry fandom.
* "Weird Al" Yankovic had this happen to his once cult hit song "Virus Alert" in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic which caused YouTube to recommend related things, mostly on how to protect yourself from COVID; "Virus Alert" was among the recommended videos on YouTube since the song was about a computer virus.
* Owing to the creators being involved with *Octodad*, *Bugsnax* became one of the PS5's most popular titles on launch day.
* Both Newsmax and OANN (both right-wing conservative news channels) experienced huge spikes in ratings via Trump's followers dumping Fox News *en masse*. Then Newsmax sunk in ratings *again*, and following the tragedy that was the storming of the Capitol (Tropes Fanon does not condone the actions taken by the rioters), it's unknown if OANN will sink in ratings too because of it.
* Cartoon Network:
	+ The page image is from when Toonami was about to be revived, complete with a hashtag announcing the block's return.
	+ Meanwhile, *Villainous*, from CN Latin America, became subject to this even outside of Latin America purely through word-of-mouth. It also helps that it averts Dubless Series by being produced in English to begin with.