DuPage County Forest Preserve invites Stephen Colbert to be featured in follow-up cicada video

A viral cicada video that the DuPage County Forest Preserve District put out last week has reached new and national heights, inviting attention from the likes of CNN, NPR and Stephen Colbert.

Colbert joked about the video, which features forest preserve district employees acting out the life stages of cicadas, on “The Late Show” Wednesday night. A former member of Chicago’s Second City improv troupe, Colbert quipped that he would have killed for the role of cicada larvae back in his Illinois acting days.

The forest preserve district posted a response video to their social media Thursday, in which district President Daniel Hebreard invited Colbert to be part of a follow-up video, dubbed “Informational Cicada Video II: After Emergence.”

According to Hebreard, the district has yet to hear back from Colbert or “The Late Show,” but has seen a lot of traction from the response video. As of Friday afternoon, the video had 220,000 views on TikTok and the comments were filled with people tagging “The Late Show” and others like “Last Week Tonight” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

Cicadas are set to emerge around the suburbs in the next week or two, making this a limited time offer for Colbert. But the success from the first video has prompted the forest preserve district to begin planning for a follow-up regardless of any high-profile cameos in the cast.

“Everyone’s been asking about a sequel,” said multimedia content specialist Jonathan Mullen, who directed, filmed and edited the first video. “We’re not exactly sure what direction we’re going to take, but we’re absolutely going to make a follow-up.”

Mullen said he anticipates the costumes and acting from the first video to make an appearance again, but this time alongside real cicadas.

“It’s been really great to be part of a moment like this that involves the whole community, and also involves the cicadas,” Mullen said. “It’s been really fun.”