Stephen Colbert’s final week on “The Late Show” is coming into focus.
The CBS show has unveiled its schedule for Colbert’s last four episodes of “The Late Show.” On Monday, May 18, Colbert’s show will highlight “The Worst of the Late Show” in what the network is dubbing “Not a Clip Show!”
The following night, May 19, Colbert will welcome Jon Stewart and Steven Spielberg, and Colbert himself will take the stage with a musical performance featuring David Byrne. On Wednesday, May 20, Colbert will be the subject of his own “Colbert Questionert,” featuring unnamed special guests and a performance by Bruce Springsteen.
CBS canceled “The Late Show” in July, with parent company Paramount calling the move “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” The date for Colbert’s last episode was revealed in January.
Recent weeks on “The Late Show” have featured a star-studded series of guests stopping by to applaud Colbert on a great run. During the show’s penultimate week, Tom Hanks sat down and told Colbert he isn’t sure “how the entertainment industrial complex is going to survive without you,” and Julia Louis-Dreyfus reprised her “Veep” character to deliver a roast-style farewell. David Letterman also stopped by his old stomping ground, gleefully joining Colbert in launching set furniture off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Colbert also reunited with fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver on the May 11 show. In the interview, the comedians defended late-night as a genre that should continue and bemoaned the “Late Show” cancellation. When Colbert, near the end of the interview, asked if there’s anything else they should cover, Kimmel said, “The outrage that your show is being thrown off the air?” He added that it’s a “tragedy,” while Fallon said it’s a “bummer because I wanted to do this longer with you.”
In an episode of the “Strike Force Five” podcast with Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers and Oliver, Colbert noted he has a big week coming up, and not just because of “The Late Show” ending.
Colbert also noted his staff has to clear out the office immediately after his last show, and they’ll stop getting paid the next day. “No one’s got a job after that night,” he said. “I think the next day, everyone’s fired. … We all have to be out by the next Friday. Like, physically absent from the theater.”
This will be Colbert’s second time signing off a long-running talk show. In 2014, he wrapped “The Colbert Report,” the Comedy Central show he hosted in character as a conservative pundit, by singing “We’ll Meet Again” in a packed room of surprise celebrity guests, including Bryan Cranston, Patrick Stewart, Elijah Wood, Barry Manilow, Willie Nelson, Jeff Daniels, and many, many more. The episode, which aired just before Christmas, ended with Colbert getting on Santa’s sleigh with Abraham Lincoln and Alex Trebek before riding away into the night.
In that case, though, Colbert had already lined up his next gig as host of “The Late Show,” and ending “The Colbert Report” was his decision. Colbert took over “The Late Show” from Letterman in 2015.
