John Oliver used the closing moments of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight to pay tribute to Stephen Colbert—and to borrow a line from David Letterman.
“Please enjoy Colbert’s final shows,” Oliver told viewers at the end of his HBO show. “He’s the f*cking best. Good night, and good luck, motherfckers!”
That last line was a clear callback to Letterman’s appearance on The Late Show Thursday, when Colbert asked his predecessor whether he had any parting words. Letterman replied, “To the folks at CBS, in the words of the great Ed Murrow, ‘Good night and good luck, motherf*ckers.’”
Oliver’s signoff seemed aimed in the same general direction as Letterman’s: Colbert’s bosses at Paramount. The wrinkle, of course, is that Oliver’s own corporate parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, is on track to be acquired by Paramount.
Oliver and Colbert go back more than two decades, having first worked together on The Daily Show. Since Colbert took over The Late Show in 2015, Oliver has become his most frequent guest, with 23 official appearances over 11 years. That number only tells part of the story: factoring in Oliver’s many cameos, his total number of visits to the show climbs to 30.
His most recent appearance came last Monday, as part of the Strike Force Five reunion on The Late Show.
Oliver has been blunt about what Colbert’s cancellation means to him. Shortly after CBS announced last July that The Late Show would end, Oliver told reporters the news was “very sad.”
“Obviously I love Stephen, all of his staff,” Oliver said at the time. “I love that show.”
He also placed Colbert’s show in the larger late-night tradition that first drew him to the format.
“The late-night shows mean a lot to me—not just ’cause I work in them,” Oliver said, “but because even growing up in England, I would watch Letterman, which of course was Stephen’s show, and think, oh, what a glamorous world that was.”
Oliver called CBS’s decision “terrible, terrible news for the world of comedy,” while adding that he was eager to see what Colbert and his team do with the 10 months they have left on the air—and where Colbert ends up next.
“I look forward to seeing what he’s going to do next,” Oliver said, “’cause that man will not stop.”
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