Stephen Colbert didn’t just return to Only in Monroe on YouTube Friday night. For a very small, very specific audience in Monroe, Michigan, he was actually back on television.
At 11:35pm Friday—the same time Colbert’s new Only in Monroe episode was posted to his newly launched @Colbert YouTube channel—the special also aired locally on Monroe Community Media, which is carried on Xfinity Channel 21 and Charter Channel 187, depending on the viewer’s cable provider.
Footage obtained by LateNighter shows what Monroe cable subscribers who happened to be tuned in Friday night saw in real time: a sequence of locally centric slides, accompanied by audio from local radio station WERW, eventually giving way to the public-access return of the number one-rated host in late-night television.
Colbert used his final CBS monologue Thursday to remind viewers that his first episode of The Late Show in 2015 had technically been a public-access takeover in Monroe, Michigan. “Show business being what it is these days,” he quipped, “that’s probably where you’ll see me next.”
As it turned out, that was not just a punchline. It was a programming note.
The new episode—whose surprise Friday-night arrival was first reported by LateNighter—was produced under Colbert’s own banner rather than CBS’s, reviving the spirit of his original Monroe detour. It featured returning Only in Monroe hosts Michelle Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson, Jack White as Colbert’s musical director, Jeff Daniels, Steve Buscemi, Byron Allen by FaceTime, and a closing set-destruction cameo from Eminem.
And for Monroe viewers who missed the show’s premiere, it won’t be a one-night-only affair: the episode is also being re-aired multiple times throughout the weekend.
Watch what Monroe cable TV subscribers saw last night at the start and end of Colbert’s Only in Monroe return below and watch the complete broadcast here.
Something is afoot.