Stephen Colbert finally did a show even Donald Trump could have enjoyed.
OK, maybe not him. But virtually anyone else who wandered over to CBS to catch Colbert signing off from his run as a star of late-night television would surely be struck, and maybe surprised by, the upbeat, mostly lighthearted and almost entirely non-political dose of entertainment on display.
Colbert opened his final Late Show by saying that he’d taken to calling his show “the joy machine” and, even with a few jabs at his corporate ownership and references to being untimely ripped from the womb of late night, he seemed determined to make the night less a funeral than a celebration.
“We were lucky to be here the last eleven years,” he said, with credible sincerity—a line that captured the spirit of the night better than any grievance could have.
The audience likely shared the same sentiment, both toward the finale and the full body of Colbert’s work in late night.
As with most late-night finales, this show was big, in direct contradiction to the star’s opening promise to steer clear of a “huge special” and just do a regular show. None of his regular shows included such a raft of celebrity walk-ons, nor clips going back to Jack Benny, nor a special-effects “wormhole” that symbolically enveloped the show and its star.
This one upheld tradition by closing with the requisite farewell theme that has marked almost every late-night finale (or near finale) since Bette Midler serenaded Carson in 1992, with “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).”
That the exit tune last night was led by arguably the most momentous act—or at least one quarter of it—ever to grace the stage at the Ed Sullivan Theater, Paul McCartney, did not hurt the power of the rousing musical send-off.
“Hello Goodbye” fit the bill as a farewell theme, but again with an upbeat twist—as much Hello to whatever is next as Goodbye to what has been.
Maybe more notable than anything that got on the air during the extended-length broadcast was what did not get on the air. Donald Trump wasn’t mentioned even once.
The president was referenced obliquely, as when Colbert reacted to McCartney revealing that during the Beatles’ introductory appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964 they were caked with “orange makeup” before they went on. He said, “So that’s where that started.”
Colbert also told Ryan Reynolds, during the pro-forma celeb walk-on section, that “we were canceled but I don’t want to talk about it.”
CBS was targeted more directly. A talking dolphin got in one serious shot at CBS calling Colbert’s cancellation, “purely a business decision.”
Colbert briefly channeled Conan O’Brien’s memorable Tonight Show bit by having the band play theme music from the Peanuts TV specials following news that suits have recently been filed over the use of the music without permission. “Oh no,” Colbert said. “Hope this doesn’t cost CBS any money!”
But CBS really had little to complain about. Not only did Colbert do a politics-free monologue, with jokes that could play on the show the network decided to sell out to rather than create something of its own, Comics Unleashed (well, maybe not the ones about “hole inspectors” and the “Erection Connection” doctor hired to be an assistant secretary of health), but the show looked to be utterly stuffed with commercials.
This was a network walking away from a signature star, but not before wringing every last dollar possible from his fame, and using the platform to pump upcoming series like Cupertino. It looked like CBS may have made some real money on this “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” episode. Maybe even helped fill that $40 million hole in the corporate wallet.
The celeb walk-ons, all claiming they were supposed to be the final guest, were, as they always have been, contrivances; but they all looked happy to be there.
Most of the formal set-up/punchline jokes didn’t land hard—but this was clearly intended to be a “soft” show.
There was some playful skewering of finale expectations, with an obviously fake reference to the big guest being The Pope, though he was refusing to appear because his green room demands had not been met. Not a big laugh except when a papal arm hurled away a worthless regular hot dog instead of his preferred Chicago style as he uttered the holy sayonara: “Leo, out!”
McCartney, who seemed joyous as well to be there—still great hair though of indeterminate color—got a nice little laugh with his anecdote about how people sometimes misinterpret his songs by citing “Strawberry Fields” (written by John, but who’s counting?) and its line: “Living is easy with eyes closed.” Some people seem to think the line is: “Living is easy with nice clothes.”
A little chuckle anyway.
The big effects bit with the wormhole didn’t totally hit. But it too kept things from overflowing with the emotion of a goodbye.
Maybe the most moving moment came at the close with Colbert alone at a big Late Show power switch, obviously primed to be pulled down.
But McCartney appeared and Stephen let him do the deed. The last surviving frontman of the Beatles turning out the lights on the Ed Sullivan Theater. That had a little choked-up flavor to it.
Or maybe you had to be there in ’64.
More than nostalgia, or emotion, or even grievance, what the Colbert finale drove home was the joy of a kind of television that is rarely going to appear anymore.
And, everybody, including CBS, knows it.
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