Just months after Michael Strahan became the first 20-time guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver become the first guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to earn that distinction.
Oliver broke a record for Stephen Colbert’s CBS program last night, where he appeared to promote the new season of his own late-night show, Last Week Tonight.
“This is a bit of a milestone for us tonight,” Colbert told Oliver at the top of their interview. “You retake the lead tonight for most times on the show.”
That lead had been briefly held by CBS News reporter John Dickerson, whose nineteenth appearance came in January, the same month he began co-anchoring CBS Evening News.
To commemorate the occasion, Colbert showed Oliver a photograph of his first appearance on the show back in September 2015. (The now-graying pair cringed at the painful reminder of how much they have aged since then.)
Jimmy Fallon recognized Strahan’s twentieth visit—which came last September—with a more positive prize, presenting the Good Morning America anchor with a framed ID badge.
While Oliver’s 20-timer status came four months after Strahan achieved that milestone on Fallon’s Tonight, Oliver attainted his a faster pace. Colbert’s program debuted over a year-and-a-half after Fallon’s.
In addition to his twenty appearances as a guest, Oliver has made over a half-a-dozen additional appearances on the show, participating in pre-taped bits including installments of Flipped Interview and Rescue Dog Rescue.
