STEPHEN COLBERT’S EMOTIONAL LATE-NIGHT REUNION HAS FANS TERRIFIED A GOODBYE IS COMING

Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers.Credit: 

Scott Kowalchyk/cbs

Stephen Colbert just got the gang back together.

On Monday’s episode of The Late Show, the soon-to-be former late-night host welcomed fellow hosts Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers.

The gathering was significant not just because that’s a lot of late night in one room, but because it marked a reunion for the group. They memorably banded together in 2023, during the strike, to create a limited-run podcast called Strike Force Five, which raised money for their out-of-work staffs.

They spoke about the fast approaching May 21 series finale of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which they plan to mark with a video episode releasing Wednesday, May 13. Just as the podcast originally did, the project will benefit nonprofit World Central Kitchen, which provides meals for humanitarian, climate, and community crises globally.

“When I got knocked off the air for a few days, people canceled Disney+. Why aren’t you people canceling Parmount+?,” Kimmel asked the studio audience. “Cause you didn’t have it in the first place?”

He got a lot of laughs, as did a story the group told about the time they had a public gathering and only the Jimmys were recognized. Oliver, who said he had been asked to take a photo, joked that the experience had been a “bath of humiliation” for him.

Colbert put a question to the group that he said he’d been asked over and over in recent months: Can they make a case for late night TV to continue to exist?

“Why should you have to defend late night?” Kimmel said. “And why is that question even asked? Ryan Seacrest doesn’t get asked that question about Wheel of Fortune or whatever the hell he’s hosting.”

Oliver deadpanned that he desperately wants to hear what Seacrest would have to say about such a question: ” I am gonna be leaning forward waiting for what he says.”

Colbert asked, too, if the men had ever thought they would have a job that the president of the United States would have strong feelings about.

“You know what’s even weirder?” Kimmel interjected. “We’re doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about.”

But, as Meyers reminded him, “Most of us have avoided that part.”

Colbert closed the interview with a game of “How well do you know your fellow late-night hosts?” with several “most-likely-to questions” created by Late Show writers.

The men found out which of them has made out with the most guests: Colbert, who name-dropped Helen Mirren, Sally Field, Andrew Garfield, and others. Fallon admitted, however, to getting “full tongue” from Martin Short during a Saturday Night Live skit, which was “more than I’ve ever made out with anyone in high school.”

Colbert also claimed the highest score on celebrity foot aesthetic site WikiFeet with a 4.98 score to Fallon’s 4.73, Kimmel’s 4.75, Oliver’s 4.76, and Meyers’ 4.77.

“You actually have time in the day to go on WikiFeed and give yourself 5 stars?” Meyers jokingly chided.

Colbert noted that all of his guests had been doing their shows longer than he had been hosting The Late Show, and that they would continue after.

“You’re like the candy shell, I’m the nougat filling…and then somebody came along and just sucked it out,” he shared.

Kimmel agreed that the loss of Colbert and The Late Show was great.

“It’s like when your young wife dies,” he said to his fellow hosts, who looked stunned at the comparison. “It’s sad is what I’m saying. It’s such a tragedy. It is ‘gone too soon.’”

CBS announced in July that Colbert’s show would end after its current season, which the network said was “purely a financial” move.

Colbert also reminded people that an auction of items from the show’s set is still underway, with profits going to charity.