THE GREAT RETURN

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“It’s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV,” he said on his new show.

Stephen Colbert did not stay away from late-night television for long.

About 24 hours after hosting his final episode of The Late Show on CBS, the 62-year-old showed up on Michigan public access television.

“We were lucky enough to be here for the last 11 years, all right? Can’t take this for granted,” Colbert said in The Late Show monologue on Thursday night, which also marked one of his most-watched shows ever and his final episode.

He then reflected on taking over the show from David Letterman in 2015, noting that it originally came “from a public access station in Monroe, Michigan, for an audience of 12 people,” adding, “that’s probably where you’ll see me next.”

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Though it was said in jest, that is exactly where audiences found Colbert next, as he returned on Friday to Only in Monroe, the Michigan public-access show he had taken over in 2015.

At the beginning of the program, Colbert reflected on his recent departure, saying, “It’s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV,” before taking another dig at the parent company of his canceled show. “I am grateful to be able to be here on Monroe Community Media before they also get acquired by Paramount,” he said.

CBS announced the cancellation of Colbert’s show last July, after 11 years on the air, soon after the host called its parent company, Paramount’s $16.5 million settlement with Trump, a “big, fat bribe.” The network cited “purely financial reasons,” though Colbert expressed doubts about that explanation.

During the one-hour episode of Only in Monroe, Colbert was joined by surprise guests Jack White and Jeff Daniels, along with virtual cameos from Steve Buscemi, Eminem, and Byron Allen via FaceTime, as well as regular hosts Michelle Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson.

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Styled like a conventional late-night show, it featured a Monroe-focused monologue and interviews before ending with Colbert, Baumann, Wilson, Daniels, and White throwing the set into a dumpster.

Similarly, last week Colbert was joined by Letterman on The Late Show, where they threw CBS-owned furniture from the set off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Building, tossing chairs toward a target featuring the CBS eye logo.

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According to CBS News, Colbert donated the rest of the set to the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, marking a notably different ending from his predecessor’s, as Letterman’s set was largely dismantled and thrown into dumpsters following his exit.

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While Colbert was back having fun behind the desk, President Donald Trump, 79—who has denied any role in the host’s firing—celebrated the moment by posting an AI-generated video showing him gleefully attacking the comedian and tossing him into a large trash receptacle.

Earlier in the night, Trump posted on Truth Social that “Stephen Colbert’s firing from CBS was the ‘Beginning of the End’ for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts.”

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