The “Morning Joe” panelists are openly wondering how much longer the remaining late night hosts have in the wake of Stephen Colbert’s final episode.
On Friday’s “Morning Joe,” a slew of guests all opined about what Colbert’s exit – and the ending of “The Late Show” entirely – means for Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers. Jon Meacham, a history author who has been on Colbert’s show in the past, even had a warning.
“What Colbert has done, beginning with his character ‘Stephen Colbert’ and his attack on truthiness, and really kind of the prescient ability he had to see where so much of our public life was going back in his Comedy Central days. And then he brought that to this enormous audience – what passes certainly for an enormous audience in this atomized world,” he said. “That’s another thing to think about, think of how many people had to tune in to Ed Sullivan in 1964 because there weren’t that many other options.”
“Here, Colbert was as the capstone and one of the few things that could bring a lot of people together in this media climate,” Meacham continued. “I think we’re going to miss him, miss his insight. For those who say, ‘Oh, he was too political, too partisan’ – always worry when they come for the comedians.”
MS NOW host Willie Geist later pointed out that Colbert falling into the crosshairs of President Donald Trump likely played some part in the cancellation. He added that the president is now focused on the remainder of the late night squad.
“Obviously, Jimmy Kimmel has come under withering fire, almost weekly it seems, from President Trump,” Geist said. “He’s been suspended and come back to his job. There were calls a couple of weeks ago after the Correspondents’ Dinner for him to be fired. He has not been.”
Colbert wrapped up his final show on Thursday in a mostly by-the-books fashion, but topped the series finale with a number of celebrity guest cameos and a performance by Paul McCartney. The episode included visits from Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Bryan Cranston, Tig Notaro, Tim Meadows and Elijah Wood, while “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart also appeared to give Colbert a final message from Paramount.
“We like to think every episode of ‘The Late Show’ is kind of special, and we thought the best way to celebrate what we’ve done over the last 11 years is just do a regular episode where I come out here and talk about the national conversation,” Colbert explained to his CBS viewers.
To conclude his late night run, Colbert was joined by Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste and McCartney to sing a quartet of Costello’s 1977 hit “Jump Up” and, finally, The Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye.”
