Thursday night was Stephen Colbert’s last episode of The Late Show on CBS after eleven years. Friday night, he was hosting a community access channel in Monroe, Michigan with Jack White as his volunteer music director. If that is not the most Colbert thing that has ever happened, it is at least top five.

By Maplestime Entertainment Desk | North America | May 23, 2026 Source: The Associated Press | CTV News | Last verified: May 23, 2026

Key Takeaways

• Stephen Colbert recorded his final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS on Thursday May 21, 2026
• Exactly 24 hours later, Colbert appeared as guest host of Only in Monroe — a community access television show in Monroe, Michigan
• Michigan native Jack White joined the broadcast as Colbert’s self-titled “volunteer music director”
• Jeff Daniels was interviewed during the hour-long show, Eminem appeared on tape as a fictional “fire marshal,” and Steve Buscemi appeared in a recorded bit
• Colbert spoke via FaceTime with comedian Byron Allen, who will host Comics Unleashed — the show replacing The Late Show on CBS
• This was Colbert’s second time hosting Only in Monroe — he also appeared in summer 2015, just before taking over from David Letterman
• CBS is replacing The Late Show with Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed

From the Ed Sullivan Theater to Monroe, Michigan

Most people who spend eleven years hosting one of the most watched late night shows in America wrap up their final episode, go to the wrap party, and take a quiet week off before figuring out what comes next.

Stephen Colbert is not most people.

Twenty-four hours after recording his farewell episode at the iconic Ed Sullivan Theater in New York — the same stage that hosted The Beatles in 1964, Elvis Presley, and decades of American television history — Colbert showed up on Only in Monroe, a community access channel broadcasting along the shores of Lake Erie in southeast Michigan.

Not as a guest. As the host.

“Looking forward to hearing some of your music, time permitting,” Colbert told Jack White during the broadcast, as laughter from a handful of people off camera punctuated the joke.

White, a Michigan native who grew up in Detroit about 40 miles northeast of Monroe, served as what Colbert called his “volunteer music director.” It is the kind of absurdist, deadpan comedy that has defined Colbert’s sensibility across his entire career — from The Daily Show to The Colbert Report to eleven years behind the Late Show desk.

The Lineup Was Genuinely Impressive for Community TV

What makes the Only in Monroe appearance so perfectly Colbert is that he did not show up alone and wing it. He brought a roster.

Jeff Daniels — the Michigan-born actor best known for films like Dumb and Dumber, The Newsroom, and The Squid and the Whale — sat for a full interview during the hour-long broadcast that the Associated Press noted “leaned heavily into Michigan-centric jokes.”

Steve Buscemi appeared in a recorded bit playing a character connected to a fictional Buscemi’s Pizza in Monroe — the kind of deeply specific local comedy that only works because it is so committed to the bit.

And then there was Eminem.

The Detroit rapper — who was raised in the city and has been one of Michigan’s most famous cultural exports for nearly three decades — appeared on tape as the “fire marshal” who officially approves setting fire to what remained of the set after Colbert, White, and Daniels spent the end of the show destroying it.

The image of Eminem, deadpan, approving the burning of a community television set, is everything.

The FaceTime With Byron Allen — Passing the Torch

Amid the chaos and the helium balloons and the Michigan jokes, Colbert took a moment that actually mattered.

He spoke via FaceTime with comedian Byron Allen, who will host Comics Unleashed — the show CBS has chosen to replace The Late Show in Colbert’s time slot.

The exchange was brief but it was notable. A man walking out of one of the most recognisable chairs in American television taking a moment to acknowledge the person sitting down in a different one. Whether you read that as gracious or melancholy probably depends on how you feel about the end of Colbert’s run.

The Helium Balloons Moment

Perhaps the most purely joyful image from the entire broadcast involves the show’s regular hosts — Michelle Baumann and former Miss America Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson — sucking helium from balloons with Colbert while discussing Baumann’s battle with cancer.

A warning appeared on screen throughout: “Former professional TV host, do not try this at home.”

The combination of warmth, absurdity, and genuine human connection in that single moment captures something essential about what Colbert has always done well. He can make you laugh and make you feel something at the same time without either of those things undermining the other.

This Was Not the First Time

Here is the detail that makes the whole thing land differently once you know it.

This was not Colbert’s first appearance on Only in Monroe. He hosted an episode in the summer of 2015 — just before he took over The Late Show from David Letterman. That means he bookended his entire CBS run with appearances on a community access channel in a small Michigan city on the shores of Lake Erie.

He started with Monroe. He ended with Monroe. Whatever comes next for Stephen Colbert — and something will — he apparently decided that the place to process the transition was not a press junket or a farewell special or a streaming deal announcement. It was a show that most people in North America have never heard of, with hosts who suck helium and talk about cancer and welcome a former network television star like he belongs there.

He kind of does.

What Happens to The Late Show Now

CBS has confirmed that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is ending and that Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed will take over the time slot. Allen is a comedian and media entrepreneur who built Entertainment Studios into one of the largest Black-owned media companies in America.

The transition represents a significant shift for CBS’s late night programming — from the deeply political, satirical voice Colbert brought to the desk to Allen’s more traditional stand-up and variety format.

Colbert’s final episode aired on CBS on Thursday May 21, 2026. It has not yet been confirmed what is next for Colbert himself, though someone with his profile, profile, and audience rarely disappears from screens for long.

Sources: The Associated Press | CTV News | Only in Monroe YouTube | Data current as of May 23, 2026.

Have a correction? Email [email protected]

Did you watch Colbert’s final Late Show episode? And did you catch the Only in Monroe appearance? Tell us in the comments — and share this with every Colbert fan who needs to hear about the helium balloons and Eminem as the fire marshal.