Stephen Colbert Leaves The “Report” With A Star-Studded Goodbye And Gaining Immortality

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Stephen Colbert wrapped up his 9 year run on “The Colbert Report” on Thursday. “Big musical numbers” is probably the last phrase you would use to describe the political parody show over the past 9 seasons, but that’s how it went out. Stephen Colbert went into the song, “We’ll Meet Again” and then was joined on stage by his executive producer and friend Jon Stewart from the Daily Show. At first, this looked like it was going to be a fun and sweet duet between two pals, but then it instantly grew funner, sweeter and much much bigger.

The chorus giving a send off to Colbert included Randy Newman on piano, Willie Nelson, Bryan Cranston, Tom Brokaw, Mandy Patinkin, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sam Waterson, Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Daniels, Ric Ocasek, Katie Couric, James Franco (thought he wasn’t doing press), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Barry Manilow, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Patrick Stewart, Alan Alda, Henry Kissinger, George Lucas, an astronaut on the International Space Station, JJ Abrams, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Keith Olbermann, Andrew Sullivan, Ken Burns, Charlie Rose, Toby Keith, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Eliot Spitzer, David Gregory, Andy Cohen, Senator Cory Booker, Tim Meadows, Elijah Wood, Mike Huckabee, Bob Costas, soldiers in Afghanistan, Michael Stipe, Christiane Amanpour, Jeff Tweedy, Mark Cuban, Samantha Power, Leslie Stahl, Smaug, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jon Batiste, Stone Phillips, Peter Frampton, Alexai Lalas, Nate Silver, Dan Savage, Thomas Friedman, Matt Taibbi, Paul Krugman, Vince Gilligan (chained in the basement) Smaug the Dragon, Bill Clinton via text and video and an incredible amount of other people.

Having become immortal earlier in the show by shooting and killing The Grim “Grimmy” Reaper and conquering death, Stephen Colbert flew off with his Captain America shield in hand into eternity on Santa’s sleigh with a unicorn President Abraham Lincoln and the “Man with All the Answers”, Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek.

Colbert came back for one final goodbye from his eternal sleigh ride to thank the Colbert Nation and all his guests. Well, he only thanked Mavis Staples and hoped that she would call the other thousands of guests on Friday and pass along his thanks. In the final moment of the show, Stephen Colbert went full circle and tossed it back to Jon Stewart in the Daily Show newsroom where Stewart took the audience out with a Moment of Zen featuring the two breaking character. That’s all from the Colbert Report.

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