Above is the final five minutes of The Colbert Report, one of the greatest pillars of American satire for the past decade. Colbert moves on to take over for David Letterman on The Late Show next year on CBS, but we got one final run around the block this week on Comedy Central.
Colbert ended his show with an all-star rendition of “We’ll Meet Again,” a British song you’ll definitely recognize, made famous by Dame Vera Lynn in 1939. And when I say “all-star” or “star-studded,” that doesn’t even begin to describe it.
After first being joined by Jon Stewart, the stars really made their way out (at least 70 by our count): Patrick Stewart, Katie Couric, Charlie Rose, James Franco (because he suddenly has a lot more free time), George Lucas, Jeff Tweedy, Arianna Huffington, Jeff Daniels, Stone Phillips, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Francis Collins, Lil Buck, Yo Yo Ma, Sam Waterston, Big Bird & Cookie Monster, Andrew Young, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Toby Keith, Gloria Steinem, Mark Cuban, Paul Krugman, David Remnick, David Hallberg, Samantha Power, Barry Manilow, Tom Brokaw, Mandy Patinkin, Keith Olbermann, Mike Huckabee, Peter Frampton, Andy Cohen, Andrew Sullivan, Trevor Potter, Ric Ocasek, Ken Burns, David Gregory, Jake Tapper, Leslie Stahl, Vince Gilligan, Jon Batiste, Alexi Lalas, Naquasia LeGrand, Matt Taibbi, Eliot Spitzer, Robert Pinsky, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Stipe, Bryan Cranston, Randy Newman, Willie Nelson, Christiane Amanpour, Terry Gross, Alan Alda, Cory Booker, Bob Costas, Tim Meadows, General Raymond T. Odierno, Jeffrey Toobin, Thomas Friedman, Dean Kamen, Elijah Wood, and even Henry Freaking Kissinger.
A few people couldn’t make it, but recorded video messages: members of Pussy Riot, J.J. Abrams, and Bill Clinton, who contributed one of our favorite all time presidential tweets:
