It has been a madcap few weeks as “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” winds down after an 11-year run that also signals the end of 33 years of late night altogether on CBS.

High jinks have run the gamut from tearful reminiscing, to furniture-flinging, to airing snippets from the cutting-room floor. It’s ratcheting up to what promises to be an emotional farewell from Colbert to his millions of fans — at least as far as his current platform goes. The consensus is that the departing host will find other ways to bring his sharp wits and comedic talent to the world.

“You can take a man’s show,” “Late Show” predecessor David Letterman told him. “You can’t take a man’s voice.”

Last week, Letterman helped Colbert smash a giant CBS logo with objects they hurled from the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, including set furniture, a three-tiered farewell cake, and Letterman’s signature watermelons. Letterman, who earlier this month branded CBS execs as “lying weasels,” said on Colbert he’s “pissed” that the entire late show franchise is ending with Colbert’s show.

Likewise, on Tuesday Jon Stewart, Colbert’s friend and producing partner for decades, passed on a bit of advice he’d gotten from Letterman when MTV scrapped his own short-lived “The Jon Stewart Show” in 1995.

“‘Don’t confuse cancellation for failure,'” Stewart recalled Letterman telling him.

Stewart then had two massive, state-of-the-art recliners brought onstage to demonstrate life after hosting. Stewart then welcomed Grammy winning singer Andra Day to the stage. Colbert’s jaw dropped as the renowned R&B songstress serenaded him with her signature hit “Rise Up.”

Since last year’s announcement, nary a guest has been able to resist skewering CBS and its parent company, Paramount+, for seeming to cave to political pressure during its bid to merge with Skydance Media last year. Though the network has insisted its cancellation announcement last July was purely a “financial decision,” it came as a surprise given that CBS had encouraged Colbert to sign a five-year contract rather than the three-year agreement he ultimately signed, he told The New York Times.

The announcement came three days after Colbert in his monologue called a $16 million settlement Paramount paid Donald Trump a big fat bribe” designed to curry favor with the administration ahead of the Skydance merger. The $8 billion merger did move forward, just a few days after CBS announced Colbert’s cancellation, and was approved and finalized by the end of the year.

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