Nice, couldn't remember where I'd heard that song before.

Yeah, something pretty surreal about seeing Kissinger singing along, now that the Strangelove reference is stuck in my head.

Here's the whole guestlist, in case you were curious like I was

http://news.yahoo.com/stephen-colbert-final-show-katie-couric- backstage-202713148.html

mostly because I could've sworn that was Bill O'Reilly in front of Cookie Monster at 5:12 or so. Because that would've been awesome. Also where was John Oliver?

Breaking the character gives him flexibility and makes him seem more likable. Is he as great as everyone's been saying lately? Maybe, but for me the big news is still the departure of Letterman.

Remember that his pundit character only started in response to Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the Fox News crowd, and before 9/11 The Daily Show was pretty much apolitical. See some of the "best of Stephen Colbert" clips on the Daily Show site. The subject matter of his humor has changed but he was still pretty damn funny; any improvement in his humor has been because he's gotten more experience at it, not because he was locked into a character.

I noticed that there was an inverse relationship between how much people were getting in to the performance an how likely I was to know who they were.

JHM, I thought Letterman quit in like 2005.

I don't know, none of what I've seen lately from Colbert has been particularly good, not in years. He used to be brilliant, back when he was strictly deadpan, but his act became a victim of his own success, and after getting comfortable with his own show he transformed from "absurdist character actor" into "giggly jackass who thinks highly of himself". I hate to say it, but at this point, he deserves Late Night, and Late Night deserves him.

I've loved Colbert since Strangers With Candy, I hope he can pull off the change, interested to see how normal Steve comes across compared to the Colbert Report character.

I think he'll be fine.. like him or not, Jimmy Fallon has brought a lot more humor to The Tonight Show, or at least something that would appeal to a younger audience. If anything, I'd choose Letterman if I need to make a choice because of the music. It probably doesn't hurt that Letterman and I both have the same favorite singer/songwriter; last time I watched it was because a friend of mine's band was playing on the show. Colbert seems to have sort of the same tastes, and wouldn't necessarily say "Pitchfork gave this a 9/10 this morning, book them, where's my Danish" and run to take a piss when the band's performing. Letterman seems to actually listen to and appreciate it.

As for his persona, yeah I think I first saw him on SWC as well, maybe something before, and that's more of his regular style of comedy, as racist and homophobic and gay at the same time as his character was. I don't think I'll catch him any more than I catch anything on NBC or CBS, but I think he'll do a good job as Just Stephen.

Yep.