{"id":818647,"date":"2026-05-24T08:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T08:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818647\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T08:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T08:46:13","slug":"colberts-sudden-return-to-late-night-it-happened-on-public-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818647\/","title":{"rendered":"Colbert\u2019s Sudden Return to Late Night? It Happened on Public Access."},"content":{"rendered":"

When the comedian Stephen Colbert hosted the final episode of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d on CBS<\/a> on Thursday, he told his viewers that the next place they would most likely see him was on public-access television in Michigan.<\/p>\n

Turns out, that was no joke.<\/p>\n

On Friday night, Colbert hosted an episode of \u201cOnly in Monroe,\u201d<\/a> which covers the happenings of Monroe, Mich., a town of about 20,000 people roughly 40 miles southwest of Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV,\u201d Colbert said near the beginning of the hourlong program, \u201cso I am grateful to be able to be here on Monroe Community Media before they also get acquired by Paramount.\u201d (The cancellation of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d coincided with the purchase of Paramount<\/a>, CBS\u2019s parent corporation, by the media company Skydance.)<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s episode of \u201cOnly in Monroe,\u201d which aired at the same time that \u201cThe Late Show\u201d did, shared a similar structure. Colbert opened with a monologue full of jokes about the show\u2019s small-scale operation and the town\u2019s experience with a Big Foot sighting. At one point, Colbert asked if the beer Milwaukee\u2019s Best was a sponsor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not?\u201d Colbert said to someone off camera. \u201cAnd we don\u2019t have any sponsors, and we actually lost a lot of money making the show tonight? Now I know how CBS felt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s regular hosts, Michelle Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson (a.k.a. Miss America 1988), were his first guests. Jack White, who grew up in Detroit, served as the musical director, playing songs on a boombox and a reel-to-reel player. Byron Allen, the comedian turned entrepreneur whose show \u201cComics Unleashed\u201d took over the \u201cLate Show\u201d time slot, made an appearance, as did the rapper Eminem. Both are from Michigan.<\/p>\n

The actor Steve Buscemi made a cameo in what he called a public service announcement for a local restaurant: Buscemi\u2019s Pizza & Subs (no relation).<\/p>\n

Colbert dished with guests throughout the show, took shots of an alcohol distilled nearby, taste-tested Monroe-style chili dogs (though the show appeared to forget which hot dog came from which restaurant) and made peanut butter, potato chip and barbecue sauce sandwiches with the actor Jeff Daniels, who lives in Michigan.<\/p>\n

Colbert, for his part, was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in South Carolina. But his appearance on \u201cOnly in Monroe\u201d was actually a homecoming. He first hosted an episode<\/a> of the show in 2015, a couple of months before taking the reins of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d from David Letterman. That time, he also interviewed the regular hosts of \u201cOnly in Monroe,\u201d and also welcomed Eminem, whom he introduced as \u201ca local Michigander who is making a name for himself in the competitive world of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colbert had not forgotten about that experience more than a decade later. During his final \u201cLate Show\u201d episode<\/a> on Thursday, he reminded his viewers of that appearance, telling them that the show had attracted an audience of a dozen people. \u201cShow business being what it is these days,” he said, \u201cthat\u2019s probably where you\u2019ll see me next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s version of \u201cOnly in Monroe\u201d ended with Colbert and his guests taking hammers to the show\u2019s set, and then lighting it on fire in a dumpster outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the comedian Stephen Colbert hosted the final episode of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d on CBS on Thursday, he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":818648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[101790,171,317372,214,15656,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-818647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-colbert","tag-entertainment","tag-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-tv-program","tag-michigan","tag-stephen","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116628683903904687","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}