Colbert and Letterman Unleash Savage Final Attack on CBS and Bari Weiss as Late Show Ends
All the news teams are on the ground in China to cover [music] this epic and historic summit. All except one. Because our CBS News colleague Tony Dokoupil is being forced to broadcast from Taiwan after failing to get a Chinese visa in time. Stephen Colbert took a multitude of scathing digs at his own network in one of his last episodes of The Late Show, even enlisting the help of talk show legend and founder of the program David Letterman to get revenge on CBS for canceling the show of 33 years.
(00:31) From destroying company-owned property to openly mocking CBS brass >> [music] >> and on-air talent, here are all the biggest parting shots from Thursday night’s blistering episode. Right from the get-go, the episode opened with a wild skit ridiculing CBS News’ controversial editor-in-chief Barry Weiss [music] and its new evening news anchor Tony Dokoupil, who head-scratchingly failed to obtain a Chinese [music] visa to cover President Trump’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart.
(01:01) Tony, what’s that on your head? Pumpkin. Here comes the head of CBS News Barry Weiss to help. Colbert didn’t stop there with the mocking of Weiss and Dokoupil, who’s been forced to broadcast the network’s coverage of the event in Beijing all the way from Taiwan, issuing CBS News with a new slogan, “When events happen, [music] we’re at most one country away.
(01:21) ” Shortly after a grand introduction, Letterman also got [music] straight to business and followed suit in mocking the network for canceling the show he created back in 1993. Well, you know what happened backstage? I’m standing backstage, a guy comes over and he [music] says he’s from CBS and then he fired me. Letterman went on to say he had, quote, “Every right to be pissed off,” but reassured [music] Colbert that while you can take a man’s show, you can’t take a man’s voice.
(01:48) The show then took an unexpected turn when the former host suddenly asked whether the network owned the furniture on the set before crew members hauled couches, props, and even a wedding cake to the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, where they were hurled onto a giant CBS logo. >> [cheering] >> Yes! >> [laughter] >> The segment seemed to be one of nostalgia for Letterman, who throughout his career would drop random objects from buildings, including the Ed Sullivan Theater, just for the heck of it.
(02:18) Letterman closed out the segment with a pointed message to CBS in the famous, albeit slightly altered words of their legendary former broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Anything you’d like to say to the audience before we go? Well, not necessarily to the audience, but to the folks at CBS, in the words of the great Ed Murrow, good night and good luck, mother CBS’s decision last summer to pull the plug on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert after an 11-year run stunned the entertainment world.
(02:47) >> [music] >> The move came just after Colbert had criticized the company’s $16 million settlement in a lawsuit from the president. [music] And during the high-profile merger of Trump-aligned David Ellison’s Skydance Media with CBS [music] parent company Paramount Global. CBS insisted the decision was purely an economic one, claiming the show was losing $40 million a year.
(03:08) >> [music] >> A notion that Letterman has openly criticized, even blasting the company’s owners as [music] lying weasels earlier this month. Colbert’s final episode is scheduled to air Thursday, May 21st.
