This star-studded send-off included a performance of Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again.” Take a listen to the final moments of this epic show.
Stephen Colbert took his final bow as his right-wing political pundit character during Thursday night’s Colbert Report. The show might be over, but we’re left with a finale song featuring more famous cameos than 1985’s “We Are The World” and just about everyone from Live Aid combined.
Just how many people squeezed on stage for a part in “We’ll Meet Again?” At least 106, not including the Colbert Report staff. You read that right. The cameos here easily broke into the triple digits.
After nearly a decade of interviews, Stephen Colbert has clearly made a few friends. Some of the biggest names in music made an appearance, including Jeff Tweedy, Willie Nelson, Cyndi Lauper, Ric Ocasek, Michael Stipe, Toby Keith, Barry Manilow, Pussy Riot and Peter Frampton, to only name a tiny portion of the huge list.
He was joined on stage by film business legends like George Lucas, Elijah Wood, Bryan Cranston and Patrick Stewart. He even had a cameo by a former US president. In a list that can only be described as “other,” Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Segway inventor Dean Kamen got some time in the spotlight too.
For a song that looks like it would be an utter disaster on paper (see “We Are The World”), it sounded surprisingly clear. Everyone seemed to be in tune, creating a pleasant backdrop that was a sweetly touching tribute to one of the funniest men alive.
It really is impossible to pull a concise list of names out of this lineup without leaving off a major player. See the full list of performers below:
Stephen Colbert
Jon Stewart
Randy Newman
Willie Nelson
Bryan Cranston
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Francis Collins
Tom Brokaw
Mandy Patinkin
Lil Buck
Yo-Yo Ma
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Sam Waterston
Jeff Daniels
Cyndi Lauper
Big Bird
Colbert’s lawyer Trevor Potter
Keith Olbermann
Andrew Sullivan
David Hallberg
Katie Couric
Ken Burns
Ric Ocasek
Gloria Steinem
Charlie Rose
Samantha Power
Michael Stipe
James Franco
Cookie Monster
Toby Keith
Segway inventor Dean Kamen
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young
Gen. Raymond T. Odierno
Barry Manilow
David Gregory
Jeff Tweedy
Christiane Amanpour
Patrick Stewart
Andy Cohen
Stone Phillips
Peter Frampton
Arianna Huffington
Naquasia LeGrand
Alan Alda
Senator Cory Booker
George Lucas
Alexi Lalas
Jon Batiste
Henry Kissinger
Elijah Wood
Mike Huckabee
Bob Costas
Tim Meadows
The Colbert Report staff
Pussy Riot
Vince Gilligan
Bill Clinton
Terry Virts
J.J. Abrams
Smaug
Jake Tapper
Lesley Stahl
Terry Gross
Sen. Claire McCaskill
Norm Ornstein
Jeffrey Toobin
Garrett Reisman
Emily Bazelon
David Leonhardt
Matt Taibbi
Eliot Spitzer
Nate Silver
John Colbert
Madeline Colbert
Evie Colbert
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Paulina Porizkova
Peter Colbert
Dan Savage
Cliff Sloan
Thomas Friedman
David Remnick
Paul Krugman
Bing West
Bradley Whitford
Jim Hoskinson
Ann Patchett
George Saunders
Richard Clarke
Maureen Dowd
Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton
Jimmy Wales
Mark Cuban
Grover Norquist
Bill de Blasio
Garrett Reisman
Shepard Fairey
Steven Pinker
Paul Rieckhoff
Ed Viesturs
Brian Greene
Father Jim Martin
Jonathan Alter
Joe Quesada
George Church
Alex Trebek
Watch the full video of the performance and Alex Trebek’s appearance in the end skit below:
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