The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends tonight, and while I could spend the bulk of my time talking about how thin CBS’s reasoning for canceling the show feels, or how obvious the politics surrounding it are, I think most people already understand that part.

So why use this as a way to air my grievances when I could instead use it as a celebration?

Yes, The Late Show itself is ending.

A franchise that started with David Letterman — a weird, scrappy, deeply influential late-night show that slowly became an institution — is disappearing from network television entirely. But canceling the show doesn’t erase Letterman’s legacy. His influence on comedy and late-night television is too massive and too enduring for that.

For me, though, this moment is really about Stephen Colbert.

Because in one form or another, Stephen Colbert has been coming into my home through the television almost every night for close to thirty years.

My first exposure to him was on The Daily Show during the Craig Kilborn era, where he mostly played a parody of a field reporter from some overdramatic news magazine show. He could affect his voice in a way that made every ridiculous thing sound incredibly important.

Around that same time, you could also catch him showing up in wonderfully absurd things like Strangers with Candy, which hinted early on at how naturally he could move between sharp satire and complete nonsense.

Then The Daily Show evolved into something more political, and Colbert evolved with it.

He became “Stephen Colbert,” the pompous faux-conservative personality that eventually spun off into The Colbert Report. And the sheer endurance required to stay in character at that level for nearly two decades still feels impossible to me. It’s like comedy’s version of Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak or Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games record — a combination of discipline, improvisation, intelligence, and stamina that we probably won’t see replicated again.

The Colbert Report became my favorite nightly show.

It was smart, ridiculous, satirical, goofy, weirdly educational, and genuinely hilarious. But it also had heart underneath all the irony. Colbert managed to navigate the kind of edgy, ironic comedy that dominated the 2000s without falling into the trap a lot of that era’s comedy did.

Comedians back then often used offensive language or exaggerated ignorance as a kind of hall pass to say ugly things while hiding behind irony.

Colbert refined that style into something much sharper and more purposeful. He was playing a character, but there was never confusion about who the joke was actually targeting.

He was Archie Bunker with complete self-awareness.

When Colbert left Comedy Central to take over The Late Show, I wasn’t really sure what the show would become. I don’t think he was either. Those early episodes had some growing pains. You could feel him trying to figure out who Stephen Colbert the entertainer was without the character protecting him.

But watching the show slowly evolve into its own thing became part of the fun.

Soon, The Late Show became the biggest show in late night. And what made that success interesting is that Colbert proved he never actually needed the character to hold an audience.

He was still funny. Still absurd. Still incredibly sharp.

But now there was more openness too. More sincerity. More grace.

Some of the moments I’ll remember most aren’t even jokes. They’re conversations about grief, faith, loss, humanity, and how people endure difficult things. I still think about his conversation with then–Vice President Joe Biden after the death of Beau Biden — an interview that stopped feeling like late-night television and became something far more human and vulnerable.

His monologues after tragedies often felt like someone trying to help steady the room for a few minutes — using empathy, humility, and sincerity to put words to feelings a lot of people were struggling to process themselves.

Even during those heavier moments, the show never lost its willingness to be deeply stupid in the best possible way.

There were still ridiculous songs. Elaborate bits. Immature jokes. Endless innuendo. The show balanced sincerity and silliness in a way very few late-night programs ever managed consistently.

What also made Colbert stand apart was his curiosity.

The show wasn’t just celebrities promoting movies. There were poets, scientists, historians, activists, novelists, playwrights, journalists, and composers. Colbert approached guests like someone who was genuinely excited to talk to them, and that enthusiasm became contagious.

His love for Broadway was another huge part of the show’s identity. Musical performances didn’t feel obligatory. They felt personal. You could feel how much affection he had for theater, performers, musicians, and artists.

And the music bookings in general were fantastic.

The Late Show constantly introduced me to artists I never would have discovered otherwise. Big acts, obscure acts, indie bands, jazz musicians, folk singers — the show treated music like something worth sharing instead of just chasing whatever happened to be trending.

That was the real magic of Colbert’s version of The Late Show.

You could feel the joy behind it.

The joy in the performances. The interviews. The writing. The strange little recurring bits. The audience interactions. The sense that the people making the show actually loved putting it together every night.

Over the years while Stephen Colbert was on television, I moved through almost every major phase of my adult life. My twenties. Figuring out a career. Dating. Falling in love. Getting married. Buying a house. Having kids. Watching those kids become teenagers.

And through all of that, Colbert was just… there.

Not as someone I knew personally, obviously, but as a consistent voice and presence moving through different eras of my own life at the same time I watched him move through different eras of his career.

What I think I ultimately took from him was the idea that intelligence doesn’t have to come at the expense of kindness. That conviction doesn’t require cruelty. That humor works best when it’s grounded in curiosity, empathy, absurdity, and genuine humanity instead of cynicism.

Also, it never hurts to embrace being really, really silly.

That balance mattered.

Because for nearly thirty years, Stephen Colbert was one of those rare television voices that could make you laugh, make you think, and occasionally help you process the world a little differently.

And that’s not something easily replaced.