Stephen Colbert‘s time as host of The Late Show is coming to an end in the 2026 TV schedule after CBS’ shocking cancellation in the summer. This isn’t the first of Colbert’s shows to come to an end after a solid run, but he did clarify one big way that the end of The Late Show has been handled differently than a certain Comedy Central project. He’s getting a lot more time to say goodbye than he and his fellow castmates did on Strangers With Candy.
New episodes of The Late Show have been airing (and crushing much of the other late night competition) with Stephen Colbert still interviewing A-list stars like Taylor Swift. CBS’ cancellation news in July came with the confirmation that The Late Show would end in May 2026. In contrast, Stephen Colbert never got the official word that Strangers With Candy was ending back in 2000. Speaking about the Comedy Central sitcom that ran for three seasons at the New York Comedy Festival (via THR), Colbert said:
We never got the final word. …No one ever said, ‘You’re canceled.’ They just stopped sending the checks.
According to Colbert, the Strangers With Candy team had asked Comedy Central for the official confirmation after the show was unceremoniously left off of the schedule, with the goal of penning a proper finale. They were just told that “no decision has been made,” and that was the end of the series. Colbert shared the screen with Paul Dinello, Greg Hollimon, and Amy Sedaris. He reunited with Sedaris on CBS in the 2025 TV schedule for a deadly episode of Elsbeth. (Strangers With Candy is now available streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.)
Even though the show ended after just thirty episodes from 1999-2000, the cast did come back together for a prequel film in 2005. The cancellation obviously didn’t sour Colbert on working with Comedy Central; The Colbert Report premiered in late 2005 and ran for more than 1400 episodes across nine seasons before coming to an end in 2014. Colbert made the move over to mainstream late night television the next year with The Late Show.
Now, with just weeks left to go before the new year, The Late Show is running out of time. In the wake of the cancellation news over the summer, Stephen Colbert joked about being “available in June” for offers from Netflix and Amazon, but later said that he wanted to focus on getting to savor every day that was left on CBS and “land the plane.”
I do hope that he gets his wish about the specific person he’d love to interview before The Late Show ends: Pope Leo. Colbert pitched the idea of going to Chicago together for some deep dish and a White Sox game, or even for him to visit in Rome. The openly Catholic host getting a 1:1 with the first American pope would be a big win ahead of the final credits rolling. Whether he does get that miracle or not, one thing is certain: CBS isn’t giving The Late Show the Strangers With Candy treatment.
For now, you can find Stephen Colbert on CBS on weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET for installments of The Late Show.
