Late Show host Stephen Colbert went all-in on the weirdness on Thursday night, embracing the surreal, awkward, and slightly ominous nature of doing a late night comedy talk show amidst a global pandemic.
Having been informed at the last minute by CBS that the network would start banning audiences from tapings on his Thursday show — a social distancing tactic that other late night shows have also undertaken to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Colbert had to perform in front of a smattering of his own staff. But he did not let it get in the way of his traditional, high-energy sprint around the Ed Sullivan Theater, even though, in this case, he didn’t get audience members slapping hands in return.
“As you may have noticed, none of you are here right now,” Colbert cracked after playing out the bizarre pantomime of greeting an imaginary packed house. “Only people in the audience — give a shot of this — only people in the audience are some members of my staff. Hi, guys.”
Quickly abandoning his routine, Colbert skipped his stand-up monologue and instead went to sit down at his desk, where he had somewhat foreboding chat with band leader Jon Batiste.
“How are you, Jon?”
“I’m good.”
“Good. Yeah, me, too.”
“How are you?”
“I actually don’t know how I am,” Batiste said, correcting himself.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, the virus, I don’t have symptoms.”
“Exactly,” Colbert noted.
“Which is the reason we don’t have an audience.”
“This is absolutely true. We’re just kind of winging it. This is rehearsal right now, which might be a good thing, because, in my mind, all of my jokes are perfect,” Colbert said, followed by an eerie silence. “The only person that ever disagrees with me is the audience. Can’t disagree with me now, can you?”
Colbert then laughed, pointed at his mouth and then added: “Ha! Look, I just got a laugh!”
A few, barely perceptible laughs followed.
“Here’s something — the most breaking news for me is when I learned that, because of the coronavirus, all of Broadway was shutting down tonight,” Colbert added. “That’s another reason we don’t have an audience. It’s a little sad because the Broadway shows had already been working on new precautions to keep the audience safe. Here’s footage from last night’s rehearsal of West Side Story.
After a pre-taped bit of two people in haz mat suites knife fighting, which was followed by a pregnant pause and one painful, sympathy chuckle from Batiste, Colbert said: “Right now, I’m imagining your laughter.”
“Last night, we learned that the NBA has suspended its season until further notice,” Colbert said, before trying to
Batiste helpfully riffed on the piano as he tried mightily to push out an entire audience’s worth of laughter — to no avail.
Meanwhile, Colbert casually stole a sip of bourbon before bravely soldiering on in this new, surreal era of late night comedy.
Watch the video above, via CBS.