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"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" recently announced it was cancelled, but what would have happened if Craig Ferguson, left, had replaced David Letterman instead of Stephen Colbert, right?
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"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" recently announced it was cancelled, but what would have happened if Craig Ferguson, left, had replaced David Letterman instead of Stephen Colbert, right? (Gregg DeGuire / Getty Images ; Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

If Craig Ferguson Was Given 'The Late Show,' It Wouldn't Have Been Cancelled

 By C. Douglas Golden  July 21, 2025 at 5:27am
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Well, it’s official: “The Colbert Report” is finally getting canceled. It’s no longer called that, mind you. It’s now “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” Nobody seemed to realize that, when David Letterman’s old gig was given to Colbert on the basis of his annoying, fake, facile, inflammatory right-wing pundit, he wasn’t really playing a character — he was just an annoying, fake, facile, inflammatory left-wing pundit instead. At the point you realized the whole act wasn’t an act but sincerely who he was, it got a lot less funny.

There are no shortage of reasons why Colbert’s show will soon be no longer. Call it the decline of the late-night talk show or blame it on Colbert’s obnoxious prep-school bully personality on top of his politics, or maybe even note that, in future years, “The Vax-Scene Dance” will replace “Jumping the Shark” as a pop-culture colloquialism for the moment where a show has officially reached the point of profoundly diminishing returns: