Paul McCartney, who appeared as a surprise guest on the final episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” gave the series the ceremonial honor of turning off the lights at the Ed Sullivan Theater, which has a lot of history with McCartney.
For the final song, McCartney and Colbert took to the stage to sing the Beatles classic “Hello Goodbye,” accompanied by Elvis Costello, former bandleader Jon Batiste, and current bandleader Luis Cato, before finally being joined on stage by a parade of staff members dancing in single file around the deer while the house band gave the 60s song a New Orleans-style coda.
Colbert was then filmed taking McCartney to a backstage electrical breaker, and the legendary rocker flipped the switch, which not only caused the lights to go out, but also saw the Sullivan Theater being sent into the green interdimensional portal introduced by Neil deGrasse Tyson earlier in the show.
The symbolic gesture came as McCartney was the show’s final interview subject and final musical performer, when the host asked him to tell the story of his first visit to the theater 62 years ago.
“Hello Goodbye” wasn’t the only musical number toward the end of the extended final telecast. In another filmed segment, Colbert, along with Costello and Batiste, performed a sit-down rendering of a song likely unfamiliar to 99% of the audience. It was a bluesy song that Costello wrote in the mid-1970s, and the demo was included as a bonus track on the My Aim Is True deluxe edition, but it wasn’t released until decades later.
Colbert asked McCartney for his memories of the Beatles’ theater visit. “We had never been to America, but we came here and people said this was the biggest show,” the musician recalled. “To tell you the truth, we had never heard of it, you know, in England,” he added, to explain their ignorance about America’s highest-rated variety show. “It was amazing…We had to go a few floors down to do our makeup…We went in there and the girls put our makeup on us, and it was like a bright orange color.”
“That’s very popular with certain demographics these days,” Colbert replied in one of the few references to Donald Trump in the episode, which was otherwise surprisingly apolitical. “Now we know where it started. Thank you so much, Paul McCartney,” he quipped.
The Beatles’ appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on February 9, 1964, is often credited with being the turning point that catapulted the already rapidly rising group into what would eventually become the most successful group in music history. This core piece of Beatlemania was watched by a reported 73 million viewers, or about half of the U.S. population at the time.
Colbert asked McCartney if he and his fellow Beatles were nervous about attending Sullivan’s show. “We were a little nervous, but we’re young kids and full of ourselves in a way,” McCartney responded, suggesting they were more cocky than anxious. “It was very exciting. Rock ‘n’ roll, blues, everything, all the music we loved, going back to Fred Astaire, came from America,” he said, suddenly becoming more patriotic. “The land of the free, the greatest democracy.” The audience may have been expecting the host to crack a joke, but he politely refrained from doing so. McCartney added: “I think that’s always been the case, and I hope that’s the case.”
Colbert’s last show largely stayed away from politics, and even his opening monologue tended toward less pointed jokes about volatile subjects like airport runway holes, as if the host was trying not to be hostile.
A virtual platoon of celebrity guests showed up that night, including Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Tim Meadows and Tig Notaro, many of whom stood from their seats and cracked jokes about what they expected to be the final guests. Colbert then joked about introducing Pope Leo as his final guest, and was depicted refusing to come out of his dressing room before the actual guest appeared for an interview following a commercial break.
McCartney then took a break and Colbert said he needed to go backstage to see the mysterious green light and humming. There he discovered what appeared to be a wormhole and explained the physics to deGrasse Tyson before he was sucked into it. Late night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver, who appeared live on the show last week, then reappeared. They explained that the metaphorical hole would eventually come for them, but the canceled Colbert had to go first. Elijah Wood also appeared in a one-second cameo/reaction shot when a derogatory reference to Lord of the Rings came up.
No guest was announced in advance for Colbert’s final show, but rumors were circulating that it would be McCartney, who releases his new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane on May 29th. McCartney appeared on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, performing his single “Days We Left Behind” as well as golden post-Beatles oldies “Band on the Run” and “Coming Up.”
McCartney has visited the Ed Sullivan Theater from time to time in the 62 years since the Beatles’ history-making performance there. On July 15, 2009, he and his band performed on the marquee on an episode of The David Letterman Show. McCartney came in for an interview in 2019 to promote his children’s book after Colbert took over the show from Letterman, who retired.
McCartney and Colbert’s history outside of the CBS show dates back to 2013, when McCartney and Colbert did an hour-long interview and performance with the host on the Comedy Central series “The Colbert Show.”
CBS announced earlier this week that the final episode of “The Late Show” will not be limited to its usual one-hour time slot, but instead will run overtime. There’s precedent for this: David Letterman’s farewell to the show in 2015 went into 17 minutes of overtime. Thursday night’s “Late Show” finale beat that slightly, ending at 12:54 p.m. ET.
It’s unclear whether the Ed Sullivan Theater will remain dark for an extended period of time or indefinitely, and CBS has not announced future plans for the venue, but there are no longer any late-night franchises that require it. As it is listed as a historic building, it must remain in use as a theater, which could mean continuing recording or returning it to a formal residence.
It opened in 1927 as the Hammerstein Theater and operated as a Broadway house for nine years. It was later renamed Manhattan Theater and then Billy Rose Music Hall. In 1936 it became a soundstage for CBS Radio, and in 1948 it transitioned into use as a television studio. After hosting shows for Arthur Godfrey and Jackie Gleason, it became the home of Ed Sullivan in 1953, but was known as Studio 50 until 1967, when it was officially renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater. After Sullivan’s exit in 1971, the venue was often dark but well-received. Letterman moved in and it was again in regular use in 1993, at which point CBS purchased the home it had rented for many years.
