A battalion of celebrities helped say goodbye to Stephen Colbert last night on the final episode of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report.” With Randy Newman at the piano, the group performance of “We’ll Meet Again” was the biggest random assemblage of singing celebs since "We Are the World" (Trivia: Cyndi Lauper and Willie Nelson sang at both).
The guests took over the Colbert soundstage without introductions or IDs, leaving it up to savvy viewers (ahem) to put names to faces.
UPDATE: Thanks, nation, for pointing out the celebrities I missed: Willie Nelson, Father James Martin (Colbert Report chaplain), David Leonhardt, Cass Sunstein, Brian Stelter, NIH's Francis Collins, Marvel Comics' Joe Quesada, Fresh Air's Terry Gross, Charles “Lil Buck” Riley, Maureen Dowd, Jim Cramer, Ann Patchett and David Hallberg of the American Ballet Theatre (dancing with Katie Couric), David Gregory, Colbert’s SuperPAC lawyer Trevor Potter (holding briefcase and standing next to Big Bird), Colbert’s cartoon character Tek Jansen, Jonathan Batiste (holding a melodica next to George Lucas), and an actual battalion of soldiers in Afghanistan.
Here's my original list:
Jon Stewart, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, James Franco, Katie Couric, Michael Stipe, J.J. Abrams, Mandy Patinkin, Tom Brokaw, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Andrew Sullivan, Ken Burns, Charlie Rose, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Barry Manilow, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Patrick Stewart, Andy Cohen, Christiane Amanpour, Arianna Huffington, The New Yorker editor David Remnick, Peter Frampton, Alan Alda, Cory Booker, Eliot Spitzer, Peter Jackson, Paul Krugman, Richard Clarke, Norm Ornstein, Lesley Stahl, Leon Wieseltier, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Steinem, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Bob Costas, Tim Meadows and Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales.
Others spotted included: Bryan Cranston, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Toby Keith, David Gregory, Ric Ocasek, Stone Phillips, Alexai Lalas, Elijah Wood, Mike Huckabee, Nate Silver, Bo Dietl, Dan Savage, Chuck Schumer, Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno, Samantha Power, Thomas Friedman, Matt Taibbi, Claire McKaskill, Mark Cuban, journalist Emily Bazelon, members of Pussy Riot, Yo Yo Ma, John Ratzenberger, George Saunders, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, Jonathan Alter, Keith Olbermann, Shane Smith, Bradley Whitford, Jake Tapper, Jeffrey Toobin, Grover Norquist, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, Smaug the dragon, an astronaut on a treadmill in space, Segway inventor Dean Kamen, Alex Trebek, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln and a Tweeting Bill Clinton.
SECOND UPDATE: A tip of the hat to Talking Points Memo for identifying every cameo with screen grabs.
Who did I miss? Join others in letting me know in the comments below, nation.
