James Corden Says a Musical Good-bye to The Late Late Show

After eight years on the air, James Corden waved his final good night last night from behind his desk at The Late Late Show. In a fitting tribute to his time on the air, the host and theater lover began his final broadcast — which kicked off with an hour-long pretaped special before the show itself — with a musical number, signed off with a musical number, and broke out into song at least three more times along the way. He sang “Hakuna Matata” in the evening’s most elaborate sketch. He had a reunion with his plane-jumping buddy Tom Cruise in which the pair joined a Hollywood staging of The Lion King. He belted during his final “Carpool Karaoke” segment with Adele, with whom he got teary about his time at the show. And he briefly crooned, much to the chagrin of television’s other late-night hosts, in a sketch in which Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and David Letterman united to warn Corden not to give away late-night-host trade secrets and divvy up his intellectual property (“Carpool Karaoke,” they all agree). “James, have you thought this through?” Colbert asked him. “What other job will allow you to break into song and dance every night?” Corden protested that he doesn’t sing and dance every night; cut to Meyers doing a “Closer Look” segment about the frequency of Corden’s singing and dancing, Corden breaking out into song a minute later, and Fallon saying, “We just talked about this!”

For his final pair of guests, Corden brought on Late Late Show mainstays Harry Styles and Will Ferrell. The episode did not reunite Styles’s former group, One Direction, as many had speculated online, but Styles took the opportunity to show off a “late late” tattoo he’d gotten in tribute to the show. For his part, Ferrell came out and went full Eric André, smashing Corden’s desk into pieces until a replacement had to be rolled out. Before his final musical sign-off, Corden shared some wisdom he’d learned about America and made a sincere plea for togetherness. “I implore you to remember what America signifies to the rest of the world,” he said. “My entire life, it’s always been a place of optimism and joy.” He continued, “Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn’t make them bad or evil. There are so many people who are trying to stoke those differences. We have to try to the best we can to look for the light, look for the joy. It’s out there. That’s all this show has ever been about. Thank you for letting me do this. Thank you for letting me into your home every night.”

The full episode is available to watch above. Check out some other clips from the grand finale — including Corden singing “Hakuna Matata” with Cruise, the big late-night-host reunion, and Corden’s musical numbers — below: