There were some genuinely funny moments in the final episode of “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show airing Thursday evening from the Ed Sullivan Theatre. Probably my favorite line was when Seth Meyers, host of an even-later late night show on NBC, told Colbert he was sorry to see him go because where would the world hear what middle-aged white guys thought of the news? (All of the current late-night hosts are in that cohort.)

I hadn’t been a dedicated follower of Colbert’s show, or any show past 11:35 p.m., really, but the manner in which CBS unceremoniously yanked Colbert – indeed the whole damn “Late Show” brand, founded with David Letterman’s CBS show in 1993 – is part and parcel with how the network and owner Paramount have kowtowed to the current occupant of the White House and guaranteed I’d tune in to Colbert’s last few shows – at least to see clips I wasn’t already watching on Instagram.

Colbert appears to be a nice person and a smart person, so while the end of his show after 11 years was no doubt a blow to the talented former host of “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central – that show I did watch every night – the end of his show and the resulting blowback might prove uncomfortable to CBS/Paramount. Possibly even a kick in the nuts, if the recent downturn in anything Paramount touches continues.

At any rate, while I won’t do a comprehensive assessment of the state of late-night TV talk shows or a comprehensive history of the shows and timeslot, I will share a few thoughts:

I grew up enjoying being the last person awake in my household, even when I was a kid. I could watch TV after my parents went to bed. That late-night period was, as I’ve noted before, an educational and formative place for me. I was a devotee of Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” on NBC and watched it for decades until his retirement. Where else could a kid from rural Indiana learn about jazz – from the Tonight Show Orchestra and guests like Buddy Rich – and Jewish comedians like Henny Youngman? Not to mention the authors Carson highlighted in the final segment of most shows.

I was definitely a fan of David Letterman, another Hoosier who seemed destined to inherit Carson’s “Tonight Show” crown but, as we all know, did not. When Letterman hosted his funny and offbeat NBC show following Carson, I would actually sit up every night and record the show AND cut commercials from my VHS recordings. I had an ungodly number of tapes filled with commercial-free Letterman episodes, at least until almost all of my hundreds of VHS tapes went to a landfill with the advent of DVDs.

The CBS plans for the slot – fill it with comedy programs leased from comedian Byron Allen – in effect means the return of infomercials to a national network following the 11 o’clock news. I wonder if CBS affiliates are obligated to air the network’s programing or if they can fill it with syndicated shows that might draw more viewers, like police procedurals? I’m old enough to remember when CBS (and ABC at times) threw everything they could find into the post-news slot, which meant we got to see lots of Canadian-made thrillers.

CBS is, in effect, abdicating the entire time slot, recalling the days before Letterman tamed that frontier for CBS and the network would air “The CBS Late Movie” – including repeats of made-for-TV movies – from 1972 to 1976 and then reruns of “Kojack” and “The Night Stalker” until 1985 and then “CrimeTime After Primetime” for a few years until Letterman debuted in 1993.

CBS, as if to erase all memory of the politically offending Colbert, not only fired him but ended the whole “Late Show” franchise Letterman and his company, Worldwide Pants, created.

It’s hard to imagine anyone tuning in from here on out.