Late-Night TV Shows Return: Watch the Best Moments

After the writers strike commenced in May, late-night television shows were among the very first to go into hiatus mode. And now that the writers guild (WGA) has reached a deal with the studios (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers or AMPTP), they're among the first TV shows to return as well.

On Monday night, the hosts of late night made their triumphant returns to reflect on the strike and all of the major pieces of news that they missed throughout their unexpected summers off. Here's a look at the highlights from late-night TV's first night back on air.

'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert'

Stephen Colbert was delighted to return to the Ed Sullivan Theater for the first time in months, saying, "It feels good to be back… Thanks to the picket lines, my writers got fresh air and sunshine, and they do not care for that."

Due to the sheer volume of news that he had to catch up on, Colbert delivered an extended monologue written by the writers who are "safely back in their joke holes" upon surviving the strike and such a "crazy summer to be off."

After ribbing King Charles and Vladimir Putin, he turned to the controversial figure he really wanted to talk about, saying, "On June 8th, I really, really missed having a show because that was the day that Donald Trump was hit with a 37-count indictment for hoarding national secrets, and we saw some unbelievable photos of where he stored them next to a Mar a Lago guest toilet. Look at that. He left the launch codes in the splash zone." Colbert went on to dub Trump's mugshot from his subsequent Georgia indictment "angry-glazed ham."  

Elsewhere in the monologue, Colbert wove in jokes about the news that the government may have alien materials, Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter to "X" (to which, Colbert asked, "Y?"), Lauren Boebert being caught in a lewd act at a theater, Bob Menendez's indictment for bribery, the Barbenheimer takeover and, of course, the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce coupling that everyone's talking about.  

'Jimmy Kimmel Live'

Similarly, Jimmy Kimmel took stock of the many moons that have risen since his last monologue, saying, "We've been gone so long, the Bachelor is now a grandfather."

Like Colbert, Kimmel also opted to start his show with a look back at the bath of big headlines that he didn't get to cover throughout the summer. Despite one of his returning writers getting a text message request to not make the monologue all about Trump, Kimmel refused, saying, "Well, sorry Josh's mom, that is a no can do. I am backed up like you would not believe."

Kimmel went on to lampoon Trump's recent trip to California in which he floated the concept of drenching forest floors to avoid wildfires, joking, "Why didn't we think of that, dampening the forests? That should be his slogan for 2024: 'DTF,' dampen the forests."

Later, the ABC late-night host took aim at the lack of a jury in Trump's New York civil case, noting, "Trump has been railing against and attacking this particular judge for a while now, and unfortunately for him, that judge alone will determine the verdict. There will not be a jury, which would probably have given Trump better odds of getting off because – and this is true – Trump's dummy lawyers forgot to fill out the forms requesting a jury trial. Only the best people."

'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'

Jimmy Fallon, meanwhile, also proclaimed his joy about returning to the studio, saying, "I'm more excited than a guy seeing the Beetlejuice musical with Lauren Boebert. I'm more excited than a Jets fan during the first three plays of the season."

He then focused his opening statement on a very different world leader than some of his contemporaries: Taylor Swift. First, he praised the conclusion of the strike, saying, "I'm so happy all the writers finally got their fair deal that they deserve. You gotta hand it to them, only writers would spend all summer fighting to go back to the office."  

Then, he let his Swiftie flag fly. "We are back and we have so much news to cover, but I'm going to sum it up in just two words: Taylor Swift. Good night everybody," he joked, pretending to walk off stage before returning to recap Swift's back-to-back appearances at the Kansas City Chiefs' games to support Travis Kelce.

Of course, Kimmel didn't altogether sidestep the multiple layers of Trump news from the summer, remarking that Trump's recent appearance in the New York fraud trial shows, "it's like Trump now has resting mugshot face."

'Late Night With Seth Meyers'

To compensate for so much missed material, Seth Meyers decided to put on a very extended-length version of the "Closer Look" segment, covering everything from Trump's indictments to Republican House of Representative members' efforts to impeach current President Joe Biden.

Of Trump, Meyers laser focused on the fraud trial, joking about Trump's claim that his contracts contained a disclaimer that meant they couldn't reasonably be relied upon.  

"Wait, what? You can't be held liable because your business records have a disclaimer that says, 'Don't believe any of this?'" Meyers remarked, adding that the former president was "talking about his bank records like it's a warning before an episode of Jackass." 

Meyers also thanked the WGA for resolving their disputes with the AMPTP and joked of reuniting with his writing staff: "I was so happy to see them this morning. I will admit by lunch, I was a little over it."