Just call it the end of an era: Over 8 months after announcing his retirement from his longtime hosting gig on CBS' The Late Show, David Letterman's final bow has finally been set. According to the Washington Post, David Letterman will host his last Late Show episode on May 20, paving the way for The Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert to take over the late night series on a future date.
As sad as it is to realize that we're not that far from the end of Letterman's historic run on television, at the very least, there are still about 6 months worth of hilarious, classic episodes left — and, the date of Wednesday, May 20 does make sense from a behind-the-scenes standpoint: As Vulture points out, it's the last date of the 2014-15 television season, and also, leaving on the 22nd of May (which would be a Friday) would make Letterman's last episode fall on the anniversary of the day that former Tonight Show host Johnny Carson stepped down from his post back in 1992 — something that would be bad form, in a way.
There's still no date set for Colbert's takeover of The Late Show, but this might help shed some light on when he'll join the CBS family: Colbert's last episode of The Colbert Report is set for Dec. 18 of this year, so it's possible Colbert could step in for Letterman after the show takes a brief hiatus to prepare for the host switcharoo.
