The final episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert is bound to be full of memorable moments. Exactly what those moments might be is impossible to say— details for Thursday night’s show have not been announced — but there’s a long history of late-night hosts leaving an unforgettable impression as they sign off for the last time.

Late-night finales often feature a flurry of superstar guests, extended montages of clips and touching musical moments. But they often end with the host speaking directly to the audience, tears in their eyes, thanking everyone at home for the opportunity to be welcomed into their living rooms night after night, year after year.

Here’s how some of late-night’s greatest stars said their final goodbyes as they signed off for the last time.

Johnny Carson

Carson set the standard that still defines late-night TV during his 30-year run as host of The Tonight Show. But he broke from the routine that had defined his NBC show for so long when it came time to say goodbye in 1992. There were no guests. It was just an hour of Carson, his longtime sidekick Ed McMahon and his band leader Doc Severinsen talking about their time together while showing a variety of memorable clips from through the years.

Carson spent much of the episode speaking directly to the audience, which is what he did when making his final sign-off.

“You people watching, I can only tell you that it has been an honor and a privilege to come into your homes all these years and entertain you,” he said.“I bid you a very heartfelt goodnight.”

The end of Carson’s run on The Tonight Show, though, is probably best remembered for its second-to-last episode, which ended with a pair of performances by Bette Midler — one hilarious, the other deeply moving.

Jay Leno

Carson’s successor, Jay Leno, went on to host The Tonight Show for most of the next 22 years. Leno is unique because he had two final episodes. The first came when he handed the reins to Conan O’Brien in 2009, though he was really only transitioning to an earlier time slot at the time. The second came five years later, after he returned as host following NBC’s controversial decision to oust O’Brien after just seven months.

Leno joked about the scandal in the opening monologue of his actual final show in 2014.

“I don’t like goodbyes. NBC does, but I don’t,” he said. “This is my last show — for real. I don’t need to be fired three times, I get the hint!”

Leno’s last episode stuck with the more traditional format, featuring appearances from then-President Barack Obama, Garth Brooks, Carol Burnett, Billy Crystal and Oprah Winfrey.

He closed the show with a tearful tribute to the audience.

“This has been the greatest 22 years of my life,” Leno said. “I am the luckiest guy in the world. I got to meet presidents and astronauts and movie stars. It’s just been incredible.”

“In conclusion,” he added, “I want to quote Johnny Carson: ‘I bid you all a heartfelt good night.’”

David Letterman

The always self-deprecating host of The Late Show was far less sentimental when it was time for his CBS tenure to come to an end in 2015. Letterman kicked off the last of his record-setting 6,028 late-night episodes with clips of five different presidents saying, “Our long national nightmare is over.”

The jabs continued throughout the episode, coming from Letterman himself and his many A-list guests. That included a star-studded Top-10 list in which former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning said, “You are to comedy, what I am to comedy,” and Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus thanked him for letting her take part in “another hugely disappointing series finale.”

In his signature unsentimental style, Letterman’s last words before signing off for good began with, “That’s pretty much all I got.” He then handed the final moments of the episode to his favorite band, Foo Fighters, who played their hit “Everlong” as a compilation of moments from Letterman’s years on the show was played onscreen.

Conan O’Brien

During the final moments of his brief stint as host of The Tonight Show in 2010, O’Brien told his audience that he would find a way to make whatever he did next just as fun as what came before, even if he was “doing a show in a 7/11 parking lot.”

O’Brien didn’t have to perform in a 7/11 parking lot. Instead, he launched Conan on TBS less than a year later. That show lasted until 2021, when O’Brien finally said goodbye to late night after a total of 28 years across three different shows.

“Every night, I always said, ‘Tonight we have a really great show,’ and I have to tell you, I was often lying,” he said during his opening monologue. “But tonight we really do have a great show! And if we don’t, what are you going to do about it? I’ll be long gone.”

He was more sincere in a lengthy monologue to close out the episode, where he described how lucky he was to have been able to take on this “really crazy and seemingly pointless pursuit” for so long. His final sendoff was a message to his audience.

“Try and do what you love, with people you love,” he said, fighting back tears. “And if you can manage that, it’s the definition of heaven on Earth.”

Arsenio Hall

Compared to the tenures of hosts like Carson and Letterman, Hall’s time in late night was relatively brief. But in its five-year run, The Arsenio Hall Show made a huge mark because of the way it highlighted Black culture in a way other late-night shows never had before.

“I changed the culture in a way that I exposed America to some things they might not have seen if I didn’t come along then,” Hall said earlier this year.

For all of its memorable moments — including Hall’s frank conversation with NBA superstar Magic Johnson about his AIDS diagnosis and future President Bill Clinton playing the saxophone — many fans of the show actually misremember the last episode.

One of the landmark performances in hip-hop history, an extended freestyle featuring dozens of the period’s biggest rappers, is often cited as being the final sign-off for The Arsenio Hall Show. It wasn’t. That segment, produced by Hall’s good friend Queen Latifah, happened toward the end of the show’s run, but not in the last episode.

“It was just so good, people thought it had to be a finale of some type,” Hall said in 2014. “I have people say all the time: ‘Man, that time when them rappers did your last show, man’ … That was a good one, but it wasn’t the last one.”

The actual final episode of The Arsenio Hall Show ended with soul legend James Brown singing his hit “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” as Hall danced off stage.

Stephen Colbert

Thursday’s show won’t be the first time that Colbert has said goodbye to his late-night audience. He had previously been the star of The Colbert Report, a mock political program on Comedy Central in which he played a fictitious version of himself styled after the era’s most bombastic conservative commentators,

In 2014, he brought that relentlessly-satrical show to an end with a surprisingly touching rendition of the song “We’ll Meet Again” performed by a remarkable collection of stars. The absurdity returned a few moments later, when Colbert’s character flew off into the night aboard Santa’s sleigh with Abraham Lincoln and the late Jeopardy! host Alex Treback at his side.