On Thursday night, Stephen Colbert closed out nearly a decade of “The Colbert Report” with an epic sing-along of “We'll Meet Again,” featuring a chorus of celebrities, politicians, and intellectuals. The following night, not to be outdone, Craig Ferguson opened the final installment of his long-running “The Late Late Show” with a rendition of “Bang Your Drum,” boasting an equally star-studded, if not quite so varied, list of video cameos from the likes of Pierce Brosnan, Mila Kunis, and Samuel L. Jackson.* (After spending way too much time scrutinizing replays of both, it appears to me that Toby Keith was the only guest that was shared by the two late-night sendoffs.)

The musical number was the high point of an otherwise lacklustre finale for Ferguson. The refusal to rise to such expectations is characteristic for the show, which, like its host, has always displayed a vital contrarian streak. (“I'm just a vulgar lounge entertainer,” the self-effacing Ferguson is fond of claiming.) After two thousand and fifty-seven shows, his last guest was Jay Leno, an underwhelming choice. “Two guys out of a job,” Ferguson noted. The comment, along with the selection of Leno as guest, were commensurate with the self-critiquing meta-narrative of “The Late Late Show.”

Leno was tieless, his hair shaggier than in his “Tonight Show” days. He had the relaxed but slightly irritable demeanor of someone who'd just been woken from a nap. “You look very poetic,” Ferguson offered, pointing at his guest's burgeoning sideburns. Collegial, but only intermittently amusing, their conversation had a throwaway quality, as if it were taking place in a bar after the cameras had stopped rolling. Both men seemed fatigued. “I feel like I'm done,” Ferguson said. As if to acknowledge the truth of this admission, he and Leno went on to grouse about the constraints and tedium that go with hosting a network talk show—celebrity handlers, demanding bosses, the ban on profanity, and an aging viewership. This all might have been satisfactory middle-of-the week fare sometime during Ferguson's nine-year run, but fans who'd stayed up late or left a holiday party early in order to see something special were disappointed. Ferguson did compensate those who stuck it out through the closing credits with a sweet pair of parting kisses: a cameo by Bob Newhart followed by a brief skit starring Drew Carey. (It was Carey who gave the Scottish comedian his first big part on American television, as Mr. Wick, Carey's overbearing boss, on “The Drew Carey Show” from 1996-2003.)

For longtime devotees of “The Late Late Show,” the real finale had come the night before, when Ferguson's lone guest was Jim Parsons, of “The Big Bang Theory.” Parsons, who estimated that it was his tenth guest appearance, was one of several regulars, including Larry King and Kristen Bell, who visited during Ferguson's final week. The repartee was lively (vegetarianism, turducken, ComicCon) and Parsons, having a sense of the occasion, prompted Ferguson toward some reflection on his long run. He asked if there was a guest Ferguson regretted not having on. The answer was a surprising one: Kurt Vonnegut. “He was the guest I wanted first,” said Ferguson. “He wouldn't leave New York and I didn't have the nuts at the time to take the show to New York.... By the time I figured it out he had passed.” Later, Parsons and Ferguson went on a tangent that would be unimaginable for any other late-night talk show since Dick Cavett retired, touching on the “Serial” podcast, Stephen King's novels, and Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious, before swinging back to the more well-trodden late-night terrain of sexual innuendo.

Parsons's appearance concluded with a “Late Late Show” staple: the Awkward Pause, a long Pinter-esque silence during which Ferguson sucked on a pipe and Parsons fidgeted in his seat. The Awkward Pause is a prime example of the pleasure Ferguson took in sending up the conventions of late night and undermining the illusions of television. Ferguson gleefully reminded viewers that what they were watching was taped earlier. Several times during the finale, he mentioned that he would already be in Scotland by the time the show aired. On the last two shows, Ferguson deliberately wore the same garish green-and-black striped socks to highlight that both were being recorded on the same day.

This ethos could also be seen in Ferguson's supporting cast. Instead of an Ed McMahon-style sidekick, he had a robot skeleton named Geoff Peterson. Other recurring characters included Secretariat, a pantomime horse; Sandra the talking rhino head; and an invisible band hidden behind a curtain. These and other bizarre figures have frequently led me to think of Ferguson's cozy set as no more than a representation of his subconscious. In that regard, each episode of “The Late Late Show” was a tour of his warped psyche.

It was a tour I came to belatedly. As much as I have enjoyed “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” nothing matched the frisson I felt the first time I stumbled on Ferguson. Who was this antic, hangdog Scot who seemed to be channelling both Robin Williams and Billy Connolly? Surely he was a substitute for a blander, vacationing host? But no. Night after night he was there, madcap yet erudite. This was in 2008, not long after my second child was born, and I was often up late. Soon I learned that Ferguson was more than funny. He was a shrewd, flirtatious interviewer. On one episode that summer, an actress boasted to Ferguson that she and her husband had just built a house in the woods, “off the grid.” “Really,” said Ferguson, wickedly. “Like a teepee?”

Over the years, I have watched Ferguson whenever I could, which was far from often enough. His embrace of the unstructured sometimes resulted in failures, and Ferguson, like many Scots, can be a little shouty. (His is a terrible show for a viewer with a hangover, but it's perfect for someone still buzzed after a night out and not yet ready for bed.) Ferguson says that he is working on a new television project. Until that launches, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy his talents. He has written a novel and a memoir, and scripted the film “Saving Grace.” Those suffering from acute withdrawal can always tune in to “Celebrity Name Game” for a more subdued dose of his wit.

Though Ferguson was reliably funny, he did not shy away from difficult subjects. He used his monologue to eulogize both of his parents. He spoke with frankness and sympathy in relating his struggles with alcoholism to those of celebrities who became fodder for late-night japes. On the evening of the Boston Marathon bombing, he refused to tell jokes, saying, “If I have all this rage and anger and distress and upset inside of me, I'm not good enough of a comedian to hide that from you.” In 2009, when Archbishop Desmond Tutu appeared on the show (“I'm as mystified as you,” the host remarked to his audience that night), Ferguson opened with a short history of South Africa that touched on Dutch colonialism, the Boer Wars, the origins of apartheid, and Tutu's career. It managed to be concise, informative, and hilarious—and it brought the show a Peabody Award. When Tutu came onstage, he said to Ferguson, “I think you're crazy.”

“You think I'm crazy?” said Ferguson. “You've met some crazy [people]. P. W. Botha was crazy.”

“No, a different kind of crazy,” replied Tutu. “We want your crazy.”

Yes we do.

*Correction: A previous version of this post misstated the song title.