Obama and Megyn Kelly on Colbert's Post-Super Bowl Show

Stephen Colbert hosted what he billed a “Live Late Show Post-Game Super-Show” on Sunday night that boasted a long guest list whose most significant component turned out to be Megyn Kelly. Early on in the show, Colbert tossed the football out of camera range to “the tall guy with the really big ears” — who proved to be President Obama, catching the football in the White House. It was, Colbert cheerfully admitted on this live show, “a pre-tape we shot last week.”

The hour had the pleasantly distracted, what’s-happening-next air you expect — and want — from a live broadcast. An interview with Tina Fey and Margot Robbie, together to promote their new movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, was interrupted by a satellite interview from the site of the Super Bowl with MVP Von Miller. Miller looked as though he’d really rather be somewhere else, but he played along for a few minutes.

Related: ‘Super Bowl’ 50 Commercials: The Good, the Bad, and the WTF?

Will Ferrell came onstage dressed like a cross between a hunter and a zoo-keeper. He declined to promote his new movie, Zoolander 2, opting instead to bring out a series of animals in a parody of the segments David Letterman used to do with Jungle Jack Hanna.

Key and Peele appeared in a taped football-game bit that wasn’t nearly as funny as their Squarespace Super Bowl commercial.

Given the star power of Fey and Ferrell (and, for that matter, the President of the United States), it was telling that the longest interview of the night was with Megyn Kelly. She came out last, but Colbert kept her on for two segments, tossing her softball questions such as “Why is Fox News feuding with Donald Trump?” and (regarding Trump’s public insults of her) “Do you like being the story?” It wasn’t quite as bad as Fallon’s interview with Kelly last week, which found that host babbling, “I really didn’t know your work as much until I saw you in the first Republican debate — you were fantastic in that!”

(Really, I think it’s time for Colbert to drop the mask of we’re-all-friends-in-late-night and start a good old-fashioned feud with Fallon, who is clearly doing some eff-you-Stephen competitive booking to quash the CBS competition.)

Related: Lady Gaga’s National Anthem: Patriotic Glitter at the Super Bowl

Colbert went over ground that was covered in the recent, adulatory Vanity Fair story on Kelly — her reluctance to be called a feminist, for example — and prompted a telling remark from his guest just once: After joking that Kelly appears on Fox News weeknights in “an O’Reilly-Hannity sandwich” (her show airs between The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity), Kelly said with a devilish grin, “They tape earlier in the day, which is an advantage to us.” The implication was that The Kelly File is able to be more timely than O’Reilly and Hannity. The crowd oohed a little, and Colbert paused to acknowledge the slight dig Kelly had delivered, undoubtedly aware of the rumors and reports that O’Reilly in particular is miffed at Kelly’s sky-high public profile.

All in all, this was a fun Colbert adventure, and I wonder what the Super Bowl, in a stupor after the game, made of it. The idea was for CBS to promote The Late Show, which is lagging behind The Tonight Show. I have a feeling David Letterman was probably sitting at home stroking his beard and sighing contentedly that he’s out of that competition these days.