Stephen Colbert, Michael Stipe, and James Franco Bid Farewell to 2016 With Perfect R.E.M. Parody

Stephen Colbert grabs Michael Stipe and James Franco for the perfect R.E.M. parody to kiss this awful year goodbye.

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2016 was shit. Don't @ me, Twitter eggs. So how does one properly tell such an abysmal year to promptly go fuck itself? One way, as Stephen Colbert displayed on Thursday's Late Show, is to form an impromptu supergroup for a rousing performance of one of America's most cherished post-apocalyptic anthems, R.E.M.'s 1987 hit "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

Considering the fact that no one feels "fine," Colbert had no choice but to mix things up with a parody version dubbed "It's the End of the Year as We Know It" featuring R.E.M. legend Michael Stipe and fellow multi-hyphenate James Franco. Using the song's signature rapid-fire verses, this new group I'm officially dubbing Francolbert Stipe managed to look back on 12 full months of incompetency in under three minutes.

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Elsewhere during Thursday's Late Show, Franco revealed the hardest part about the holiday season: the fam's pressure for him to get married. "Tom's girlfriend, Iris, is from Mexico," Franco said. "She says that there's a saying there that if the younger brothers or the younger siblings get married before the oldest, then the oldest never gets married."

When Colbert expressed shock at this suggestion, Franco acknowledged the clock was indeed ticking thanks to the fact that his brother Dave was getting married in early 2017. "I got, like, two months!" Franco added.

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