Will Ferrell, like a batter strolling confidently to the plate, walked through the curtain Thursday night for the final “Late Late Show With James Corden” with a sledgehammer over his shoulder.
It then took Ferrell all of 28 seconds to stamp his mark on the farewell proceedings.
And stamp, he did — or more specifically, smash.
In trademark “Late Late Show” fashion, Ferrell was paired up for his appearance with pop star and actor extraordinaire Harry Styles.
Ferrell was introduced after Styles, and an indicator of what followed came immediately as the curtain parted. Ferrell wielded a smile and, slung over his right shoulder, a sledgehammer.
Ferrell quickly made his way to the stage, only dropping the sledgehammer from his shoulder after Corden approached for the customary hug.
“Back off!” Ferrell yelled, motioning for Corden to move out of the way. “Back off!”
Ferrell then pulled a pair of clear eyeglasses out of his suit pocket, placed them on his face and went to work.
It took only four sweeping, forceful swings from overhead for the desk to be completely demolished. “The Late Late Show” had clearly cut costs with the show-desk budget — or a particle board stand-in had been used for the bit.
Either way, it was a show of hilarious force for Ferrell and put a capper on Corden’s finale not even halfway through it.
“What are you do?” Corden said as he surveyed the damage, laughing and unable to get the question out as Styles stared on with a parsed grin. “What are you do? What are you doing?”
“It’s your last show,” Ferrell interjected. “It’s your last show, man. Yeah.”
“It’s the last show, but it’s not the end of the show,” Corden said. “We’ve still go the show to…”
“Oh right,” Ferrell said, now dumbfounded. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I didn’t put that together that you want to still use the desk.”
“We can get by without it,” Corden assured him, kicking pieces of the desk out of the way. “We can figure it out. Hang on. I gotta find your questions.”
Watch the rest of the segment in the video at the top of this file.
