Asked by Billy Crystal (Part 1). Summer version: a very ripe tomato on thin white bread with mayo, salt, and pepper — eaten over the sink because it falls apart. Year-round answer: a hot pastrami on rye from Katz's Deli with mustard and coleslaw.

Asked by 'Weird Al' Yankovic (Part 1). 1977, Gaillard Auditorium in Charleston, South Carolina, with his mom.

Asked by Josh Brolin (Part 1). Made worse by the fact that a scientist named a real trapdoor spider species after Colbert — the Latin name ends in 'colberti'.

Asked by Martha Stewart (Part 1). Reasoning: 'You can't put peanut butter on an orange.'

Asked by Mark Hamill (Part 2). Years ago on the old show Colbert had Steve Martin sign a paper cutout of his own headshot; framed it and hung it in his office where a clock used to be — 'in my office it's always Steve Martin o'clock.'

Asked by Jim Gaffigan (Part 2). Colbert framed it as more of a feeling than a doctrine — some continuance, dispersing into something greater. Gaffigan paraphrased: 'You're saying we become Febreze.'

Asked by Jeff Daniels (Part 2). Colbert's actual favorite movie is The Thing, but he ruled it horror rather than action.

Asked by Tiffany Haddish (Part 2). Reasoning: 'I have the bladder of just a baby chipmunk.'

Asked by his wife, Evie McGee Colbert (Part 3). Her Kai rose-scented lotion, met at the top of the stairs after she's been in the shower upstairs, knowing she's 'wearing very little.'

Asked by Amy Sedaris (Part 3). Around age 10–11, his neighbor Mrs. Miller invited him to smell a kitchen jar of grease that had leaked into a bag of sugar — 'do you want to smell just the worst thing?' Never smelled it again but it stuck with him.

Asked by Ben Stiller (Part 3). Around age 3, his mother was painting a bedroom and he was trying to describe a dream of an albino King Kong — a mashup of Snowflake, the albino gorilla at the National Zoo, and King Kong. 'My earliest memory is not being able to tell my mom my memory.'

Asked by Aubrey Plaza (Part 4), who deadpanned that her water had broken backstage but figured she had a couple hours.

Asked by James Taylor (Part 4). Colbert acknowledged it 'at the risk of being pretentious, which is too late for me now.'

Asked by Robert De Niro (Part 4). Colbert revealed the long-standing answer is 3 — only Meryl Streep and Ethan Hawke have ever guessed it correctly. De Niro had guessed '2.5 million... the number of Epstein files Trump still hasn't released.'

Administered by John Dickerson (Part 4), who emceed the entire 4-part questionnaire from a guest-host desk.