Nov 7

Nov 7 014 - The King of Late Night

LATE NIGHT

For the last few weeks, I decided to get into the YouTube wormhole of Late Night Talk Shows.

Of course I watched Kimmel, and also Colbert, Fallon, Meyers and the other guy – James Corden.

I don't want to repeat a piece of content that has been done before – Comedian Eddy Burback did one months ago, before being famous for eating at every Rainforest Café.

My ongoing question in this podcast has been “can television shows survive when the pivot goes online” – interviews are on podcasts, although better than mine, some desk bits are now fully memed on social media, and sketch comedy is quickly done on TikTok. So the basic staples of late night talk shows have already transformed.

I finished reading Late Shift and “The War For Late Night” and even binged a whole lot of Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and yes, David Letterman.

There is a whole “Johnny Carson” channel featuring comedy bits, and I think so many people want to try and emulate the style, but from what I see – the best of the modern day take the format and make it their own.

Seth Meyers is mostly Daily Weekend Update at this point, with Amber Rufflin picking up a peacock series of her own. Talk Show, However, I equate her show more in the “news desk comedy” as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and if you want to get well into it – The Problem With Jon Stewart, The Jim Jefferies Show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and Patriot Act with Hasan Minaj.

Not to be confused with Hasan Piker, the famous Twitch streamer who also covers news, and is a modern day “content creator”.

And while I think comedians lampooning current events and topical issues are important, I really want the classic “monologue” “comedy segment” “interview” maybe another interview and then a musical guest or comedian.

Monologues, you know about them, it’s the start of the show, here’s some comedy jokes for ya, set-up, bunch-lines, sometimes they are actually standing up typically behind a curtain like fallon other times behind a video wall like kimmel, and other times, behind a… garage door looking thing like Colbert. Seth does his behind the desk, like a weekend update, and originally so did Jimmy Kimmel, before changing showrunners and noticing he performs better standing up.

You get your desk segments, whatever was “Headlines” for Jay Leno, or Top 10 Lists for David Letterman, is the thing for the other hosts for Jimmy it’s “Mean Tweets” for Corden it’s “Carpool Karaoke” for Seth and Colbert it’s… uh… uh… I’m sure they have some. And the current ruler in that field is of course, Jimmy Fallon, who has a multitude of games, and stunts, and desk segments, from “Thank You Notes” to “Drinko” to “Lip Sync Battle” (Remember when they turned that into a tv show?) and so on and so on.

Then you get the celebrity guests, they are there to plug a movie, a tv show, a new album, maybe a podcast or a book, but it’s rare air when it gets there. And the questions are pre-planned set-ups for the “So A Funny Thing Happened” story. Craig Ferguson was the best at the interviews, as he mostly tore-up the cards in favor of just going wherever the conversation goes, knowing it has nothing to do with a television show the actor is on, but getting into hilarious small chatter like “salad dressing” or “trying to pick up kids from school”, that end up being more relevant to audiences.

And then of course, the end of the show, where the big band from the new album is here to perform, or a stand-up comic is given five minutes to try and impress an audience of people who just got free tickets, and are a bit tired from hearing a celebrity talk about “working with a director”, and it used to be, if you broke through that boring barrier, you’re invited back, and your career changed overnight. Now, it’s more of a “oh yeah, you were on that guy’s show, neat!” as it might help the host at the comedy circuit say “you might have seen them on the kimmel show”)

Oh, the magic of late night, but as audiences are back in the picture – it’s time to do a quick assessment of the late night talk show landscape, at LEAST in network.

Apologies to Andy Cohen, your show is fun, but Bravo never gives me the details of when you’re on, and when I assume “11:30”, it’s a “Real Housewives” episode.

All the shows I’ve seen are graciously provided by Hulu, Paramount Plus and Peacock, with the small exception for YouTube archives of David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Craig Ferguson, Jay Leno, and yes, Johnny Carson.

The purpose of Late Night Television, at least in it’s early forms of the Steve Allen era of NBC, was essentially what is similar to most “Twitch Streamers” of today, especially the ones that don’t really play video games. It’s a guy in a studio playing piano sometimes, and then talking with people who show up. I know “wild west” is an often overused analogy, but when it came to that era when the networks thought “eh, who cares they are all asleep, as long as it gets advertisers, who gives a shit?” then you could try just about anything.

That leads to all sorts of hosts and other shows from Tom Snyder doing 1-on-1 interviews, to Dick Cavett getting debates on television, at a time when CNN was still a twinkle in Ted Turner’s eyes. And the many, many, many failed concepts – from “Magic Hour” with Magic Johnson to Chevy Chase to the two big attempts at Fox – Joan Rivers and Spike Feresten.

To segue slightly – I watched Talkshow with Spike pretty much every time it came on, which was “after mad tv”. I thought it was such a cheaper, lower-budget television show, but Spike’s comedy (Which was as edgy as Letterman) mixed with his banter that was similar to Conan (because they were both writers-turned-hosts) was actually one of the best shows FOX ever turned out. One segment I remember, was playing a game with an audience member called “Walk The Line” and as they played Johnny Cash and Spike told them to follow the line where it goes, it leads to the exit and they lock them out of the studio – was mean spirited, but also very funny, especially, when you figure it’s a plant from the crew doing it.

And yes, Joan was on the edge with her stand-up show, that at the time of “The Simpsons” was really ideal for that network, even though I could’ve sworn our syndicate put on Arensio Hall, and as we know, nobody is more 90s than Arensio, that guy was cool, and they even tried to reboot his talk show a few years ago. But it also shortly ended… but the WOOP WOOP WOOP lives on.

Why yes, there is tons of grounds to cover in late night talk shows, Arensio could be it’s own episode, similar to Game Shows I Suppose, but, I’m digressing.

My favorites are Letterman and Conan. And obviously, they are no longer with us. Really tragic. But letterman is now doing Netflix Interviews with “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and Conan has “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” and the Team Coco brand has now become a big podcast network. I honestly though Conan was going to be doing Travel Shows on HBO Max, but maybe somebody over there went “He is just too tall to fit in the overhead compartment”.

Obviously, you could watch their old episodes, and some of them are actually good! But when it comes to the HEAVY DUTY people, what’s it like watching them?

Tonight, quick reviews of the current landscape, with Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Late Show with James Corden, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Late Late Show with Colbert is obviously, Stephen Colbert’s show, but it is housed in the Ed Sullivan, much like Dave’s show. Obviously, the show stems in the “News” because of Colbert’s tenure at Daily Show and Colbert Report. And while you will get all-you-can-eat on Trump Jokes, Colbert does have a pretty fun character of Joe Biden as well when he brings the aviators. The “Branding” of Colbert is similar to his former characters – Patriotism. At one point it had Grammy Winning Jazz Musician John Batiste and Stay Human, but this year, it flipped to the other Jazz Great, Louis Cato and “The Late Show Band”. If you need a show that tells you “things are grim in this country, but can be better” Stephen is your guy. It’s a celebration of his South Carolina roots, plus his ability to interview politicians and newsmakers that makes Stephen a good host for “Late Show”, in an alternate universe, Stephen would be the American Ambassador we sorely need. But his downfalls are partially, his lack of real “segments” unless we count the confessional booth, and as a large nitpicky – the faux-ceiling showing off what looks like a second floor of his set that goes unused, so if you’re on the third floor of the Sullivan, you get an amazing view of lighting kits.

His follow-up show is “The Late Late Show with James Corden” – To simplify the show, he takes stuff from UK shows and does it here. He starts the show with a “welcome the guest at the door”, which is fantastic, until you realize Alan Carr does that on Chatty Man, the interviews where they air paired comes from places like Graham Norton and Jonathan Ross. It does make it “stand out” though, which is nice, usually the celeb goes, says their thing, then fucks off. Carpool Karaoke stems from a bit he used to do on “Gavin & Stacey” where he played Smithy – so in many ways, Corden did have to transition away from a “Character” to a “Person” when doing those Karaokes. But the highlights of the show is Reggie Watts, who may or may not have been stolen from “Comedy Bang Bang” (but that’s for the courts to decide) and the show’s head writer, but mostly cohost, Ian Carmel. When Corden decides to do a “News” segment, and talk about current events, typically he tries to banter and go on script, but Ian will sometimes pivot and go off-script a bit and banter away at times, causing improv to happen. It makes the show feel more like a podcast in this regard. Which honestly, when you consider many “heres the news story, here’s the punchline” routines is actually a change of pace. Corden does try and get producers involved as much as possible, which is a nod to Letterman in that 4th Wall Breaking, and there is no denying Corden’s talents. As for the negatives – it’s in the basement of “The Price is Right”. Also, James Corden has been seen negatively in the public eye for that story about the restaurant, but has apologized, and also his attempt to undermine writers guild by paying writers less, because of viral videos or whatever was that reason. His set has too much empty space that goes unused, from the bar in the corner, to the side-stage with curtain. A memorable moment I recall from a few years ago had Jimmy Kimmel as a guest, and in a game of “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts” a hilarious segment where they confess to personal questions or eat gross stuff, which we like to call “a viral moment”, Jimmy Kimmel asks Corden if he can name “2 of the Cameramen in this room”. I don’t think he’s terrible, I think when it comes to 12:30 and your choices are “Meyers or Corden” – It makes sense for Fallon’s people to switch over to Corden because both have that silly game behavior, and Seth Meyers getting Colbert’s because both banter about the news – if you’re kimmels group, you’re probably watching Nightline, it’s like the comedy news readers, but without the laughs!

Speaking of Kimmel, let’s go to Kimmel. The dude is the longest running host on Late Night, when he started it was a real crapshoot, as ABC really wanted Leno or Conan. But they gave him a try and in the first episode – an audience member threw up and so they got rid of the open bar. The original set looked like Los Angeles Art Deco and was actually really cool, but now it’s renovated to feel more “classic late night” with a big moon backdrop and a desk with Jimmy Kimmel’s name on it. As the show progressed, Kimmel has tried to be closest to being David Letterman without being David Letterman, from having segments where they ask people outside to belly flop, or ask viewers to upload videos telling their kids “I ate your Halloween candy” and recording their reactions and other weird bits. Guillermo Rodriguez serves as the second banana on the show. Originally, he was the parking lot security guard, and was actually the security guard, and as the time progressed, has become to the show was Biff Henderson was to Dave. Of all the late night shows, it’s the closest to being that “old school” idea, if you miss Letterman or Conan or Ferguson, I think Kimmel is the closest thing you have on air at the moment. On the negative side, his studio is still very cramped, and just looks like an unfun place, despite being in the heart of Hollywood (and next to El Capitan) it still needs a bit of renovating, I feel. Additionally, Kimmel’s “best episodes” somehow take place in Brooklyn, where he takes his show yearly to his hometown (besides Vegas). When he’s back in L.A., I think it’s more “off days” sometimes with him, but I am glad he takes breaks, and gets amazing Guest Hosts like Sean Hayes, and Desus Nice and Nikki Glaser. I am one of the few people who can admit to have seen pretty much every episode of his show, except for the times they do that awkward thing where they repeat, and you don’t know it’s a repeat until you hear the monologue and they say “did you hear elon musk wants to buy twitter?”

Jimmy Fallon is the new “King of Late Night”, technically speaking, The Tonight Show went back from Burbank to New York City, NOT THAT I AM UPSET ABOUT THAT, and his show continues where “Late Night” left off – some bits like “Lick it For Ten” have gone away, but other games such as Password and Box of Lies remain in the fold. Fallon was originally a Computer Science major, who later went into theater, so he has that juggle of “Geek” with “Cool Guitar Guy At College” that gave him the pass on SNL, and somehow cheat-coded his way to Late Night and then The Tonight Show. Higgins serves as the announcer, and The Roots are still the house band, and of all the things to happen to “The Tonight Show” – Fallon’s tenure somehow is the smoothest and the one without any hiccups. Most Late Night to Tonight Show transitionaries end up in a rough spot at NBC, just ask Conan and Dave, but Fallon. He’s loyal, and willing to try new things. I think “lap dog” is a bit too mean of a term for him, because he is really friendly and nice. (I have seen him here in L.A. when he took Tonight Show over to Universal Studios – GOTTA LOVE THAT SYNERGY) But the show has pretty much become an evolved version. He still does monologues, but now, there’s a game with a celebrity, then there’s probably a skit with Fallon in it, and a celebrity, then there’s another game played at the desk with the celebrity, and, you guessed it – Fallon. Everything “The Tonight Show” must include Jimmy in it, in many ways, that’s the shortcoming of the network notes, but he’s the only Late Night Talk Show Host to currently have his own ride at Universal Studios Orlando, the other host, as we all know, was “The Craig Kilborn Log Flume” – right before splashdown you get asked 5 questions and play YAMBO. If you want to wince at all about Fallon, you could talk about the hair ruffle about Donald Trump, or the games turned home games at Target, but they actually made a “Tonight Show For Kids”, and its… something!

Finally, Seth Meyers. Seth is a head writer for SNL who became the host of Weekend Update, much like Colin Jost, but Seth Meyers became the host of Late Night after the Fallon transition. Originally, he did the monologues and tried to do desk bits, but eventually, over time, it just sorta became a news show, then an interview show, with the only time skits showing up is when Fred Armisen shows up to lead the 8G Band. Yes, THAT Fred Armisen, from Portlandia and Los Espookys. They should just put a cardboard cutout over at the band section. Seth Meyers is mostly at the desk reading news and quipping at the desk, that’s his show. That’s where he's comfortable. Sometimes Amber Ruffin shows up to tell jokes, sometimes Jenny Hagel shows up to tell jokes, and it’s mostly the ones involving women, black people or gays.

However, one thing I really loved about Seth Meyers, besides his love of comic books (I see that Blue Beetle on the desk, Seth!) is of course, when they actually get to do skits. Everything from parodying Aaron Sorkin monologues to “Oscar Bait Movies”, however. It’s very awkward watching some segments in the last few weeks, I recently watched his “Corrections” from October 3rd and some of his “A Closer Look” and maybe they don’t have an audience yet? But, it just feels awkward. Meyers is one pop culture savvy writer, but I watched some of these episodes and feel dead inside, and if that’s how I feel watching, I fear for Meyers, who has the most casual interview skill on Late Night. Of all the current Late Night Hosts, Seth Meyers is the one I most want to be friends with. So seth, if you’re watching, sorry I fell asleep during your news segment, wanna play on Steam sometime? No? Ah well. I do think Seth is most cerebral with his jokes, able to strike that balance of high brow and low brow, that is really tough to do sometimes. So again, If you like Colbert, check out Meyers, If you like Fallon, check out Corden, and if you’re Kimmel, make a pizza, it’s 12:35 and I mean, you deserve it!

Which leaves me to the shows in the future – obviously, these tv shows are trying to bank on viral ability.

Fallon’s games are shown constantly, because challenge vids are exciting

Carpool Karaoke racks up all numbers because CELEBRITIES – THEY ARE JUST LIKE US

For Meyers, his monologues are edited for podcast viewing, which is very accessible.

And for Colbert, it’s mostly edited segment by segment, where sometimes an interview gets 100,000 and another gets over half a million, occasionally his cold opens get traction online. Essentially, when a major news event unfolds, like Kanye West banned from Twitter or a major milestone in American Politics – Colbert’s monologue gets the numbers.

And Kimmel, he isn’t trying to aim for the “viral ability” even though he was famous for the “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” video. It’s the most consistent of all the shows – monologues go up with major events, interviews do well, if it’s somebody promoting a marvel series (it is Disney after all) and if there is a skit or a stunt, it’s hit and miss, but typically do get a good word-of-mouth viral success.

Every one of these hosts has to “Go Viral” to “Stay Relevant” but as TV makes way for streaming…

If you want to watch Fallon and Seth, you need Peacock Subscriptions. If you want to watch Colbert and Corden, even if he’s leaving soon, you need Paramount Plus, and Kimmel is on Hulu.

As these shows are made technically daily. It needs to stay current with news, but also, timeskipping behavior means “live” isn’t live – while the tv network schedules have 11:35 and 12:35 listed, that doesn’t mean the shows air on YOUR time. You can watch Fallon in the Morning, or create your block with Kimmel then Colbert, or Meyers then Corden or anything else. It’s up to you, but the weird notion of “Late Night” might be weird, as technically, you could be watching it in Daytime, which that means we owe big apologies to Kelly Clarkson and Drew Barrymore.

I do not know what will happen, will Youtubers take over, will Podcasters be the new talk shows… am I getting a late night talk show? WHO KNOWS, I AM TIRED.