Late Night Wars is ON, boys

Gregarius wrote: I'm also with you about Fallon. I liked his first show, too. But he's just so... not sure what the right word is... shallow? Sycophantic? Pandering?

Sycophantic is the right word for sure... I'd add precious in there as well. He's clearly a very talented man though so I forgive him a lot but I just don't like his persona and only watch his show in little clips on youtube once in awhile. Say when Louis CK is on or that animal guy he has. That animal guy actually reminds me of Harland Williams a little bit (who was a fantastic guest on Conan BTW).

edit: damnit, page 2... my real post is on the last page.

I really like the version of Colbert I see here:

comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/stephen...ody-but-looking-good

I was never super into the late night talk shows, but I suppose I preferred Dave out of the older bunch. I thought he had the best musical guests and felt he and Paul had a genuine interests in the artists.

A lot of the new guys (Fallon, Kimmel, etc.) feel like the sort of popular fraternity guys I didn't really gel with so I have no strong connection to those dudes. They may be nice enough, but nothing there for me.

I'd have to say that even though I didn't really watch him, I felt Ferguson was my guy. I always enjoyed his shows when I'd happen to catch them. Maybe it was because I felt I had a closer point of reference to him as he was into the late 70's punk scene. He felt like an outsider to the rest and seemed to be the guy I'd most want to hang with. Thinking about it now, it's sort of depressing that he isn't on anymore. It's not like I'm going to go back and watch a decade of old late night shows, but in hindsight I wished I watched him more.

I never saw the Colbert Report, but checked out his first show due to the hype. It was ok. Felt sort of forced to me. Almost as if they were trying to show how much fun they were having, but the whole thing felt strained. I dunno. I'm probably not the best judge on this sort of thing.

Oh man, I was not feeling it last night. The bit with the hat was a little lame, was he doing a Carson thing? The ScarJo interview was so bad ! He kept awkwardly interrupting her to make it funnier and she was having none of it. She's not that interesting to begin with either. I turned it off in disgust and missed Elon musk Dammit

I agree that I want the Colbert from comedians in cars to show up

The audio was still a little off but better, but the lighting was even worse than the first show. And it's not just Stephen not respecting his marks, even during the ScarJo interview, where no one is even moving, there were all these weird shadows. Are they hiring first year students to run the set?

My reaction to the second show is mixed negative. You can perceive a slight calming down, but he still seemed over-excited, especially during the interviews. With ScarJo, he was too ebullient to let her talk. With Musk, he kept changing the subject instead of really diving deep on anything. Both of these guests can be interesting if you just let them. I was particularly let down with the Musk interview because it felt like he hardly let him say anything. He used to be so good at interviews on the Report, it saddens me to see him faltering here now.

The Hat of Command (or whatever it was called) was weak because it way overstayed its welcome. If he had made a big deal of climbing those stairs, lowering the ridiculous hat onto his head, issuing just one *really good/funny* demand, and then bailing, it could have killed. Instead we get one or two funny lines and quite a few lame ones that bored you in anticipation of the next one.

I'm starting to think that part of his (and his writers') problem is that they're intimidated by being on a network. When they were on the Report on Comedy Central, they could pretend they were just writing for themselves, nobody was watching. They could just have fun with it. Now, they seem to think they have to play broad or safe, which is the lamest way to write comedy.

I look forward to seeing where the show ends up, but I don't know if I'll stick around for the journey. I like what Mark Harris from Grantland had to say:

This “night of huge firsts,” as Colbert called it, was a supersize, superloud, hyped-up, overamped, tense, and slightly needy start — not really who he is, or what the show will be. For that, let’s look to some Tuesday in January when the only guests are the second lead on a CBS replacement series and some band you’ve never heard of. Workaday, unpressured Colbert on an off night is the Colbert I want, and maybe the Colbert America needs.

Full article here.

JonJacob wrote: Fallon is pretty much the only one doing something original, but to me he's more entertaining and not very funny. It's all about games and impersonations which just aren't my thing. His co-host (Steve Higgins) is great though, a fantastic comedy writer and pretty funny guy over all.

From 'The Higgins Boys & Gruber'? Watching Freaks and Geeks last Spring, reminded me of that show. It was great. Good to see some of those guys are still around.

So, it's been a few weeks-- how do I feel about Colbert now?

Well, I'm very pleased. He's not been afraid to drop stupid comedy bits in favor of letting interviews go long. I also really like the format of having one light-hearted celebrity interview followed by one serious, often political interview. Wonderfully, he's gotten back to being a great interviewer as well. That alone makes him worthwhile (and unique in late night). He got a lot of press for the Biden interview, but honestly that praise belongs to Biden more than Colbert, who wisely just got out of the way and let him talk.

Last night he talked to Ted Cruz, and I was eager to see how he handled it. It was divided into two segments: in the first, Cruz was doing his best to seem genuine and likeable and appealing, in the second segment, it got down to actual policy. Colbert was pretty great. He didn't skewer him or attack him, but he also didn't let him get away with simple rhetoric nonsense. When Cruz conjured Reagan, Colbert called him out for Reagan policies that go against current Republican stances. When Cruz tried to dodge the gay marriage issue by invoking the Constitution, it turned into a thoughtful discussion of states' rights (although in my opinion, defending an anti-gay marriage position with a states' rights position seems dangerously close to the argument used by pro-slavery states).

But most interesting of all-- while Cruz was giving his position on gay marriage, the audience started to boo him (it was difficult to hear). Colbert stopped the interview and turned to his audience and said, "Excuse me. You may not agree with his position, but he is my guest. Please, let him speak." I was stunned. It was awesome. It was mature. Is it possible that we can have a reasonable discussion about our political differences? I'm eager to find out.

Of course, tonight his guest is Donald Trump.

Terrific post, Greg. I'm really mad that i missed it. I was watching both beginnings of the Nightly Show and the Late Show last night like I do most nights. I was really excited to see Sanders on the Nightly Show and Cruz on Late Show. I ended up getting so sleepy that I missed both interviews and lay in bed awake. Dammit.

I'll make an effort to catch Trump tonight.


As for how Colbert is doing, I'm at the point now that i prefer this show to The Colbert Report which I totally burned out on after a few months. I'm in a nice groove now where I watch the opening bit (10 minutes) of the Nightly Show (best part of the show) and then flip over to Late Show which just finished the monologue and has Stephen at his desk doing what he does best. Then when that goes to commercial, i go to bed. It's perfect.

Mr. White wrote: I was never super into the late night talk shows, but I suppose I preferred Dave out of the older bunch. I thought he had the best musical guests and felt he and Paul had a genuine interests in the artists.

A lot of the new guys (Fallon, Kimmel, etc.) feel like the sort of popular fraternity guys I didn't really gel with so I have no strong connection to those dudes. They may be nice enough, but nothing there for me.

I'd have to say that even though I didn't really watch him, I felt Ferguson was my guy. I always enjoyed his shows when I'd happen to catch them. Maybe it was because I felt I had a closer point of reference to him as he was into the late 70's punk scene. He felt like an outsider to the rest and seemed to be the guy I'd most want to hang with. Thinking about it now, it's sort of depressing that he isn't on anymore. It's not like I'm going to go back and watch a decade of old late night shows, but in hindsight I wished I watched him more.

I never saw the Colbert Report, but checked out his first show due to the hype. It was ok. Felt sort of forced to me. Almost as if they were trying to show how much fun they were having, but the whole thing felt strained. I dunno. I'm probably not the best judge on this sort of thing.

I totally love this post. It distills exactly how I feel, and I agree with every word.

I love Colbert, but I'm not sure how I'm going to dig him in this new format. I loved the Elon Musk interview but the rest are blah. Ferguson is the funniest, so that's my vote.

At this point, a while into the show now, I have to admit that he's doing a great job... but it's not my thing. There is a lot of American Political stuff going on and as a Canadian it's just not that interesting or relevant to me. I can't vote in USAmerica so even though the political system there is very important and can effect my life I don't feel like I should waste too much time being invested in it and as a result I don't find it that interesting.

With Dave it was more about just raw comedy.. now Colbert clearly has some good writers, I like the way he avoids partisan BS in his interviews and tries to give everyone a chance despite his clearly left leaning personal views. But it doesn't really work for me. I don't care about Joe Biden or Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. I want comedy out of this not half ass-ed political commentary. I'd prefer more guests who are comedians, Louis CK, Norm Macdonald, Bill Burr, Paul F Tompkins. Late night TV is generally at it's best when the host gets to talk to someone who is funny for a living.

I'm really curious what the show will look like once the election is over.

Yeah, it’s temporary because of the election. SNL does tons of political stuff during election seasons and it looks like Colbert believes he has a similar role to play. Instead of providing a distraction, he wants to be part of the story

Black Barney wrote: Yeah, it’s temporary because of the election. SNL does tons of political stuff during election seasons and it looks like Colbert believes he has a similar role to play. Instead of providing a distraction, he wants to be part of the story

The presidential election is over a year from now. That's a pretty long season.

Yep, it's the States

After the show last night I went on youtube and watched Mitch Hedberg on Letterman... I followed that Rabbit Hole down and watched a lot of different Stand Ups he had on over the years. In the later years of his show he only ever had them on Fridays (Brian Regan and Norm Macdonald being the last two) but then I started realizing... I haven't seen a single stand up set on Colbert's show yet. At least Fallon has them on still, he loves Nate Bargatze for example (I do too) and has had him on a few times.

I like when a powerful figure like that gives young comics a shot...

Conan remains the best for stand ups, especially up and coming comics.

best part was him trying to figure out what the tap dancer was saying in morse code.

That commercial at the end was weird. That uploader phoned it in, yo

yeah, stand up clips is totally a rabbit hole. I started watching Brian Regan stuff the other day (his ER routine) and the evening just got away from me.

Colbert never did stand up I think. Maybe that's why he doesn't have them on, he doesn't have an appreciation for that beat.

In other news, I think Trevor Noah is doing a pretty good job with the Daily Show. Chris Christie is on tonight. Should be fun. I hope Noah opens up with something like, "look, I'm new to this country and aren't real good with numbers, but are you dropping out or what?"