Colbert is probably the saddest to see because almost everything he did before “The Late Show” was absolute gold.
It’s an old-media business model, and will be obsolete or gone soon. Does anybody below the age of 50 actually tune into Colbert or Kimmel on a regular basis?
I don’t know if this is the most helpful discussion for this particular thread. I know tangents happen, but it’s getting bumped a lot for a basically unrelated topic. The specific failings of someone like Corden or Trevor Noah’s problematic standup are another story of course.
I know the talk show host convo is done but Craig Ferguson has always been my second favorite of all time (Conan forever) and things like this is why. He refused to make fun of Spears when literally everyone else on TV was
There’s something very insidious about how talk shows spread this fucked up celebrity pile on culture, they had to make jokes every night so they exacerbated these minor stories for cheap laughs, and they were usually misogynistic. it’s never one host but the whole format, and I think keeping this style going as a weird staple of the entertainment industry for far longer than it needed to be has definitely made the world worse. Conan was one of the best at this but he’s still said fucked up shit just by nature of having to say something every night for decades. The more they retire these shows the better, most people can’t stand them and they just aren’t needed.
Yeah Conan is nowhere near as misogynistic as Leno or Letterman but he still, probably mainly in character, became a cartoon wolf every time he interviewed an attractive woman
I think late night talk shows have evolved with the times in being less mean-spirited/misogynistic either because they wanted to or were forced to because they didn’t want the pushback or to risk not being able to book big talent. The Leno/Letterman, even the ‘90s/early 2000s Conan years had so many jokes centered around gay people, addicts and people with mental health issues. I remember Conan had a whole bit where it made fun of Matthew Perry’s fluctuating weight after several stints in rehab. He obviously changed over time for the better, but it was a rough go during those years.