That should have been a major sign the late night show format was dying when 5 of the top late night hosts did a podcast together during Covid and almost nobody listened to it.
I thought it was pretty good. I thought Jimmy Fallon was the weakest link, but, I Liked the rest of them.
Seeing Letterman on Colbert reminded me off how much I miss him. I grew up with him in the80s, and 90s... From Paul, Pet Tricks, Human Tricks, Top 10 lists, guest people doing those lists, and Drew Barrymore - those , for me, were the best of times.... Watching him again, was just awesome, IMO.
Ngl I never understood the appeal of Letterman or why every late night host reveres him so much? He's just never gotten a laugh out of me.
He was a trailblazer, for sure. Without him, there’s no Conan. He was a master of remote segments where he would go out and kind of screw with the public or make a fool out of himself. It’s probably something you needed to grow up with to enjoy or maybe it’s just not your thing (I was a Letterman guy, while my friend was a Leno fan.).
Maybe I'm slightly too young. Conan and Ferguson are who I remember the most from when I was younger. Those two are legends imo. My parents weren't big late night fans though. But, they would watch Leno occasionally because he's from their home town.
I can understand not liking him if you grew up during his later years. His last 5-10 years, he was clearly phoning it in because he didn’t want to leave his routine. He wasn’t doing remotes any more or a lot of his signature segments. Plus he had the whole cheating scandal. It was a lot.
Letterman is much more influential on the current generation of hosts than even Carson. His 80's stuff was the best.
Watch some of his Late Night stuff from the 80's when he was following Carson. He did some real ahead of it's time stuff that was way different than anything else on TV. He was the "hip" talk show host for a long time before he got The Late Show. He was basically my dad's Conan when my dad was college aged.
I loved the remote 90's bits he did when I was growing up where he'd send a camera over the Bodega across the street to do fun banter with the owner. Also the stuff he did with his mom was always fun.
My mom made it a point to meet Rupert at Hello Deli before he retired. She had the photo of her with him on the fridge forever.
People love Letterman because he was authentic, sarcastic, and didn't really seem to give that much of a fuck about pissing TV executives off.
I was surprised to learn that not only is Colbert in first place in ratings, even before the announcement of the cancellation, but Fallon is even behind Kimmel in third place. It is sad to think that Fallon will benefit from receiving some of Colbert's viewers and continue to infect the popular discourse.
I saw a clip from when all the hosts were on Colbert and everyone is joking and riffing and he's just a big wet fart when he talks. Kills the entire vibe.
I always assumed it was a Jay Leno/Big Bang Theory situation where smarter people hate it but the masses love it but he barely beats The Daily Show on cable.
it makes sense because Kimmel and Colbert have the liberal audience who wants to hear Trump bad and Fallon is soulless
Pre-2016 Fallon was culturally very popular. The YouTube clips of the bits he did with celebrities really made the rounds. Guy had a Universal Studios ride themed after him. Before 2016 the late night paradigm was: Fallon was trying to be like internet Carson for millennials where he's schmoozing with his famous friends while playing pictionary. Very escapist celebrity focused entertainment. Colbert initially was trying to do an elevated Dick Cavett thing where he had on politicians, writers, scientists, intellectuals, ect. Kimmel was leaning hard on his Letterman influence doing constant remote bits. Meyers was doing sort of a mix of Weekend Update and early Conan (the Conner O'Malley man in the audience bits were 100% early Conan). Then 2016 happened and everyone got political, and only Fallon couldn't keep up.