Fallon took The Tonight Show over and turned it into his own thing. But Colbert's show is based on his mock-conservative persona, and if he isn't allowed to carry that over into The Late Show, he's not going to have an established shtick to build on.
His appearance on The Daily Show this week contributed to this, as he was "saying goodbye" to the Stephen Colbert character (in his typical melodramatic way, of course).
Now, it could still turn out that he's very successful in Letterman's footsteps, but we don't have any prior experience with him to base that assumption on other than The Colbert Report and his correspondent gig with The Daily Show.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Well yeah, Fallon basically just took Late Night and moved it up 90 minutes. I wasn't suggesting that Colbert would be exactly like Fallon.
I was more referring to the fact that they both skew much younger than Letterman (and CBS in general, for that matter). Stephen has guests like Macklemore and St. Vincent, and actually engages with them and their work, for example, whereas the few times I've seen Letterman, he seems puzzled by newer musical acts.
The format switch from The Colbert Report to The Late Show is actually not that big. It's an opening monologue, a comedy bit at the desk, a couple guests, and a musical act.
Apart from ditching his character, the only differences are that the monologue is standing up (the humour of late night talk show monologues is usually politically based anyway), and the guests are usually entertainment-based, rather than political or academic.
The big thing is that Colbert will change from detailed explanations of why public figures are stupid, to just saying that they're stupid.
There will also presumably be less political stuff, and more pop culture stuff. Right now, Colbert couldn't care less about some actor saying something stupid. When he replaces Letterman, he'll probably have to make more jokes about actors than politicians.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
Late night humour is actually very politics-heavy. Ellen Degeneres was heavily rumoured for a while, and that's one of the reasons she gave for why she didn't want it. She doesn't do political humour.
Yeah, there will be pop culture stuff, but it's not like he only ever talks about politics. How many times has he done the Sport Report this year already?
I'm worried doing late-night humor for years without getting to have more creative fun on it (since it is a popular late-night talk show he'll be under more close scrutiny) will wear Colbert down and make him a repetitive bore, like what happened to Conan.
Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.What if he decided to be a parody of late-night talk?
...that would probably get old in less than a month. There's not as much to spoof as there is in politics.
Fresh-eyed movie blog![]()
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From what I remember from when I watched Conan, the political humour usually tended to be pretty soft. It just fit into the general pop culture stuff, really. "Alec Baldwin acted like an asshole, so here's a quick one-liner about him. Rand Paul said something assholish, too, so here's a quick one-liner about him." It wasn't as in-depth as Colbert is able to go right now.
I hope he does keep a strong focus on political humour. And, more important, on political humour with a point. Will he be able to do a bit, for example, exposing the flaws in the arguments against raising the minimum wage? Or a bit about the struggles of migrant workers? I'm not sure he'll be able to do that sort of thing on Late Night. I feel like he'll be restricted to quick one-liners, instead.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.There's a thread to discuss all the late night shakeups now. Discussion of Colbert being picked for the Late Show should probably go there from now on.
edited 28th Apr '14 10:53:21 PM by TParadox
Fresh-eyed movie blogI actually have no idea, and that's the part of this whole thing that intrigues me. With @midnight gaining in popularity, Comedy Central has one of the most successful blocks of programming ever (the three shows are the first, second, and third-highest rated programs on the network).
They can't change @midnight's timeslot, since that defeats the purpose, so there are two options. Either move The Daily Show to Colbert's old timeslot, or try to fit something in between them.
EDIT: You know who I wouldn't mind seeing take Stephen's timeslot? Larry Wilmore.
edited 29th Apr '14 4:33:38 PM by BadWolf21
Watch everyone freak out over a black talk show host.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Good point. But the TV industry loves its tokenism. "Once is enough" and all that.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Colbert was on the Letterman on the... 22th? Might be off by a day. Anyway, it's been years since I last saw a show of his and I really don't watch the other late night talk show stuff either (excepting the Comedy Central fare, ofc), just occasionally catching one of them. Still, decided to check out this one, as I'm sure did some others with the narratively interesting "meeting of the old and the new" setup.
Man that guy is not funny. I was bored out of my seat (literally, had to make a few kitchen runs for something to fortify myself with) for the whole opening bit. It got entertaining enough once Colbert showed up, but even then the whole conversation was carried by Colbert with Letterman occasionally grunting something in response.
Suddenly the crown Stephen is inheriting isn't as shiny in my mind as before. I'm sure he can make it work, but its such an old format that he'd be forced to change stuff to make it. Hopefully them hiring him was a sign that the network is willing to take the risk of alienating old fans big time. They could have gone with someone safer. Otherwise I can't help but feel that Colbert will lose a lot of his old fanbase in the transition.
/endrant
edited 25th Apr '14 1:44:55 AM by GabrieltheThird