With Conan taking over the Tonight Show, I thought it would be a good time to talk about late night TV over the years. The main focus would be on the late night talkers but anything after the late night news is fair game. For what it's worth, here are my top and bottom talk show hosts......
Top Talk Shows
1. Johnny Carson's Tonight Show: What else needs to be said about the guy? He's still the gold standard for late night yak fests to this day. His comic timing, his interviews, his chemistry with Ed McMahon, it was the ultimate TV comfort food. Miss his show alot.
2. David Letterman: I've always been more a fan of his "Late Night With David Letterman" days than his CBS incarnation. Even though Letterman is a little more mainstream these days, the guy still has an edge and there's nothing better when you piss off Dave. Nothing.
3. Conan O' Brien: I never saw much of his Late Night shows but I've become a fan since he moved to The Tonight Show. The creepy Tom Cruise Wax Figure gag is an instant classic. I hope NBC sticks with him. His audience will find him.
4. Arsenio Hall: This one is more of a historical inclusion more than a quality inclusion. I remember the show being charming enough and it had its share of historic moments (Clinton playing the sax) but the reason it's here is that it was the first show to directly compete with Carson and survive for more than a season. At the time this was kind of a big deal and really the first show to reach out to the Urban demographic and younger audience and it was rewarded with great ratings.
The Bottom
This one is more easy to fill.
3. The Rush Limbaugh Show: Yup, he had a late night TV show and it was gloriously bad. No it wasn't a talk show but rather it was his radio show on TV.
The show's highlight(?) was a bit where Rush said "You know the Clinton's have a family cat but did you know they also had a family dog?" Cue the picture of Chelsea Clinton at age 13. The show was cancelled not long after that.
2. The Magic Hour: Magic Johnson has many talents but starring on a late night talk show isn't one of them. He was so bad that Howard Stern came on and spent two segments coaching Magic on how to do a talk show. It was amazingly bad and I think it only lasted a month at most.
1. The Chevy Chase Show: This gets my number one spot for the sheer fact that on paper, this should have worked. I've only worked through a few of his clips on Youtube but whatever mojo he had going on with SNL just wasn't with him any more. It was pretty fucking sad actually.
I'm pretty sure there's a small graveyard of late night talk show hosts who tried to take on Johnny, Jay, Dave, and Conan so I'll leave it up to you guys to chat about them. I seem to remember Joan Rivers had a show at one time as well as Pat Sajak but I'll leave it up to those of you who actually saw these to chat about them.
Anyway, have fun.
I'm sure there are Chewers who have way more knowledge on this subject than I do so have at it.
Top Talk Shows
1. Johnny Carson's Tonight Show: What else needs to be said about the guy? He's still the gold standard for late night yak fests to this day. His comic timing, his interviews, his chemistry with Ed McMahon, it was the ultimate TV comfort food. Miss his show alot.
2. David Letterman: I've always been more a fan of his "Late Night With David Letterman" days than his CBS incarnation. Even though Letterman is a little more mainstream these days, the guy still has an edge and there's nothing better when you piss off Dave. Nothing.
3. Conan O' Brien: I never saw much of his Late Night shows but I've become a fan since he moved to The Tonight Show. The creepy Tom Cruise Wax Figure gag is an instant classic. I hope NBC sticks with him. His audience will find him.
4. Arsenio Hall: This one is more of a historical inclusion more than a quality inclusion. I remember the show being charming enough and it had its share of historic moments (Clinton playing the sax) but the reason it's here is that it was the first show to directly compete with Carson and survive for more than a season. At the time this was kind of a big deal and really the first show to reach out to the Urban demographic and younger audience and it was rewarded with great ratings.
The Bottom
This one is more easy to fill.
3. The Rush Limbaugh Show: Yup, he had a late night TV show and it was gloriously bad. No it wasn't a talk show but rather it was his radio show on TV.
The show's highlight(?) was a bit where Rush said "You know the Clinton's have a family cat but did you know they also had a family dog?" Cue the picture of Chelsea Clinton at age 13. The show was cancelled not long after that.
2. The Magic Hour: Magic Johnson has many talents but starring on a late night talk show isn't one of them. He was so bad that Howard Stern came on and spent two segments coaching Magic on how to do a talk show. It was amazingly bad and I think it only lasted a month at most.
1. The Chevy Chase Show: This gets my number one spot for the sheer fact that on paper, this should have worked. I've only worked through a few of his clips on Youtube but whatever mojo he had going on with SNL just wasn't with him any more. It was pretty fucking sad actually.
I'm pretty sure there's a small graveyard of late night talk show hosts who tried to take on Johnny, Jay, Dave, and Conan so I'll leave it up to you guys to chat about them. I seem to remember Joan Rivers had a show at one time as well as Pat Sajak but I'll leave it up to those of you who actually saw these to chat about them.
Anyway, have fun.
I'm sure there are Chewers who have way more knowledge on this subject than I do so have at it.
