When the news first broke that Stephen Colbert would replace David Letterman on The Late Show, I had two basic thoughts on the matter.
First … Goodbye to “Stephen Colbert.” Long live Stephen Colbert.
And second … Figures.
The first phrase, because Colbert feels like a good fit to follow in Letterman’s footsteps. Intelligent, smart-alecky, a propensity for the absurd, and a stage persona based on gentlemanly impishness. Colbert has been the leader of irreverent comedy for the past few years. And he’s already a Viacom employee, as Comedy Central and CBS are corporate sisters.
But the “Colbert” character he portrayed on Comedy Central – a bigoted conservative whose blind values satirically get in the way of his own common sense or benefit – would be finished forever. That guy can’t interview Will Smith and Jennifer Aniston every night.
The second phrase, because, quite frankly, a late night TV talk atmosphere nearly exclusively white and male needed its replacement to be the same.
OK, OK, I can feel you rolling your eyes.
Another thinkpiece sarcastically saying, “C’mon, guys, couldn’t give the show to a person of color or a white woman?” Well, you can add me to the pile, from the general idea that I want ethnic and gender diversity in mass media. It’s in my self-interest, after all. Hell, I’m still mourning the end of Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.
Of course there are funny, talented people of color and white women out there who could be good at hosting a late night talk show. And, in a business based on connections, how many of them are in the pipelines that would lead to a gig that big? Probably not many. That must change.
I remember those heady times in the 1990s when networks opened up and tried to bite their piece of the late night pie from Johnny Carson and Nightline.
Arsenio Hall led them all, made so much hay on his first go-round because he was hip. But you can’t stay hip forever, as the hip things you promote get absorbed into the mainstream.
No one else really could step in for long. But also, who among them really had the ability to do the silly job of late night talk show host? Magic Johnson? Sinbad? Keenan Ivory Wayans? Whoopi Goldberg? I remember and watched all those shows. They didn’t have “it.” I knew that, and I was a teenaged nerd all hopped up on entertainment and celebrities.
I saw how Leno and Letterman operated. They played to the middle, even when they acted like they weren’t and didn’t care to. They served the late night talk show’s rigid format that satiates the sleepy viewer. Monologue, band, sketch, interviews, musical guest, goodnight. Night after night after night, forever.
Leno carried the format like a standard, while Letterman perfected the format as absurdism, showing that this show – a piece of showbiz, about showbiz – was nothing but tedium and nonsense.
But you know who did satisfy this nerd’s love of weirdness and entertainment together? Conan O’Brien.
And yes, I was thrilled when he got The Tonight Show, and nerd-raged when it was taken from him. But I knew that O’Brien, whose Late Night was about serving him to the audience, not serving the format, couldn’t make the switch. That giant set in LA was too big for his club-gig content. Even now on TBS, the set feels too big, but he’s doing what he wants now.
And that brings me back to the issues of people or color and white women in late night. When I think of the awesome, talented people out there doing awesome comedy, and how much I want them to enjoy even greater success, I then think about how a big-network late night talk show would bleed nearly all of them of everything I love them for.
I love Amy Schumer. Her Comedy Central show is possibly the most feminist show on TV. However, I do not want Schumer to leave behind smartly written sketches about how women relate to each other, and the structural issues behind gender performance, just to interview Kate Hudson for Middle America. Nope. She’ll be better suited to making movies carrying her ideas.
Eric Andre is hilarious. His Adult Swim show turns the late night talk show so inside-out that it’s awkward and beautifully fucked up. How in the hell is he supposed to turn that into a regular show? Do you want him to?
I love Tina Fey. I don’t have to defend her to any of you. But there is something so anti-bullshit about her projects that how in the hell would she want to interview Kim Kardashian seriously? You’d take her laughing at bad headlines in the newspaper over 30 Rock? Plus, her projects are hers, serving only absentee master Lorne Michaels. Too many masters to serve on the Tonight Shows of the world.
Key and Peele are fabulous. Their talk show could kick ass. And their edges will get shaved off at 11:35 after the network news. Also, with a Judd Apatow-produced project and the low-stakes Police Academy reboot in their clutches, alongside cameos in primetime TV, they already may be too big for late night. The big late night show seems best with folks who no longer fit anywhere else in showbiz. Key and Peele, right now, can fit everywhere.
Maya Rudolph? Amazing. Beloved. She just hasn’t had the right TV project yet. Her upcoming variety show gives her a chance to flex her Carol Burnett-like powers. And, to my mind, that is where she belongs. She’s too good a performer to stop doing that and sit behind a desk asking Sandra Bullock about how rich she is.
The funny thing is that while late night in 2014 continues to be the home of white men putting showbiz on display, daytime TV has become the province of black men. Michael Strahan on Live with Kelly and Michael, Wayne Brady on Let’s Make A Deal, Cedric The Entertainer on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and Steve Harvey on both Family Feud and his eponymous talk show.
Think about that. Two of the Original Kings of Comedy, who made some of hardest for-black-people-only comedy, are killing it on daytime TV. Yet we won’t see them hosting late night any time soon.
And we can’t forget the women of daytime, too. Ellen DeGeneres is a talk show juggernaut, Wendy Williams is syndicated everywhere, and The View just won’t die. As for court shows, a 71-year-old Judge Judy still rules that roost that includes Judge Mathis and The People’s Court.
You’d think that kind of success with ethnic and gender minorities, late night would follow. Amy Poehler, my top female pick to battle the Jimmys, is a bit busy right now. She can out-smirk Kimmel and out-nice Fallon. Maybe she’ll feel like handling a talk show someday.
Our best hopes would be the smaller spaces left behind by Colbert, and possibly Craig Ferguson if he leaves CBS.
That’s where I think Aisha Tyler is among the ethnically and gender diverse comedians who would be best suited to taking over the spots left open by Colbert Report and Late Late Show.
She’s about as close to the tone and demeanor that you see from the big guys in late night. Her characteristics – tall, pretty, geeky, awkward, acerbically kind – all would work great on a late night talk show. Both Colbert and Late Late already hit the wheelhouse of nerdly guests of which she herself is part.
And in those club-gig atmospheres, Tyler’s smarts would not be subsumed to the mass market. Plus it would be fun as hell to see her battle on The Talk and then let her brains hang out on her own show. Her Girl on Guy podcast is proof enough.
But hey, she’s just one person. Here’s to hoping the networks keep their eyes open.
