When news stories fall through the cracks, we here at Colbert News Hub find them for a post we call, In The Press.
Hey hubsters! We’re back again with the articles you might have missed in June. In this edition, A.V. Club published the second part of its oral history of Comedy Central with a nice portion on The Colbert Report. There are interesting interviews with some of the other late-night hosts and their staff, as well as discussion about a particularly ‘bad week’ The Late Show had last month. On the bright side, Meryl Streep is apparently a big fan, and Stephen’s interview with Bill O’Reilly got props from the media!
Stephen Colbert
- Night After Night to @midnight: An oral history of Comedy Central (Part 2) – A.V. Club
First off, here’s part 1 of the oral history of Comedy Central. There’s a lengthy section on The Colbert Report that talks about the show’s genesis, how unique the Stewart/Colbert years of political satire were, and losing talent to other networks.
(N.b. Tony Fox is the former executive vice president of corporate communications at Comedy Central.)
Fox: The show debuted with Stone Phillips on, and “truthiness” was immediately coined and became the “word of the year.” But everybody was predicting a short life for the show, because they just didn’t believe that someone could sustain a character in a live talk-show environment like that. We did it with Jiminy Glick, but that was weekly for three seasons. No one thought Colbert could pull this off for the period of time that he did. And not only did he do it, he did it brilliantly. …
The freedom that that fictitious character gave him to do things that Jon couldn’t do just made the show. It takes a special, warped kind of person to really appreciate Colbert and his whacked-out gourd. But every time he got involved in a poll, naming a bridge, I couldn’t believe Colbert Nation and the way they were reacting. It just blew my mind. It was a phenomenon, and quickly became irreplaceable in some ways pertaining to The Daily Show.
This is the context for what happened next. Stephen Colbert, who was not supposed to be on this call, said to me, “Hi, this is Stephen Colbert.” And this is exactly how I responded: “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”
It was high-pitched. It was super intense. You could practically hear the little hearts dotting all those i’s. …
I knew he was a fan of sci-fi, so I mentioned how much I love Battlestar Galactica. Colbert said, “Oh … me too. The new one or old one?” And I said, “The new one.” And he said, “Me too.” Things are going great. We’re going to be best friends now. Then he said, “Can you say Battlestar Galactica backwards?”
Here’s the thing. I know Colbert is an improviser. I’ve done improv. And in improv, the number one rule is to “yes and.” I don’t have to actually say anything backwards. If I replied by saying “mesothelioma” or “Jesus wasn’t white,” it’d been better than saying “no.” I was having this thought just as I’m in middle of saying “no,” because I’d not fully recovered from how intensely I said “hi” to him at the start of the call.
So I said “no” and wince. Colbert immediately attempts to say Battlestar Galactica backwards. It is hilarious. I laugh.
Then he jokingly says “You blew it, kid.” I laugh.
I remember we did one scene where we had to arrive, but we were stuck in traffic. The silence was unbearable. She talked to me a little bit that day about Nick Cave and Stephen Colbert. At the time, I was a nervous talker. I asked her if she’d seen “The Daily Show,” something Jon Stewart had done that had really resonated with me. Then I said something like, “Don’t you think Jon Stewart is saving the world?” She got very quiet, and I didn’t know if what I said was okay or not. Then a full minute later, she said, “I think Stephen Colbert is.”
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
- Late-night comedy needs to get over Jon Stewart – The Week
I have to say, it has been interesting to see some of the comments by people who like the show well enough but find it to be too political or, well, too liberal. The author of this article is one of those people: He thinks Stephen “is an impossible man to dislike” but also wants him to stop talking about politics “because it makes him boring.” If you read the whole article you’ll quickly realize that the writer doesn’t seem to remember what Stephen’s previous job was.
David Letterman, but also Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, did a bit of political mockery, of course, but that was never the focus, and they didn’t traffic in the whole “fake news anchor” schtick. But now that Jon Stewart invented that style of comedy, and has had such success with it, everyone is aping it.
Here’s a recommendation, Stephen: Ban politics from your show. Not because I don’t like your politics, but because it makes you boring. It’s the only thing that will make you find a type of comedy that fits both your style and the format of the actual show you’re on, as opposed to the one you used to have.
And it’s not just the merry band of Daily Show alums who are copying their old boss. The disease is spreading.
June was a tough month for The Late Show, at least in the press. We learned that longtime executive producer Meredith Bennett has left the show; Howard Stern asked James Corden if he would replace Stephen in the 11:35 slot; and some interpreted comments by David Letterman, that weren’t any different from previous comments he’d made, as criticism of Stephen specifically (which I don’t think it was). Tom Brokaw … asked Letterman if he missed being on CBS every night.
“You know, I don’t,” Letterman said. “And it’s interesting. I thought for sure I would. And then, the first day of Stephen’s show, when he went on the air, an energy left me and I felt like, ‘You know, that’s not my problem anymore.’ And I’ve kind of felt that way ever since. I devoted so much time to the damage of other aspects of my life. The concentrated, fixated, focusing on that … it’s good now to not have that. I couldn’t care less about late-night television. I’m happy for the guys – men and women – there should be more women. And I don’t know why they didn’t give my show to a woman. That would have been fine. You know, I’m happy for their success. And they’re doing things I couldn’t do. So that’s great.”
Colbert, though in my view the best of the three major late-night hosts, has had a rocky entry onto the network scene after hanging up his Colbert Report faux-conservative persona. Coming in to replace the well-established and immediately identifiable David Letterman, Colbert has seemed at times ill at ease with the anachronistic demands of being a late-night host, like interviews. …
[T]he onus to answer these questions will stay on Colbert, who’d do well to lean yet harder on the sort of bits that work best for him online (and, coincidentally enough, are the best): His interviews with newsmakers like DeRay Mckesson or Tim Cook. Being forced to prove one’s worth day-in and day-out—the unglamorous work of a host—isn’t comfortable. But left unresolved, questions like Stern’s tend to blossom. Jay Leno used to say he’d never return to The Tonight Show when Conan O’Brien took it over, too.
- Stephen Colbert Is Having A Very Bad Week – Uproxx
Can Colbert recover from all this? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. No one is questioning Colbert’s talent, but I do wonder if this is the best fit or avenue for his talent. He just seems a little lost. Right after Licht took over, some small changes were made to make the show immediately better, like ditching the cold open monologue. But I’ve been watching a lot lately and the same old problems persist: disjointed and dated comedy segments, and Colbert’s lack of interest in guests he doesn’t care about.
… And that’s Colbert’s biggest problem: He wants to be an all encompassing “America’s Host” when that’s not at all what Colbert is. Colbert is smart and he’s divisive and he has opinions. Yeah, I get that old line, “Republicans watch television, too,” but the world doesn’t work like that anymore. You can still “play to everyone,” but it’s in the form of what Fallon and Corden do. Stephen Colbert dancing around the stage with Skrillex just seems off – and from the body language of Colbert, I bet he knows it’s off, too.
- America’s at sea without a (network news) anchor – Los Angeles Times
But there’s also been positive press. One of the most consistent sources of praise seems to be Stephen’s interviewing style with political guests, particularly conservative ones like Bill O’Reilly. He distinguishes himself through his ability to stay civil and build bridges while still having substantive conversations on controversial issues.
[Bill O’Reilly] had been booked as a guest long before the Orlando tragedy, but far from simply making the best of a potentially awkward situation, their conversation quickly built a bridge between ideologies that too often, and on both sides, rely more on interpretation than information, on competitive posturing more than actual dialogue. …
On Monday night, the two were uncharacteristically sober, abstaining from their signature zingers in favor of actual debate — Colbert pushed O’Reilly on assault weapons, and O’Reilly conceded that there should be a conversation about banning them, just as O’Reilly pushed Colbert to acknowledge Trump’s post-Orlando shooting tweets as effective politics.
Some of the subdued tenor was due, no doubt, to the horrific nature of the event that sparked the dialogue. But each man also appeared to understand that the fact of this conversation, between two people who have all but defined themselves in opposition to each other, was as important as its content.
It may not have produced the stunning power of Edward R. Murrow taking on the McCarthy hearings or Walter Cronkite denouncing the Vietnam War, but it was something.
If Bill O’Reilly and Stephen Colbert can find some middle ground, maybe the rest of us can too.
Late Night
- ‘The Daily Show’ proves why TV shows deserve dignified deaths – The Washington Post
This article argues that too many shows are kept on the air way past the time they should have ended, and that both Trevor Noah and Stephen would have been better off creating their own shows from scratch rather than taking over a franchise.
I understand the business and political imperatives that militated keeping “The Daily Show” alive. The series was a critical element of Comedy Central’s brand and a beacon for progressives during a Republican presidential administration. But I can’t help but wonder if Noah might have been better off developing a new show under his own imprimatur, rather than trying to fill the precise emotional void Stewart left behind, much as it was better for Stephen Colbert to go off and create something odd and amazing and entirely his own as he did with “The Colbert Report.” And though it’s true Stewart inherited “The Daily Show” from Craig Kilborn, he consolidated the series’ identity; his departure might have been a natural end point.
I think the mistake a lot of our critics make is trying to compare Trevor to Jon. It’s not just unfair, it’s a nonsensical comparison. They’re two completely different people. Like I said, Jon approached his show with a point of view and an argument he wanted to make, and the show was tailored to that. Trevor’s perspective is completely different, and his style is completely different. He wants to talk about things. He wants to have a conversation and go through issues. He doesn’t bring that level of outrage, I think, that Jon does, and I think there are some critics who think that if it’s not outrage it can’t be satire. And those critics miss out on a lot of incredibly good stuff we’ve done.
What Trump has taken away from satirists is the power of exaggeration. The classic trick of taking the things a politician says and ratcheting them up to show their ridiculousness. Trump is already there, so there’s not much you can do. How do you exaggerate Trump? Have your Trump character actually say the racial slurs that he sometimes appears to be on the edge of saying himself? That probably wouldn’t go over well these days, for understandable reasons. So, what we’re likely in for until November is the same bits we’ve heard before, in which “Trump is bad” is beaten into our heads over and over. There are plenty of more important reasons to not want a Trump presidency, but here’s another one worth considering: if he wins, we’re in for four more years of satirists struggling to say anything new about him. Perhaps this could inspire a new slogan from his opponent — Hillary 2016: Make Political Satire Great Again.
From the outside, everyone looks at this election cycle and assumes that it’s been comedy gold, but has it produced a challenge in the sense that it’s so ridiculous that it’s not forcing people to be creatively funny, do you think?
I don’t think so. All you really want is something that the nation is focused on, because one of the big challenges as far as telling jokes and writing comedy bits go is sometimes you have to educate the audience on what you’re even talking about and when they already know what you’re talking about, you just kind of cut that part of it out. It’s helpful, it’s a little bit of a short cut. I don’t have to explain who Donald Trump is to the audience before I make a joke about him. I do have to explain who Dennis Hastert is to the audience before I make a joke about him. I don’t think of it as a bad thing. To me it’s a challenge because everybody is talking about it, but it’s the kind of challenge that I think we all like.
When there are this many people starting out and sort of experimenting with the format and trying to make their mark, do you think that encourages people to try new things, or do you think it discourages innovation because people don’t want to fall flat on their face out of the box?
I don’t know. I guess it depends on who it is, I suppose, right? I mean, it’s different for different things. I think if you look at The Daily Show, like Trevor probably had the most unenviable position because he had to follow Jon Stewart, and he has a pre-existing show. If you look at somebody like Sam Bee, she got to create her own thing without any expectations that there was a show there. That was probably liberating for them. They’re like, “I don’t care. We’ll do whatever the f— we want. Nobody knows that this is yet,” so that’s got to be liberating in some senses.
Our show was odd because we weren’t doing Stephen’s show, but we were in his time slot, so there was an expectation, and Jon was still on the air, so we were following The Daily Show, so we kind of had the mix of both of those. Yeah, we could do our own thing, but there was an expectation of something also. Then Colbert’s is odd. Colbert had the weirdest one of all because he had to follow in the expectation of his fake self. He had to live up to his fake self in some way, and follow David Letterman, so Stephen had the most challenging one. I don’t know if people appreciate how challenging Stephen’s job really was.
- Before Wrestling Donald Trump, Seth Meyers Fought for His ‘Late Night’ Voice – Variety
Late Night with Seth Meyers has come a long way since its beginnings. It’s progressively made a name for itself by focusing on current events and featuring interesting guests from politics, the media, and both fiction and nonfiction authors. An important outtake for us, perhaps, is that it takes a while to find one’s voice in late night, and that viewers and the media need to be patient.
“Jon Stewart was a giant, and obviously, Colbert was as well. But there is definitely a vacuum, and Trevor Noah is doing a good show, but I think Seth was already doing that, as it were, on ‘Update,’” said Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “Late Night” and the veteran keeper of NBC’s late-night schedule. Meyers “has a strong point of view. He’s not an angry person, and that makes it easier. He doesn’t do outrage.” Even so, said Michaels, “the jokes are tough.” …
“I feel like we are in an era now where a joke is allowed to be interesting as well as funny,” said Meyers during a recent interview in his office at 30 Rock. When it comes to the “Closer Look” segments that generate a lot of chatter for the program, for instance, he said, “we obviously want them to be funny and that’s the primary goal, but we’ve allowed ourselves to be interesting if we feel like the story is interesting. Sometimes, we leave something in even if we don’t have an A-plus joke for this, but it’s important for the takeaway.” …
“The competition in network television now is not other network television. You’re competing for an audience with so many choices,” said Michaels. “You really have to know who you are and what kind of show you are doing, or else they won’t show up.” And getting there, he added, can take some time.
Emmy Awards
- Emmy Late-Night Preview: Widest Field Yet As Corden, Oliver & Others Battle It Out – Deadline
In June, Deadline estimated that The Late Show had ‘a decent shot’ at an Emmy nomination; in the end of course it didn’t get one. Interestingly, neither did Samantha Bee nor Seth Meyers. I have to say, while I have my own issues with the show, I certainly don’t think all the shows who did get a nomination deserved it over The Late Show (admittedly I am a little biased)…
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (CBS)
Colbert is obviously no stranger to this Emmy competition, having seen his Colbert Report nominated in all 10 years of its existence since the 2006 race, winning in both 2013 and 2014. But in that show he was playing a character—now he is playing himself. And the series, though full of buzz-worthy moments lately and a different kind of guest list, has gone through growing pains since he took the show over last Fall. CBS has been conducting an aggressive campaign on his behalf and Colbert is well-liked so there’s a decent shot.
GOODMAN I’m sure we’ll disagree on whether Trevor Noah and The Daily Show deserve a nom, but can we maybe agree that Samantha Bee deserves one? If the award goes to something super topical, I like John Oliver, but if not, I think it’s really time for Jimmy Kimmel to get his due.
FIENBERG I continue to think Trevor Noah has, by virtue of failing in the impossible task of equaling Jon Stewart, become the most underrated man in late night. I hope The Daily Show gets a nomination. But I’m with you on Samantha Bee and John Oliver, and I suspect they’re going to be the heirs to this category’s throne. I also think Emmy voters are looking for as many ways as possible to honor James Corden’s viral genius.
The one thing we can predict for 2016: Someone new will be taking home the Emmy.
This year’s hosts have all achieved varying degrees of success. Some have racked up impressive ratings, others have been blowing up the internet with their sketches and monologues.
“It’s a hard year to stand out, but that’s what makes it so satisfying,” says CBS’ “The Late Late Show With James Corden” executive producer Ben Winston. “There are essentially at least five new shows, all competing for eyeballs.”
“Corden” executive producer Rob Crabbe says having so many newcomers to the game has helped make this a particularly good time for late night.
“It raises everybody’s game when you have to work harder to get noticed,” Crabbe says. “It’s good for us and for late night in general.”
“I wear it as a badge of honor at this point,” he says of his Emmy track record.
But it does frustrate him that the two shows that did win in each of the last 13 years — Stewart’s and Colbert’s — borrowed his format and, in his view, “never say anything that challenges their own audience. There’s no guts in that. That’s just pandering to me, to always say the thing that your clack of liberals will reliably applaud. I mean, I could do that. I know what they want to hear. That’s not what I’m looking to do.”
Ratings
| Week |
Status |
18-49 Demo Rating |
Demo Ranking |
Overall viewers (millions) |
Overall Ranking |
| May 30 – June 3 |
New Episodes
Fallon = Repeats
Kimmel (ABC) boosted by NBA games
|
0.40/2 |
#4
Behind Nightline (ABC) at 12:35 a.m.
|
2.08 |
#3 |
| June 6 – 10 |
New Episodes
Kimmel (ABC) boosted by NBA games
|
0.38/2 |
#5
Behind Nightline and Seth Meyers at 12:35 a.m.
|
2.05 |
#3 |
| June 13 – 17 |
New Episodes
Kimmel (ABC) boosted by NBA games
|
0.42/2 |
#4
Behind Nightline (ABC) at 12:35 a.m.
|
2.27 |
#3 |
| June 20 – 24 |
New Episodes |
0.46/2 |
#2 |
2.23 |
#2 |
| June 27 – July 1 |
New Episodes
Fallon = Repeats
|
0.41/2 |
#3 |
2.16 |
#2 |
** Ratings data from TV by the Numbers.
In the Press – June 2016
Hey hubsters! We’re back again with the articles you might have missed in June. In this edition, A.V. Club published the second part of its oral history of Comedy Central with a nice portion on The Colbert Report. There are interesting interviews with some of the other late-night hosts and their staff, as well as discussion about a particularly ‘bad week’ The Late Show had last month. On the bright side, Meryl Streep is apparently a big fan, and Stephen’s interview with Bill O’Reilly got props from the media!
Stephen Colbert
First off, here’s part 1 of the oral history of Comedy Central. There’s a lengthy section on The Colbert Report that talks about the show’s genesis, how unique the Stewart/Colbert years of political satire were, and losing talent to other networks.
(N.b. Tony Fox is the former executive vice president of corporate communications at Comedy Central.)
Fox: The show debuted with Stone Phillips on, and “truthiness” was immediately coined and became the “word of the year.” But everybody was predicting a short life for the show, because they just didn’t believe that someone could sustain a character in a live talk-show environment like that. We did it with Jiminy Glick, but that was weekly for three seasons. No one thought Colbert could pull this off for the period of time that he did. And not only did he do it, he did it brilliantly. …
The freedom that that fictitious character gave him to do things that Jon couldn’t do just made the show. It takes a special, warped kind of person to really appreciate Colbert and his whacked-out gourd. But every time he got involved in a poll, naming a bridge, I couldn’t believe Colbert Nation and the way they were reacting. It just blew my mind. It was a phenomenon, and quickly became irreplaceable in some ways pertaining to The Daily Show.
This is the context for what happened next. Stephen Colbert, who was not supposed to be on this call, said to me, “Hi, this is Stephen Colbert.” And this is exactly how I responded: “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”
It was high-pitched. It was super intense. You could practically hear the little hearts dotting all those i’s. …
I knew he was a fan of sci-fi, so I mentioned how much I love Battlestar Galactica. Colbert said, “Oh … me too. The new one or old one?” And I said, “The new one.” And he said, “Me too.” Things are going great. We’re going to be best friends now. Then he said, “Can you say Battlestar Galactica backwards?”
Here’s the thing. I know Colbert is an improviser. I’ve done improv. And in improv, the number one rule is to “yes and.” I don’t have to actually say anything backwards. If I replied by saying “mesothelioma” or “Jesus wasn’t white,” it’d been better than saying “no.” I was having this thought just as I’m in middle of saying “no,” because I’d not fully recovered from how intensely I said “hi” to him at the start of the call.
So I said “no” and wince. Colbert immediately attempts to say Battlestar Galactica backwards. It is hilarious. I laugh.
Then he jokingly says “You blew it, kid.” I laugh.
I remember we did one scene where we had to arrive, but we were stuck in traffic. The silence was unbearable. She talked to me a little bit that day about Nick Cave and Stephen Colbert. At the time, I was a nervous talker. I asked her if she’d seen “The Daily Show,” something Jon Stewart had done that had really resonated with me. Then I said something like, “Don’t you think Jon Stewart is saving the world?” She got very quiet, and I didn’t know if what I said was okay or not. Then a full minute later, she said, “I think Stephen Colbert is.”
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
I have to say, it has been interesting to see some of the comments by people who like the show well enough but find it to be too political or, well, too liberal. The author of this article is one of those people: He thinks Stephen “is an impossible man to dislike” but also wants him to stop talking about politics “because it makes him boring.” If you read the whole article you’ll quickly realize that the writer doesn’t seem to remember what Stephen’s previous job was.
David Letterman, but also Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, did a bit of political mockery, of course, but that was never the focus, and they didn’t traffic in the whole “fake news anchor” schtick. But now that Jon Stewart invented that style of comedy, and has had such success with it, everyone is aping it.
Here’s a recommendation, Stephen: Ban politics from your show. Not because I don’t like your politics, but because it makes you boring. It’s the only thing that will make you find a type of comedy that fits both your style and the format of the actual show you’re on, as opposed to the one you used to have.
And it’s not just the merry band of Daily Show alums who are copying their old boss. The disease is spreading.
June was a tough month for The Late Show, at least in the press. We learned that longtime executive producer Meredith Bennett has left the show; Howard Stern asked James Corden if he would replace Stephen in the 11:35 slot; and some interpreted comments by David Letterman, that weren’t any different from previous comments he’d made, as criticism of Stephen specifically (which I don’t think it was). Tom Brokaw … asked Letterman if he missed being on CBS every night.
“You know, I don’t,” Letterman said. “And it’s interesting. I thought for sure I would. And then, the first day of Stephen’s show, when he went on the air, an energy left me and I felt like, ‘You know, that’s not my problem anymore.’ And I’ve kind of felt that way ever since. I devoted so much time to the damage of other aspects of my life. The concentrated, fixated, focusing on that … it’s good now to not have that. I couldn’t care less about late-night television. I’m happy for the guys – men and women – there should be more women. And I don’t know why they didn’t give my show to a woman. That would have been fine. You know, I’m happy for their success. And they’re doing things I couldn’t do. So that’s great.”
Colbert, though in my view the best of the three major late-night hosts, has had a rocky entry onto the network scene after hanging up his Colbert Report faux-conservative persona. Coming in to replace the well-established and immediately identifiable David Letterman, Colbert has seemed at times ill at ease with the anachronistic demands of being a late-night host, like interviews. …
[T]he onus to answer these questions will stay on Colbert, who’d do well to lean yet harder on the sort of bits that work best for him online (and, coincidentally enough, are the best): His interviews with newsmakers like DeRay Mckesson or Tim Cook. Being forced to prove one’s worth day-in and day-out—the unglamorous work of a host—isn’t comfortable. But left unresolved, questions like Stern’s tend to blossom. Jay Leno used to say he’d never return to The Tonight Show when Conan O’Brien took it over, too.
Can Colbert recover from all this? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. No one is questioning Colbert’s talent, but I do wonder if this is the best fit or avenue for his talent. He just seems a little lost. Right after Licht took over, some small changes were made to make the show immediately better, like ditching the cold open monologue. But I’ve been watching a lot lately and the same old problems persist: disjointed and dated comedy segments, and Colbert’s lack of interest in guests he doesn’t care about.
… And that’s Colbert’s biggest problem: He wants to be an all encompassing “America’s Host” when that’s not at all what Colbert is. Colbert is smart and he’s divisive and he has opinions. Yeah, I get that old line, “Republicans watch television, too,” but the world doesn’t work like that anymore. You can still “play to everyone,” but it’s in the form of what Fallon and Corden do. Stephen Colbert dancing around the stage with Skrillex just seems off – and from the body language of Colbert, I bet he knows it’s off, too.
But there’s also been positive press. One of the most consistent sources of praise seems to be Stephen’s interviewing style with political guests, particularly conservative ones like Bill O’Reilly. He distinguishes himself through his ability to stay civil and build bridges while still having substantive conversations on controversial issues.
[Bill O’Reilly] had been booked as a guest long before the Orlando tragedy, but far from simply making the best of a potentially awkward situation, their conversation quickly built a bridge between ideologies that too often, and on both sides, rely more on interpretation than information, on competitive posturing more than actual dialogue. …
On Monday night, the two were uncharacteristically sober, abstaining from their signature zingers in favor of actual debate — Colbert pushed O’Reilly on assault weapons, and O’Reilly conceded that there should be a conversation about banning them, just as O’Reilly pushed Colbert to acknowledge Trump’s post-Orlando shooting tweets as effective politics.
Some of the subdued tenor was due, no doubt, to the horrific nature of the event that sparked the dialogue. But each man also appeared to understand that the fact of this conversation, between two people who have all but defined themselves in opposition to each other, was as important as its content.
It may not have produced the stunning power of Edward R. Murrow taking on the McCarthy hearings or Walter Cronkite denouncing the Vietnam War, but it was something.
If Bill O’Reilly and Stephen Colbert can find some middle ground, maybe the rest of us can too.
Late Night
This article argues that too many shows are kept on the air way past the time they should have ended, and that both Trevor Noah and Stephen would have been better off creating their own shows from scratch rather than taking over a franchise.
I understand the business and political imperatives that militated keeping “The Daily Show” alive. The series was a critical element of Comedy Central’s brand and a beacon for progressives during a Republican presidential administration. But I can’t help but wonder if Noah might have been better off developing a new show under his own imprimatur, rather than trying to fill the precise emotional void Stewart left behind, much as it was better for Stephen Colbert to go off and create something odd and amazing and entirely his own as he did with “The Colbert Report.” And though it’s true Stewart inherited “The Daily Show” from Craig Kilborn, he consolidated the series’ identity; his departure might have been a natural end point.
I think the mistake a lot of our critics make is trying to compare Trevor to Jon. It’s not just unfair, it’s a nonsensical comparison. They’re two completely different people. Like I said, Jon approached his show with a point of view and an argument he wanted to make, and the show was tailored to that. Trevor’s perspective is completely different, and his style is completely different. He wants to talk about things. He wants to have a conversation and go through issues. He doesn’t bring that level of outrage, I think, that Jon does, and I think there are some critics who think that if it’s not outrage it can’t be satire. And those critics miss out on a lot of incredibly good stuff we’ve done.
What Trump has taken away from satirists is the power of exaggeration. The classic trick of taking the things a politician says and ratcheting them up to show their ridiculousness. Trump is already there, so there’s not much you can do. How do you exaggerate Trump? Have your Trump character actually say the racial slurs that he sometimes appears to be on the edge of saying himself? That probably wouldn’t go over well these days, for understandable reasons. So, what we’re likely in for until November is the same bits we’ve heard before, in which “Trump is bad” is beaten into our heads over and over. There are plenty of more important reasons to not want a Trump presidency, but here’s another one worth considering: if he wins, we’re in for four more years of satirists struggling to say anything new about him. Perhaps this could inspire a new slogan from his opponent — Hillary 2016: Make Political Satire Great Again.
From the outside, everyone looks at this election cycle and assumes that it’s been comedy gold, but has it produced a challenge in the sense that it’s so ridiculous that it’s not forcing people to be creatively funny, do you think?
I don’t think so. All you really want is something that the nation is focused on, because one of the big challenges as far as telling jokes and writing comedy bits go is sometimes you have to educate the audience on what you’re even talking about and when they already know what you’re talking about, you just kind of cut that part of it out. It’s helpful, it’s a little bit of a short cut. I don’t have to explain who Donald Trump is to the audience before I make a joke about him. I do have to explain who Dennis Hastert is to the audience before I make a joke about him. I don’t think of it as a bad thing. To me it’s a challenge because everybody is talking about it, but it’s the kind of challenge that I think we all like.
When there are this many people starting out and sort of experimenting with the format and trying to make their mark, do you think that encourages people to try new things, or do you think it discourages innovation because people don’t want to fall flat on their face out of the box?
I don’t know. I guess it depends on who it is, I suppose, right? I mean, it’s different for different things. I think if you look at The Daily Show, like Trevor probably had the most unenviable position because he had to follow Jon Stewart, and he has a pre-existing show. If you look at somebody like Sam Bee, she got to create her own thing without any expectations that there was a show there. That was probably liberating for them. They’re like, “I don’t care. We’ll do whatever the f— we want. Nobody knows that this is yet,” so that’s got to be liberating in some senses.
Our show was odd because we weren’t doing Stephen’s show, but we were in his time slot, so there was an expectation, and Jon was still on the air, so we were following The Daily Show, so we kind of had the mix of both of those. Yeah, we could do our own thing, but there was an expectation of something also. Then Colbert’s is odd. Colbert had the weirdest one of all because he had to follow in the expectation of his fake self. He had to live up to his fake self in some way, and follow David Letterman, so Stephen had the most challenging one. I don’t know if people appreciate how challenging Stephen’s job really was.
Late Night with Seth Meyers has come a long way since its beginnings. It’s progressively made a name for itself by focusing on current events and featuring interesting guests from politics, the media, and both fiction and nonfiction authors. An important outtake for us, perhaps, is that it takes a while to find one’s voice in late night, and that viewers and the media need to be patient.
“Jon Stewart was a giant, and obviously, Colbert was as well. But there is definitely a vacuum, and Trevor Noah is doing a good show, but I think Seth was already doing that, as it were, on ‘Update,’” said Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “Late Night” and the veteran keeper of NBC’s late-night schedule. Meyers “has a strong point of view. He’s not an angry person, and that makes it easier. He doesn’t do outrage.” Even so, said Michaels, “the jokes are tough.” …
“I feel like we are in an era now where a joke is allowed to be interesting as well as funny,” said Meyers during a recent interview in his office at 30 Rock. When it comes to the “Closer Look” segments that generate a lot of chatter for the program, for instance, he said, “we obviously want them to be funny and that’s the primary goal, but we’ve allowed ourselves to be interesting if we feel like the story is interesting. Sometimes, we leave something in even if we don’t have an A-plus joke for this, but it’s important for the takeaway.” …
“The competition in network television now is not other network television. You’re competing for an audience with so many choices,” said Michaels. “You really have to know who you are and what kind of show you are doing, or else they won’t show up.” And getting there, he added, can take some time.
Emmy Awards
In June, Deadline estimated that The Late Show had ‘a decent shot’ at an Emmy nomination; in the end of course it didn’t get one. Interestingly, neither did Samantha Bee nor Seth Meyers. I have to say, while I have my own issues with the show, I certainly don’t think all the shows who did get a nomination deserved it over The Late Show (admittedly I am a little biased)…
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (CBS)
Colbert is obviously no stranger to this Emmy competition, having seen his Colbert Report nominated in all 10 years of its existence since the 2006 race, winning in both 2013 and 2014. But in that show he was playing a character—now he is playing himself. And the series, though full of buzz-worthy moments lately and a different kind of guest list, has gone through growing pains since he took the show over last Fall. CBS has been conducting an aggressive campaign on his behalf and Colbert is well-liked so there’s a decent shot.
GOODMAN I’m sure we’ll disagree on whether Trevor Noah and The Daily Show deserve a nom, but can we maybe agree that Samantha Bee deserves one? If the award goes to something super topical, I like John Oliver, but if not, I think it’s really time for Jimmy Kimmel to get his due.
FIENBERG I continue to think Trevor Noah has, by virtue of failing in the impossible task of equaling Jon Stewart, become the most underrated man in late night. I hope The Daily Show gets a nomination. But I’m with you on Samantha Bee and John Oliver, and I suspect they’re going to be the heirs to this category’s throne. I also think Emmy voters are looking for as many ways as possible to honor James Corden’s viral genius.
The one thing we can predict for 2016: Someone new will be taking home the Emmy.
This year’s hosts have all achieved varying degrees of success. Some have racked up impressive ratings, others have been blowing up the internet with their sketches and monologues.
“It’s a hard year to stand out, but that’s what makes it so satisfying,” says CBS’ “The Late Late Show With James Corden” executive producer Ben Winston. “There are essentially at least five new shows, all competing for eyeballs.”
“Corden” executive producer Rob Crabbe says having so many newcomers to the game has helped make this a particularly good time for late night.
“It raises everybody’s game when you have to work harder to get noticed,” Crabbe says. “It’s good for us and for late night in general.”
“I wear it as a badge of honor at this point,” he says of his Emmy track record.
But it does frustrate him that the two shows that did win in each of the last 13 years — Stewart’s and Colbert’s — borrowed his format and, in his view, “never say anything that challenges their own audience. There’s no guts in that. That’s just pandering to me, to always say the thing that your clack of liberals will reliably applaud. I mean, I could do that. I know what they want to hear. That’s not what I’m looking to do.”
Ratings
Fallon = Repeats
Kimmel (ABC) boosted by NBA games
Behind Nightline (ABC) at 12:35 a.m.
Kimmel (ABC) boosted by NBA games
Behind Nightline and Seth Meyers at 12:35 a.m.
Kimmel (ABC) boosted by NBA games
Behind Nightline (ABC) at 12:35 a.m.
Fallon = Repeats
** Ratings data from TV by the Numbers.