Ropes Pierre

he had angular hips and a square head.

4/10, would not bang.

TerryW

I'm not here to shit on Letterman or this thread because I started watching him in the late 1970's on Carson then the morning show and Late Night. When he switched to CBS he stopped being funny. Almost everything about the Late Show has been a pale comparison of what is once was.

I'll still never understand Dave's obsession with getting the Tonight Show. He basically got it with the time slot and look what happened. He lost his sense of humor and it just became a job.

Some of my favorite moments at NBC were comedians Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis. Some of the funniest segments ever. When Leno got the Tonight Show he also lost most of his sense of humor.

I watched Stern and the final show this last week and aside from Howard the finale was very dull and sad. Barely a reference to Chris Elliot and he was 50% of the show for 5 years.

The CNN retrospective was much better as it included a lot of old clips and of course, Merrill Markoe. She was the soul of the show. Not on the finale.

When Dave switched from tennis shoes to dress shoes, that was it for him.

I still have all my hours of tapes from Late Night to enjoy. Think I'll watch the non-audience show now.

Jack Straw

Raises hand. Thank you TWC!

Watched the remainder (i.e. Foo Fighters segment), which happened to be my favorite segment online. Whomever put together that clip montage should get a gold star! Very funny moving.

mwbmis

Barbara Gaines

Count Dooku

You will never understand why Dave wanted The Tonight Show so bad if you think a show on another network in the 11:30 time slot is basically the same thing.

mwbmis

Plus, prior to Dave, there was never a show that was successful long term going against the Tonight Show. Whether Leno ended up winning in the end or not, Dave essentially created the competition. I'm not sure if there was anyone else who could have done that on a broadcast network, where expectations are higher, and that includes Big Jaw.

madcougar

I like the way you said you weren't here to shit on Letterman and the finale and then laid a nice warm crap on it...

mcnabb

I remember when Letterman started at CBS in 1993, I really thought certain stars would limit themselves to either show. It would have been cool if Dave had 'his' type of guests, and Leno had 'his' type of guests, as it would have given each show its own identity. In the end, if a big name movie star was going to promote a movie, he would be on Leno Monday Night and Dave Wednesday Night.

The effect of that was a slew of Late Night Shows that flooded the market and you get the same stars promoting a movie of TV series on nearly ever show and it gets so repetitive.

Timber

Talk about losing his sense of humor and something becoming just a job.

Count Dooku

And shows used to intentionally avoid having a guest on during the same week as another show. For the past year, you'd see the same person on Letterman, Fallon and Seth Meyers within days of each other.

Mike86

That's why Ferguson's show was so great. He basically seemed to have whoever he felt like having on. He definitely had his favorites and regulars who would show up but he had a great variety of guests on and not very many mainstream type actors and actresses necessarily.

mwbmis

While occasionally a big star would pop by, Craig wasn't exactly the go to talk show for "A-List" talent. It was definitely primarily a "B-list" at best show. Tom Cruise never got to use that step stool.

As for the Letterman booking, by the end Fallon was getting most of the big names. If a big name did Letterman they were generally doing the Meyers show later in the week. There wasn't a lot of crossover between Fallon and Letterman in the same week.

slop101

So does anyone think that Colbert is going to shake up the typical late night formula of monologue/sketch/guest and instead do something really different, or just keep doing the same thing everyone's been doing?

Nibbio

i think he's gonna be just fine

Shannon Nutt

My guess is he'll be doing the same old/same old - monologue, skits, interview guests and musical guests.

Other than Conan, there's no one in late night now I find remotely funny. Still scratching my head over what people see in Jimmy Fallon - it must be a generational thing, because he doesn't make me laugh at all. Not to say he's not a nice guy, I just don't think he's very talented...at least not when it comes to hosting a show.

Shazam

My wife thinks Fallon's skits are hilarious. I find them terrible and boring.

TerryW

Letterman was king in the 1980's
Conan was king in the 1990's
Ferguson was king in the 2000's

mcnabb

I may have mentioned this earlier but the current crop of late night hosts are very generic and are limited at what they can do, so their shows reflect it.

Carson could do a great monologue, great bits, and great interviews. Letterman did an OK monologue, great bits, and great interviews. Leno did a great monologue, good bits, but lacked the interview skills. The current crop of Fallon, Meyers, Colbert, etc are lucky if they are good at one of those skills.

Mike86

I think that was partly intentional to be honest though. I think if Craig would have wanted more big stars he probably could have gotten them (Corden seems to be getting big names already) but I think he enjoyed getting different people. I also think that a lot of Craig's guests were people that he genuinely found interesting and wanted to talk to. That's why he ripped up the card at the beginning of each interview which had the typical pre-interview questions and didn't only plug whatever his guest's latest project was.

kefrank

Just curious - what generation are you? I'm 35 and I always liked Conan, but haven't kept up with his TBS show. I like Jimmy Fallon quite a bit overall. I think the fun things he does with celebrities (gameshow games, lip sync battles, etc) are really entertaining and some of his other recurring bits are usually pretty funny. He is not a very good interviewer though. His fawning can be really annoying. He refers to someone as "the best" about 5 times every episode.

Mike86

Yeah Fallon is likable and I like his skits and stuff, but I agree about the way he talks up his guests like they're the best ever being annoying and I'm not a big fan of his interview style. Someone else mentioned it earlier but I think he along with a lot of modern hosts come off like desperate fanboys in every interview pretty much. I mean that's fine if you really are interested in the guest but a lot of times it comes off fake.

mphtrilogy

I think Colbert is going to be very very solid. Looking forward to him.

Timber

Leno is a standup comedian, I would hope his monologue would be good. Fallon isn't that, he's a sketch comedian and thus I think that is reflected in his skits which I think are the best of the current bunch. He's not great at the monologue or the interview.

DVD Josh

Uh, no.

Mike86

I think Colbert will likely do well in the interview segments and probably the comedy bits. Not sure how he'll do with a monologue. Also its still hard to picture him on a standard talk show when he hasn't really been himself many times that I can remember. I think it'll also take some getting used to not seeing him doing political type humor all the time. I'm sure he'll incorporate some political humor in his show, but for a mainstream audience CBS won't want him to do only that.