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Author Topic: Letterman's Replacement
Marek
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Lots of sites have their lists of 10 possibles, like Time USA Today. Those two cover most of the one being named. Here are some of my favorites that didn't make those lists, tho of those my favorites would be Tina Fey, Louis C.K., and Neil Patric Harris. I doubt any of mine would really happen.

Jim Carrey. Great background in sketch and stand up comedy. He clearly has a personality that makes people want to watch him, and would be good interviewing people, and is less busy in his career than he had been other times.

Micheal Jordan. A little crazy, but just sort of thinking much like Micheal Strahan, a likable retired athlete with good name recognition. With good writers, it could be an interesting show.

Mike Myers. A likable funny guy, who is not doing much. Despite having been laying low since the love guru, he had an award winning career in both TV and film.

Dana Carvey. Also a great comedian, since the opening monologue is basically a few minutes of stand up. Much like Myers, he is a likable guy, whose career seems slow. So easy to get, and good for the job.

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Samprimary
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Carrey, Jordan, and Myers are way too much of a liability and wouldn't be able to hack it.

Carrey's got too much mental baggage and goes along with a lot of spazzy fad activism for BS like the law of attraction. Jordan isn't really an active enough speaker and would need to show his chops earlier on in a lighter role. Myers is right out because the dude is crazy in a tragic way and it would interfere really heavily with a driving nightly schedule.

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Samprimary
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most likely candidate is steven colbert
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Marek
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Yeah, that is what most news outlets say, though to me it seems an odd choice. I love his show, but he is so popular for playing a character that would end when he left the Colbert Report. And as has been pointed out (I think even in one of the articles I linked), he doesn't like doing celebrity interviews, or plugs for shows and movies, and he would be doing those 10-15 times a week.

Also i love the answers for those three (no idea Myers was crazy). Anything on Carvey?

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Samprimary
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might have the chops

but honestly the biggest attribute in being able to be a show host is .. kind of a sort of endurance of charisma. you gotta be able to crap out a not totally boring set of humor and interviews. eeeeevery weekday

it's honestly exhausting.

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Lyrhawn
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Colbert is the favorite, but I think for a couple reasons he's the absolute worst choice.

1. For purely personal reasons, I think his current show is actually too important to America to be turned off so he can gossip with celebs.

2. He hates celebrity interviews.

3. He only shoots 4 30 min shows a week with lots of vacations right now. Letterman's show would be 5 nights of at least 60 mins with no time off. And he turns 50 this year, I believe.

4. He'd have to abandon almost everything that got him to where he is. Letterman is for a totally different generation than the one that made him popular.

5. He really wouldn't get that much of a raise. His CC contract is already pretty solid, and he'll be due for a big raise this year.

I'll be pretty upset if he leaves CC.

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Samprimary
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yeah but guys #cancelcolbert because WHITE MEN
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scifibum
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I think Ferguson is really funny. It would be funny for Louis C.K. to end up there, but I really don't think he'd like it and stick it out for long even if they gave him the chance (and they won't because they wouldn't expect him to stick it out).

I do think Colbert would have the stamina. He plays a character all the time on his current show.

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Jake
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I really hope that Colbert, if the position is offered to him, declines, both for Lyrhawn's reason #1 and also because I actively enjoy The Colbert Report, and would sad to see it go off the air (and the show is too tightly integrated with the character that Colbert plays on it to be successfully handed off to some other performer the way The Daily Show could be (and has been)).
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Destineer
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Wait, what's Myers's problem? I'd never heard of this.
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Destineer
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I know one crazy/stupid person who would be glad if Colbert left the Report!

ETA: Somehow I missed that Sam beat me to this.

quote:
I mean, it’s already happening I think. The revolution will not be an apocalypse, it’s gonna be a series of shifts in consciousness that result in actions that come about, and I think that like, at this point is really like, ride or die, in terms who’s in and who is out. I don’t play by appeasement politics, it is not about getting my oppressors to humanize me. And in that sense I reject the respectability politics, I reject being tone-policed, I think we need to do away with this idea that these structures are … that the prisons can undergo reform and somehow do less violence as a structure. But any example like that.

Wait, can you ask that question again, I got distracted real quick, there was a bird outside my window.


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Jake
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When I got to that part of that article, the inclusion of the "bird outside my window" bit made me a little suspicious of the whole thing, but also more interested in reading a full transcript of the interview, rather than one edited down for length and coherence.
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Destineer
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Yeah, it was clearly included to make her look bad.
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stilesbn
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I guess that's why I had trouble trying to understand what she was saying or what she was trying to put forth as a position. That was a pretty bad article.
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Jake
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Well, it may also be that she's as incoherent as she appears to be in that interview. The inclusion of that bit just made me take the whole thing with a grain of salt.
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Lyrhawn
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I think they should have let her write her answers out.

I don't think she came across very clearly verbally.

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Destineer
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This essay in which she writes out her views is more clearly stated, but not much more clearly thought-out in my opinion:

http://time.com/42174/we-want-to-cancelcolbert/

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stilesbn
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I guess being able to start a 140 character revolution is not the same as being able to communicate clearly...

I haven't seen the Colbert clips yet, but the tweet did strike me as racist. I'm somewhat surprised it was sent out from the Colbert machine.

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Jake
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Thanks for the link, Destineer; I'll read it tonight.
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scifibum
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quote:
Originally posted by stilesbn:
I guess being able to start a 140 character revolution is not the same as being able to communicate clearly...

I haven't seen the Colbert clips yet, but the tweet did strike me as racist. I'm somewhat surprised it was sent out from the Colbert machine.

It's satirical, which - if you are familiar with Colbert - is the natural assumption, but the satire-of-what question is not answered by the tweet when it's divorced from the joke's original context.

I suspect Park was most likely reacting to the tweet without considering that it was meant to be satirical, and a lot of what she's presently saying about her intentions with the "cancel colbert" thing is rationalization. I think that's the most likely explanation for how it comes across as not completely coherent. She otherwise is expressing some interesting and challenging ideas.

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ElJay
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It wasn't sent out from the Colbert machine, the account it was sent out from was run by Comedy Central and not directly linked to Colbert or the show.
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scifibum
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quote:
Originally posted by ElJay:
It wasn't sent out from the Colbert machine, the account it was sent out from was run by Comedy Central and not directly linked to Colbert or the show.

I'd say that a twitter account named for the show and run by the network that airs the show is a pretty direct connection, but it IS worth noting that it wasn't sent by Colbert himself.
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Samprimary
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very little of what suey park is offering is really "challenging" in any sense other than "antagonizing" - i suffered through her word salad about revolution and her-discovering-the-colbert-response-was-then-wasn't-then-was-a-relevant-context, and my conclusion was that she was a pathological dissembler, who's found some unexpected fame and prominence in a culture of reactionary identity politics that she's not really ready for prime time on, and allowed for too many opportunities to get put on the spot and default too crudely to fallacious arguments predicated on other people's race (and in the process revealing that a large portion of her activism is practically just a neurosis about whites)

then she got involved in some internecine infighting with other Asian American activists - disagreeing with her message resulted in a hailstorm of (ironically) tone policing and racial explaining down to "bad Asians" who were in disagreement, even respectfully, with the hashtag campaign.

then some basic research by some native American activists revealed that she was lying in interviews about her activism for native American causes in response to criticism that her campaign was taking the heat off the issue of the redskins' team name.

oh, online social justice culture, you amuse me so

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scifibum
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Well, I was trying to be charitable. I think, for instance, the question of how far "satire", as an excuse for a racist expression, will carry - that's a useful and interesting question, and it's one that she's trying to express. Not very clearly. (Not that I'm setting a high standard here, either, but I promise if interviewed by a news outlet to try harder.)
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Samprimary
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well what i mean is that i really — and i really worked hard to try to take in as many perspectives as i could on this one, and really set aside as many of my explicit and implicit biases to make sure i wasn't just laughing at the latest 'social justice warrior' — I don't think that her campaign is nonsensical/incoherent because she changed her campaign rationalization mid-stream. It's incoherent in general and her backpedaling is a function of that.

If you get further into the "revolution" she is agitating for, it's bizarrely off in way left field and seems to be some peculiar race and intersectionality centered mixture of categorical anti-imperialism, some forms of marxism, and some political Anarchism. I really, after having tried hard to study the tenets of her expressed ideology, typical vehicular vessels and axioms and her stated intentions with the campaign (and the ways in which they changed, with her offering the explanation that previous stated intentions were really just to bait white people/men and were an intending trap) and all the ways she is intentionally and unintentionally backpedaling

She's completely in over her head. She usually communicates in 140 word snippets of intersectionality-identity-politics rad jargon, but whenever she ends up in an actual interview where she is asked to expand on her thoughts and not just say something like "lol white people do your own homework" it just derails hardcore. If she's not completely dense, and I honestly don't think she is, she SAW this and that's why she started moving to 'aha this was all me being a puppetmaster pulling your strings, check and mate whiteness' (aka the mastermind card) which of course she can stay behind with plausible deniability, but that's fairly ... uh, less relevant than she hopes, because if it really was intentional from the start it still makes her out to be a dissembler. Excepting, of course, the idea that the goal really was primarily to get people to talk about her/her hashtag campaign to do something she didn't actually want to do. (most native american activists i've talked to, unsurprisingly, agree that they've been overshadowed and pushed to the margins again by this campaign and its instigator)

The problem that sticks with her though is that people continue to press her to expand her views. She has to elaborate. She seriously tries to NOT do this outside of the medium in which she can gain traction with, essentially, race baiting reactionary identity politics, but the media attention resulted in more than a few opportunities to .. well, not avoid doing that. It was conspicuously revelatory.

i mean come on

quote:
Did you watch the Monday night segment on the “Colbert Report”?

Park: No, and I think that’s an irrelevant question.

Why do you think that’s an irrelevant question?

Park: Because you’re still trying to understand my context, rather than the reaction and the conversation that I was trying to create.

You don’t think understanding your context is just as important?

Park: I don’t think so.

come on

quote:
Josh Zepps: Joining us now is the author of that very same tweet, Suey Park. And also still with us is Huff Post Politics reporter Jason Linkins. Thanks for being with us, Suey.

Suey Park: Of course, thanks for having me.

Zepps: Why cancel Colbert? What did you hope to achieve with that?

Park: (Laugh) Well that’s a loaded question;

no its not

quote:
Zepps: Jason, part of the whole gag here is the use of the term “orientalism,” which is such a weird, old, loaded (laughs) like--It’s just a--It’s a stupid, stupid word, but to get upset about the use of that word when it’s in a satirical context strikes me as misguided--I want to take a look though at a tweet, which Colbert Report has tweeted out. says, “For the record--”

Park: --Wait, hold on.--

Zepps: --”@ColbertReport is not controlled”--

Park: Excuse me. As a white man you don’t really get

Zepps: Hang--hang--hang on Suey, I’ll come to you in just a sec. “For the record Colbert Report [Twitter account] is not controlled by Stephen Colbert or his show. He is @StephenAtHome. Sorry for the confusion. Colbert himself has responded to some of the criticism on Twitter: “#CancelColbert - I agree! Just saw your @ColbertReport tweet. I share your rage. Who is that, though? I’m Stephen At Home [Twitter account]. Suey, you were just gonna jump in.

Park: Yeah, I was gonna say that I feel like it’s incredibly patronizing for you to paint these questions this way, especially as a white man, I don’t expect you to understand what people of color are actually saying with regards to “Cancel Colbert”. He has a history of making--

[Park believes that Zepps’s race makes it patronizing for Zepps to disagree with her about racism.]

Zepps: Suey.

Park: --jokes.

Zepps: Suey. Being a white man doesn’t prevent me from being able to think and doesn’t prevent me from being able to have a--have reasoned perspectives on things. I don’t--I didn’t give up--

Park: --I don’t (indecipherable) totally logical

Zepps: I didn’t give up my right to be able to have an intellectual conversation when I was born.

[Zepps believes that his race does not invalidate his input into discussions on race.]

Park: --I know but, while white men definitely feel entitled to talk over me,

pTo this point in the interview Zepps has interrupted Park 1 time, and Park has interrupted Zepps 1 time, with Park interrupting first. This is the third time in the interview she has made a broad generalization about white people.]

Park: they definitely feel entitled to kind of minimalize my experiences, and they definitely feel like they are somehow exempt and so logical compared to women who are painted as emotional, right?

[Park makes her fourth and fifth generalizations about white people while also implying that Zepps has minimalized[sic] her experiences, and that he feels exempt, logical, and that women are emotional. These four issues have not been brought up until this point or otherwise been readily apparent in this interview. Park has now successfully turned the discussion away from @ColbertReport’s tweet and her #CancelColbert in response to it being about her and Zepps.]

to help understand this, you have to remember that social justice activists do not consider this racist because they have mandated a very specific non-dictionary definition of racism in which it is impossible to be racist to a white person, even when you're saying things like "as a white person, you don't get to have an opinion about this and i refuse to accept your interpretation of things because of the color of your skin" or even just "die white scum" or whatever. not racist! and if it's racially discriminatory, the ideology holds that that's ok because white people (truly do) hold the greatest total amount of socioeconomic power worldwide and so it's okay to discriminate against them, or defame them because of the color of their skin, or say they have no place in a conversation about race if a person of color says so. also even if you are a person of color if you disagree with this you are 'coopting imperialistic whiteness' or something and your position can now be shouted down/marginalized too. Also this all applies to men.

(this brand of activism is having trouble maintaining steady relevance or incorporating its message into the mainstream; would you care to guess why? ??? ?????????? ?? ? ??????)

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Destineer
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Yeah, there seems to be a remarkable surge in (at least) the visibility of people like her who racially stereotype and stigmatize white people. It may not be mainstream, or destined to influence the main stream in any significant way, but it does seem to be a thriving subculture.

Hopefully as the mainstream culture continues to improve, the forces that maintain this subculture will drop off. Although if harmless comedy is enough to rile them up, I'm not sure the mainstream will ever live up to their standards.

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Samprimary
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that is the sad part about it is that i am not at all convinced that that comedy is 'harmless' and it happens way too often and way too cloyingly to be benign — it deserves a lot of scrutiny that gets lost in the mess when this gets #hashtagactivism'ed by racial radical anti-white wannabe revolutionaries and a bunch of asians start being called race traitors or white appeasers for not supporting a hyperbolic twitter crusade

and that is something which was far, far better said by someone else entirely which in a perfect world would be listened to more than this 'jesus this park lady is nuts'

and it's by jay caspian kang

quote:
There’s a long tradition in American comedy of dumping tasteless jokes at the feet of Asians and Asian-Americans that follows the perception that we will silently weather the ridicule. If I were to predict which minority group the writers of a show like “The Colbert Report” would choose for an edgy, epithet-laden parody, I’d grimace and prepare myself for some joke about rice, karate, or broken English. The resulting discomfort has nothing to do with the intentions of the joke or the political views of the people laughing at it. Even when you want to be in on the joke—and you understand, intellectually, that you are not the one being ridiculed—it’s hard not to wonder why these jokes always come at the expense of those least likely to protest.
quote:
#CancelColbert may have been silly and dumb and wrong in spirit, but it’s worth asking if those of us who find it distasteful know as much about the intentions of the hashtag activists as we think we do. If we take #CancelColbert at face value, we can easily dismiss it as shrill, misguided, and frivolous. But after speaking to Park about what she hoped to accomplish with all this (a paternalistic question if there ever was one), I wonder if we might be witnessing the development of a more compelling—and sometimes annoying and infuriating—form of protest, by a new group of Merry Pranksters, who are once again freaking out the squares in our always over reacting, always polarized online public sphere.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/03/twitter-campaign-to-cancel-colbert-report.html
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Destineer
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Yeah, it's entirely possible that it has bad social effects. But I think we need to give artists and humorists a wide berth and a safe space to explore their ideas, even when they verge into the morally problematic.

It's tough to draw a line. If I read a review on Jezebel that points out troubling dimensions of a work, I might agree or disagree, but I don't think of that as a threat to art or humor. But when people set out with the goal of silencing an artist, as Park did, I have a huge problem. I think that's a poisonous threat to artistic expression (which is not the same as First Amendment rights, and deserves even more leeway than political speech IMO).

My view is, let's at least try to fix everything else about our culture before we attack art and comedy.

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Destineer
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Also, the question of whether these jokes actually have bad effects on the whole is such a difficult question for social psychology--and I would want to be fairly sure of the answer before branding them bad--that I don't foresee anyone being in a position to justify silencing them in the near future.
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BlackBlade
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CBS has confirmed Colbert will replace Letterman.
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stilesbn
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Well that was fast. I thought this would go on for months.
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BlackBlade
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“I’m thrilled and grateful that CBS chose me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth.” -Colbert

He's already funnier than Letterman.

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Jake
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
CBS has confirmed Colbert will replace Letterman.

That's a damned shame.
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Marlozhan
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I don't know why, but I was always bored watching Letterman. I just didn't find him to be that funny. Maybe my sense of humor just isn't refined enough. I am excited to see Colbert replace him. But Craig Ferguson is still my favorite. I wish they had picked him.
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stilesbn
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I didn't find Letterman all that funny either, so Colbert will be an improvement in my book. With that said, I have no clue what kind of show we'll get from Colbert. In other cases the new host just kept on doing what their old show was with some minor changes. I don't think Colbert can continue on doing the same thing as the Colbert Report. It's a completely different formula from the late night one.

I've watched Craig Ferguson a few times. I thought he was pretty funny. Part of that might be because I find most things said in a British/Scottish accent to be more humorous.

But when it comes down to it I won't watch any of them and instead catch the highlights of Jimmy Fallon on YouTube.

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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by Jake:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
CBS has confirmed Colbert will replace Letterman.

That's a damned shame.
Yeah, The Colbert Report was such a darn wonderful show. Bad news for TCB but I think excellent news for Late Show.

I do believe Colbert has it in him to be very funny outside his character. He'll have quite a challenge carving out a niche distinct from what Fallon does.

It is kinda surreal having people you've grown up and watched from the moment their careers started fill these iconic shows. I guess now I know how my parents felt when Leno and Letterman were brought in.

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Jake
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
I do believe Colbert has it in him to be very funny outside his character.

That I have no doubt of. I just think that The Colbert Report is a pretty important voice these days, and that we'll be poorer for losing it.

quote:
It is kinda surreal having people you've grown up and watched from the moment their careers started fill these iconic shows.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
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MattP
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I'll also be sad to see The Colbert Report go, but I think it's a great opportunity for Stephen. I'm sure he doesn't want to be a persona for his entire career.
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scifibum
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I'm interested to see how much political commentary he can get away with on CBS. I believe he'll try to bring a significant amount of that with him (although I'm not sure what form it'll take outside of the Colbert Report persona), but it's CBS, so it seems unlikely that he'll have a lot of freedom to mock anything very mainstream.
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theamazeeaz
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Was it an OSC article that painted Fallon with the same brush as Stewart-- as a heavy political mocker? I don't really watch any of the network late-night shows at all, how much political agenda do they have aside fropm the general low-hanging fruit of mocking whomever happens to be in power at the moment?
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stilesbn
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There was an article that OSC thought Fallon was in the same league as Johnny Carson, but he didn't mention John Stewart anywhere. From my experience Leno and Letterman spent much more time making political jokes than Fallon does. None of them bring it to the level that Stewart or Colbert do.
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Jake
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I know that OSC has been dismissive of Stewart in at least one recent column.
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Lyrhawn
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I'm really hoping he doesn't sell out.

Seth Myers has managed to stay intelligent and political on his late show after Fallon. I actually don't think the crowd gets half his jokes.

But if he devolves to stupid bits, gossiping with celebs and puff piece monologues, I'll stop watching him. We're losing a really important voice, and Stewart will be carrying a big weight with him gone.

A friend of mine said it would be interesting if they replace Colbert with a fox and friends style comedy show with Jessica Williams, Kristen shaal and sam bee. Whatever it is can't be just another Stewart, it'll have to be different, and I think Comedy Central will be looking to make a diversity pick, since late night is almost entirely older white men.

I think John Oliver would have gotten it for sure if letterman had announced sooner and Colbert agreed to move.

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theamazeeaz
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Found it:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2014-03-13-1.html
ctr-f for Fallon.

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stilesbn
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quote:
Originally posted by theamazeeaz:
Found it:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2014-03-13-1.html
ctr-f for Fallon.

Huh. I wonder if he meant to say someone else's name there. Because that doesn't compute with me at all from what I've seen of Fallon.
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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:

I do believe Colbert has it in him to be very funny outside his character. He'll have quite a challenge carving out a niche distinct from what Fallon does.

Why? Because they look alike?

I'm just curious, because I know Colbert better than Falon, but they're totally different. What about them makes you think Colbert is in danger of being anything like Falon?

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stilesbn
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quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:

I do believe Colbert has it in him to be very funny outside his character. He'll have quite a challenge carving out a niche distinct from what Fallon does.

Why? Because they look alike?

I'm just curious, because I know Colbert better than Falon, but they're totally different. What about them makes you think Colbert is in danger of being anything like Falon?

This has me a bit confused too. Aside from the fact that they both attract a younger crowd I don't see much crossover in their markets.
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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by stilesbn:

I haven't seen the Colbert clips yet, but the tweet did strike me as racist. I'm somewhat surprised it was sent out from the Colbert machine.

It sort of wasn't. As in, it wasn't sent by someone he employs or is responsible for. It was sent out by some intern in the social media department at CC who didn't quite know what they were about. He expressly highlighted that fact: the person who does that does not work for me, I don't know who they are.


quote:
I don't know why, but I was always bored watching Letterman. I just didn't find him to be that funny. Maybe my sense of humor just isn't refined enough. I am excited to see Colbert replace him. But Craig Ferguson is still my favorite. I wish they had picked him.
One trend I find interesting is that it seems late-night hosts are getting a lot smarter than they used to be.

I mean, of course Leno and Letterman are smart guys. They couldn't be that thick, but they're of a generation that saw being cool as something you couldn't do while also being smart. Thus you get Letterman plainly admitting he doesn't watch what his guests make in terms of TV and films, he doesn't read their books, or listen to their music. Leno too, is no geek. He's funny in a way my 65 year old mother is comfortable with- in a way that was very cutting edge in the 80s.

On the other hand, the newer generation of hosts are a lot more connected with the industry and with the culture. Kimmel was in radio and was a producer/writer before getting this show. Conan was a writer for the Simpsons. Falon was on SNL, and Colbert worked his way up from local news (believe it or not). Furgeson was a bit actor for a long time after he was a standup.

Leno and Letterman were justs tandups. They were not industry insiders, and Letterman continued to be at odds with the network for his entire run. As, to a degree, did Leno. And while both of them are not exactly jocks, they are not the nerds that the younger ones are. They are the generation of comics that are comfortable saying they don't know the ins and outs of politics and social issues. Younger viewers, and younger comics, are not interested in personalities who are above the day-to-day.

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kmbboots
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Northwestern is taking over late night tv.
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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:

I do believe Colbert has it in him to be very funny outside his character. He'll have quite a challenge carving out a niche distinct from what Fallon does.

Why? Because they look alike?

I'm just curious, because I know Colbert better than Falon, but they're totally different. What about them makes you think Colbert is in danger of being anything like Falon?

Late show and Tonight Show had very similar formats for a long time. Monologue, celebrity interviews, live music from famous bands, Fallon has really taken off with comedy music, involving celebrities in games/hijinks, he's doing a good job tapping into things that can easily go viral.

Colbert is no slouch at this necessarily, but he's leaving a very specific format, and so he either has to continue what Letterman was doing (DONT DO THIS PLEASE COLBERT) or he has to carve out a new *very different* show. Letterman and Leno mostly differentiated themselves by their personalities, with small differences (Top 10 list/Jaywalking) I don't think that will be good enough when he competes with Fallon for the late night TV audiences.

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