Three successive generations grew up without ever having known a time when, respectively, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, and Jon Stewart were not on late-night television. And when these men stepped down from their jobs, their departures were the cause of grieving and anxiety, a sense of “Who else could possibly see me through the end of my day? How will life go on?”
But life does go on, and these transitions have a way of working to everyone’s benefit. As Stewart himself said in February, The Daily Show “doesn’t deserve an even slightly restless host, and neither do you.” And, though hardly anyone remembers this today, Carson, before he announced in 1991 that he would retire the following year—prompting a renewed appreciation of his silvery cool and perfect comic instincts—was not the unassailable King of Late-Night that we now hold him to be. A Saturday Night Live sketch from the period found Dana Carvey playing Johnny as “Carsenio,” his white hair buzzed into an Arsenio Hall flattop fade, fighting off obsolescence by boogying down in a boxy red suit and telling Phil Hartman’s Ed McMahon, “It’s not called a band anymore—it’s called a posse. Weird, wild stuff.” The real Carson was canny enough to get out just before things got that grotesque.
So, given the circumstances, change is good, even if it comes at a disorienting pace. To recap: Jay Leno hung it up at NBC in February 2014, yielding The Tonight Show to Jimmy Fallon, who in turn yielded Late Night to Seth Meyers. In the spring of this year, Letterman gave up his roost at CBS’s Late Show, providing an opening for Stephen Colbert, whose departure from Comedy Central in turn provided an opening for Larry Wilmore. Last year, Stewart saw his most obvious heir apparent, John Oliver, establish his own beachhead at HBO with Last Week Tonight, and instead handed off The Daily Show this year to the relatively unknown Trevor Noah. And in March, James Corden replaced Craig Ferguson on CBS’s Late Late Show, out in L.A., where the three relative grandpas of late-night, 59-year-old Bill Maher, 47-year-old Jimmy Kimmel, and 52-year-old Conan O’Brien, have been holding steady at HBO, ABC, and TBS.
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Far from signaling the fading cultural import of the late-night talk show, which is what everyone feared the market-share-cannibalizing Leno-Letterman wars augured in the 1990s, this fragmented landscape has invigorated the format—nearly every weeknight brings some rich moment that goes viral: Wilmore’s Nightly Show getting interrupted and ticketed by a “Ferguson officer,” say, or Fallon’s simultaneously moving and silly “Two James Taylors on a Seesaw” duet with the real Taylor, both of them costumed as the long-haired, mustachioed J.T. of 1971 and “You’ve Got a Friend.”
Nevertheless, not everyone is psyched. In April, a writer for O’Brien’s show, Andrés du Bouchet, caused a kerfuffle over some tweets lamenting the rise of “Prom King Comedy.” He demanded of the genre, “No celebrities, no parodies, no pranks, no mash-ups or hashtag wars.” This was a shot at the Jimmys, who do pranks and parodies, and use their A-list status to rope in stars to perform comic bits, e.g., Fallon’s recurring “History of Rap” numbers with Justin Timberlake, and Kimmel’s “Handsome Men’s Club” sketch with Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. “You’ve let the popular kids appropriate the very art form that helped you deal,” du Bouchet wrote.
O’Brien duly upbraided his employee, but, impolitic as du Bouchet’s words were, they’re helpful in differentiating the programs. And the point is: we, the viewers, are freer than ever to choose what we like, either à la carte or, thanks to streaming and DVR-ing, in combo-platter form. Conan is indeed the purist’s choice, where you go for absurdist, smart comedy in the lo-fi tradition of NBC-era Letterman, back when Dave and crew MacGyver’d a funny show out of little more than subversive writing, the host’s awkward interplay with guests, and a hot band. Fallon’s and Corden’s shows might be considered post-Letterman or even pre-Carson, more sunny, wholesome variety shows than smoky Playboy After Dark-style debauches. Kimmel’s and Maher’s shows are naughtier, a little more insouciant, a little more Dean Martin. Meyers goes for a sort of updated Dick Cavett feel, carrying himself with buttoned-down restraint and actually allowing literary authors (Marlon James, Hanya Yanagihara) onto his soundstage.
And Oliver and Wilmore have developed their own, bespoke versions of the righteous, reportorial humor of Stewart—who, given his expanding sphere of influence (there is a “Jon Stewart of Egypt,” Bassem Youssef, and a “Jon Stewart of Italy,” Beppe Grillo), must be considered as major a pillar of late-night comedy as Carson and Letterman. The launches of programs by two more protégés, Colbert and Noah, only strengthen this position.
What’s conspicuously missing from late-night, still, is women. How gobsmackingly insane is it that no TV network has had the common sense—and that’s all we’re talking about in 2015, not courage, bravery, or even decency—to hand over the reins of an existing late-night comedy program to a female person? While Amy Schumer has acknowledged that she turned down The Daily Show, happy where she is at Comedy Central, that doesn’t mitigate the fact that Chelsea Peretti, Megan Amram, and Jen Kirkman, to name but three contenders, are alive, sentient, funny, and presumably open to taking a meeting. (And how great would Lea DeLaria be as an M.C., going places Ed McMahon never dared to go? It’d be weird, wild stuff.)
Fortunately, comedic redress is on its way, in the form of two new shows created from scratch, Samantha Bee’s for TBS and Chelsea Handler’s for Netflix. (Both shows are due in 2016.) Two female hosts plus the 10 men featured here is still a long way from a late-night that truly looks like America. But the next version of this story’s opening picture will be that much brighter.
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