Did anyone watch Colbert’s last show, last night?
Late Night TV Shows and Hosts
- Thread starter Kimmio Laughterlove
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I read Trump scewered him with an AI video.
I don’t have cable so I haven’t watched many full shows in recent years, but it was good to know he was there speaking comedy to power.
Ironic that his earlier satirical character was so close in personality to what evolved in real life politics and entertainment (news-o-tainment). But he did his best to stand up to it. No pun intended.
I don’t have cable so I haven’t watched many full shows in recent years, but it was good to know he was there speaking comedy to power.
Ironic that his earlier satirical character was so close in personality to what evolved in real life politics and entertainment (news-o-tainment). But he did his best to stand up to it. No pun intended.
I think he’d get a ton of viewers on a podcast and would be able to avoid big networks altogether if he wanted to. Maybe even wider reach.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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I haven't really paid much attention to late night TV in a long time. My body tends to go into wind-down by 9, certainly by 10. When I was watching late night TV, it was still Carson and Letterman. I do watch video clips of the current crowd on YouTube sometimes but not often.
That’s about all I’ve been doing in the past several years. I haven’t watched a whole late night show start to finish in a long time, actually (it might actually feel weird to watch them like the old days, now - attention span compromised as it is by YouTube formatting) - but I do seek out the clips sometimes, to see what they have to say. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he took some time off over the summer then started a podcast. Maybe he’s already got plans for the next project.
Jimmy Kimmel will be holding down the fort for bold political jokes for the time being, I guess.
I used to watch Conan O’Brien and David Letterman regularly in the late 90’s/ early 2000’s. That slowed down too. I liked the “travel shows” Conan’s done in the past few years since leaving late night tv. They’re on YouTube. “Team Conan” is the channel. His trip to Germany was pretty risqué and I’m not sure if the German people found him all that funny. He makes awkward into an art. And his trip to Cuba, before the problems they’re having now, looked like fun. He’s so weird and funny - that’s what I like best about him (which makes sense because any good comedian is weird and funny). Apparently he has a serious role in a recent movie. It’ll be hard for me to watch it and not expect to laugh.
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Team Coco it’s called. I’ve just been watching some. He’s got interviews, and the travel shows, discussions. He’s had the podcast longer than I realized.
I just watched Craig Ferguson interview Desmond Tutu on a 2009 show. I could really sense how much things have changed in the US (fubar over the past 10 years especially) - including the types of jokes - but also some things have stayed the same in the world. Tutu had interesting things to say, and a pretty good sense of humour too! Good sport.
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Is it just me or does Craig seem a bit tipsy? I think he gave a pretty good brief historical summary of South Africa.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Samsung TVs have their own set of specialty channels and they actually have channels of old Conan and Letterman episodes. Have not partaken. Never watched Conan much but was a fan of Letterman.
Must be someone without a sense of humour.
The thing with comedians is that people think they’re funny. And the reason they’re funny is that they have the ability connect with things the audience already thinks and feels. People are laughing at political comedy out of a sense of solidarity for their feelings about an issue, but not because they’re being taught what to think. If they didn’t think a joke was funny, they’d boo or cringe audibly. That happens with crowds like Colbert’s. I laugh when I think one of their jokes is funny and I don’t when I don’t. Sometimes it’s uncomfortably funny because they’re exposing some flaw in all our thinking, that makes us think further about why we laughed.
People want to hear what their favourite celebs are thinking from their position in life. I’m not as interested in that now - don’t need the band introduction and fanfare. The format is losing peoples’ interest today, I think. I like better it now that more are lowly enough to go on social media to talk about things and be more real and on the level with their fans and supporters on their own initiative, not for a big salary, and still be funny spontaneously, because they are.
It may be near the end of the late night TV era for progressives (there’ll be some crappy alternatives I’m sure). TV just isn’t as interesting to anyone under 50 as it once was anyway. They’ll probably find a niche on social media, but they’ll do their best to keep something going that connects with people.
Also, wherever that quote is from, similar things might’ve been said at the end of the Weimar Republic.
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Also, the networks have had their day with outsized profit, dominance, and marketing exploitation, and a lot of younger people are done with it. They aren’t watching tv. Some are now focused on taking the profit and control motive out of the internet and addressing the behemoth of Ai.
At least the late night hosts are humans. Flawed, but they’re actual people.
At least the late night hosts are humans. Flawed, but they’re actual people.
WhyCzar
Connect The Dots
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Be careful what you normalize or laugh at; it shapes what people tolerate next.
Yeah, and I notice the right is trying really hard to normalize racism, misogyny, ableism, lgbt-phobia… and the networks that’ll now be favouring that audience might, instead of speaking truth to power, go along with that as “free speech”.
There’s more behind a comment that is telling people to think that they aren’t thinking for themselves and should therefore be glad to lose access to people speaking truth to power. It’s its own kind of subtle propaganda.
That’s true. A lot of what I laugh at is people making fun of their own ridiculousness and ignorance that they recognize - and I laugh out of empathy. Not because I’m entirely the same as them but because I understand it even if they’re different from me or if it’s outlandish. Look at Monty Python. Sometimes people mistake satire with lifestyle endorsement. Cynicism is different from satire. Also I noticed you nabbed part of a comment I deliberately edited out (within seconds) because I decided to retract it. You must’ve been cynically waiting to grab it.
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WhyCzar lurks and waits, “What else is she going to f*** up that I can throw back like a pie in the face?” (Pies in the face were the worst of comedy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they make a comeback.)
A cynical one. Not one that laughs at the practice itself.