Late night TV to me is like Newswatch 16 This Morning and Good Morning America is to the rest of our area-- the first thing I see when I get up.
There have been a few developments lately worthy of note.
Stephen Colbert on CBS has been beating Jimmy Fallon on NBC for the last five weeks. Industry analysts say it's because Colbert has been beating up on President Trump and Fallon continues on with his sophomoric humor and silly games.
That's all well and good.
All it shows me is Colbert can't do anything beside politics. He's a one trick pony, and the audience will eventually say, "That's OK, but can you do anything else?" I grew tired of it pretty fast.
Fallon leads in the younger demographic advertisers desire the most.
Jimmy Kimmel, on ABC, is the only 11:35 PM broadcast coming from Los Angeles, and it shows. His monolog can be exceptionally funny, but Hollywood really doesn't interest me.
At 12:35, James Corden had the heat for a while, and as I've said here before, he's a charming guy. I'm still not sure late night TV is his thing.
I started missing Craig Ferguson from the second his Late Late show ended in 2014.
David Letterman is the subject of a new book "The Last Giant of Late Night." I pre ordered it. It arrives early next month, and I'll review it here. I've been a big Letterman fan since the morning show in 1980.
Letterman recently gave a lengthy magazine interview, and it reaffirmed what we knew all along. Letterman is a grouchy liberal who doesn't like Donald Trump. The grouchy thing was always part of Letterman's charm, although there were times he took it too far and it got tiresome. Having said that, Letterman was probably the best broadcaster who ever sat in a late night chair-- quick witted, razor sharp, exceptionally funny. Johnny Carson was great, in his own easy going way, and I watch Carson most nights on WNEP2, but Dave his him beat.
Speaking of late night, it's time change weekend-- a practice that should have ended a long time ago.
