Bill Carter

1 week ago | latenighter.com | Bill Carter

If it seems like the late-night shows competing for Outstanding Talk Series are falling over each other for your consideration this year, there’s a good reason for it. This is the last week for those credentialled enough in the television business to participate in the Television Academy’s Emmy nomination-round voting—and per the organization’s somewhat confounding rules, this year there will be only three nominees in the late-night talk category that just three years ago housed five.

2 weeks ago | latenighter.com | Bill Carter

There he was, back on NBC at 12:35am: tall, fit, gingery, and entirely in his element. A man in a chair being funny in late night. Quick-witted, silly, smart, bathed in affection and wild applause from a crowd that probably grew up watching him when their parents thought they were in bed. He even teased them by suggesting he might stand up and do the string dance. If you’re Conan O’Brien, why not?

2 weeks ago | latenighter.com | Bill Carter

Perhaps you’ve heard: There is overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump is a time traveler, revealed by mind-blowing details like he may have been in central London in the 1300’s doing what he’s always done: naming things after himself. There’s a Trump Alley, just steps from, unbelievably, a place called Grocers Hall. (So that’s why he just remembered that ancient word.) And if that’s not enough, there’s also a Trumpington Village Hall.

2 weeks ago | latenighter.com | Bill Carter

The scenes of hostile showdowns in Los Angeles between law enforcement and protesters of ICE’s arrests of suspected illegal immigrants could be counted on to consume the attention of late-night writers and hosts Monday night. For the most part they did, ratcheting up the already smoking hot enmity between most of the late-night world and the Trump Administration, though the hosts hardly needed new provocation.

3 weeks ago | latenighter.com | Bill Carter

Do late-night shows still have to prove they can turn breaking news into breakout comedy on the fly? For anyone still wondering, check out Thursday night’s monologues. The day-long tweet war between former best bros Donald Trump and Elon Musk was like a serving of instant pudding, with every late-night show scrapping jokes that were slated to dominate their monologues in favor of whipping up gleeful rundowns of the two kids fighting in the park.