LateNighter

1 day 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.

2 days ago | latenighter.com | Bill Carter

Surely, you’ve heard by now: Netflix’s Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney is the future of late-night television. And yet the show’s own future is uncertain. Though it was thought to have originally been picked up for two twelve-episode seasons, Mulaney has been noncommittal, deflecting questions about a second season. That may seem unusual (and it is), but Everybody’s Live was already conspicuously different in almost every way from the standard late-night talk show.

5 days ago | latenighter.com | Bill Brioux

Editor’s Note: Veteran TV journalist Bill Brioux is LateNighter’s Canadian bureau chief. (Okay, he’s the entirety of our Canadian bureau.)Say what you will about the fractured relations between the US and Canadian governments: Canadians aren’t holding it against American-made late-night shows. In fact, relatively speaking, US late-night shows are more popular north of the border than they are in the States.

1 week ago | latenighter.com | Will DiGravio

A genuine, dangerous spontaneity is what made Don Rickles one of the greatest late night television guests of all time. Who else entertained at such a high level? And who else did so consistently, and for so long? Rickles always walked on stage to the matador’s theme, “La Virgen de la Macarena.” His arena was the dangerous spectacle of his own act.

1 week ago | latenighter.com | Bill Carter

First on LateNighter: CBS dropped a bombshell in March when it announced that not only was it cancelling After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson, it was abandoning the 12:37am time slot altogether. Yes, the decision was reportedly precipitated by After Midnight’s host stepping away from the show to focus on her standup career, and yes, linear late-night TV ratings have been on a steady decades-long decline.