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Yeah, but a couple of them ran for years. Which is a success, even if they didn't run as long as Dick might've wanted.

We're not talking about the Chevy Chase show here.

Right. Getting cancelled is not indicative of a show having been a failure. Almost everything gets cancelled eventually. Only Carson and Letterman orchestrated their own exits. Not even Leno did that.

Arsenio Hall had two runs. Both were eventually cancelled; but only the second one was a failure. The first one, having run for five or six years, was successful in that it earned a place in the culture. Likewise, Cavett's shows, both on ABC and PBS, are definitely cultural touchstones. It would be outrageous to call them failures.

At the risk of going off on a tangent here, but to further Cesarano's point, not every show that hasn't been canceled (when its time had come) is a success, either. Did you stick with The Office through its final 2 1/2 seasons or do you still consider The Simpsons Season 27 as good as its, oh, let's say 4th?*

*Not talk shows, of course I know, but the point remains.

EDIT: Then again, to me there was a point around the mid-2000s where Letterman lost his spark.

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Yeah, but a couple of them ran for years. Which is a success, even if they didn't run as long as Dick might've wanted.

We're not talking about the Chevy Chase show here.

Right. Getting cancelled is not indicative of a show having been a failure. Almost everything gets cancelled eventually. Only Carson and Letterman orchestrated their own exits. Not even Leno did that.

Arsenio Hall had two runs. Both were eventually cancelled; but only the second one was a failure. The first one, having run for five or six years, was successful in that it earned a place in the culture. Likewise, Cavett's shows, both on ABC and PBS, are definitely cultural touchstones. It would be outrageous to call them failures.

At the risk of going off on a tangent here, but to further Cesarano's point, not every show that hasn't been canceled (when its time had come) is a success, either. Did you stick with The Office through its final 2 1/2 seasons or do you still consider The Simpsons Season 27 as good as its, oh, let's say 4th?*

*Not talk shows, of course I know, but the point remains.

EDIT: Then again, to me there was a point around the mid-2000s where Letterman lost his spark.

While I conceptually agree with your point, I disagree strongly with your examples. The Office, after Andy was established as boss, was just as good as the show had been in its early seasons.

And any talk of a decline of The Simpsons really baffles me. The quality of that show's writing and performance remains tip-top. It makes me laugh every time. That show, like its comtemporaries in the genre it revived Family Guy and American Dad, consistently performs to an incredibly high artistic standard.

For me the classic examples of once-great hit shows that dramatically dropped in quality late in their runs are Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. These stand in sharp contrast to the shows which never declined, staying in their prime right up to their cancellations, such as The Odd Couple and Futurama; and also shows which exited by their creators' own decision while they were still in peak form, such as M*A*S*H, Newhart, and Seinfeld.

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And any talk of a decline of The Simpsons really baffles me. The quality of that show's writing and performance remains tip-top. It makes me laugh every time. That show, like its comtemporaries in the genre it revived Family Guy and American Dad, consistently performs to an incredibly high artistic standard.

That's some high-level trolling right there. :P

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In the interviews it feels like he's reverting back to his old Colbert Report habits, which I always found annoying, frankly. He was constantly interrupting and never letting them finish a point, but that was clearly always a part of the schtick - this egomaniac host has people on his show and then badgers them, even having them already seated at the table and then running over to the interview table while playing to the crowd, a direct inverse of how it's normally done.

But now he's just a standard host, and he's presumably not playing the character anymore. He should just talk to them. I'm sure when you do it for as long as he did it's a tough habit to break and you'll take easy laughs where you can find them, but he doesn't have to nor should he play that character anymore. Just let the person talk and pipe in with a quip when appropriate.

That's been my lone point of criticism so far. Otherwise I think there's a solid foundation here.

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Trolling my eye! I have sincere admiration for these shows.

I hadn't really seen American Dad much until recently; I had just never had time for it. Over the past couple of months I have been catching up with it, watching multiple episodes daily. And I am shocked at how good it is. The writing is so crisp; the characters are so well defined.

I saw the Bond spoof episode "Tearjerker" yesterday; and what struck me, in addition to the biting humour, was how visually beautiful it was. It's the same feeling that I often get from Futurama.

When I step back and consider these animated series, I am struck by the high standard that they continue to keep. We are in a golden age of television; and the excellence of The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, and the recently departed Futurama is indicative of this. These shows are masterpieces of television that rank alongside the fare on HBO and IFC as some of the best that the medium has to offer.

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So who caught Stephen's interview with Senator Ted Cruz last night? I thought he did an incredible job of keeping Cruz honest while being exceptionally respectful of his guest, even telling the audience not to boo Cruz.

Now let's just hope tonight's attempted interview with Donald Trump doesn't go full circus. Hopefully Stephen can get Trump to answer the question "how?" without him dancing around with "I have a plan, and it's the best plan in the history of plans. It's gonna be 'uge."

EDIT: Here is the link to the political meat of last night's Cruz interview.

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Has anyone ever found out the "inside joke" about the logo sometimes displaying as "The Late Show With" without Colbert's name?

I found that it's an inside joke but would love to know the joke.

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Has anyone ever found out the "inside joke" about the logo sometimes displaying as "The Late Show With" without Colbert's name?

I found that it's an inside joke but would love to know the joke.

Well on his first show he introduced it as "the late show with, staring steven colbert"
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