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Waffles

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While I'm not feeling this identity for the show, I am very intrigued by Colbert becoming the host. I'd love to see how it goes.

I recall reading an article around the time it was announced that I found very interesting.

Being that I was never a regular watcher of The Colbert Report, I had no idea that he was "in character" as the host. The article included an interview with Colbert, where he said he didn't allow his children to watch because he didn't want them to think he was the guy seen on TV--because he was "in character". I find it very interesting because he also said in that interview that he would be "genuine Stephen Colbert" on the Late Show (rather than the Colbert Report "character"). So I'm very interested to see how it goes.

I'm 23 years old and I grew up watching Letterman almost exclusively. It was my dad's choice, until Conan took over for Leno. Once Conan left, he kinda flipped between Leno and Letterman. I will say I'm a fan of all three of the guys.

Once I hit my 20s I really started watching Late Night with Fallon, who I've always been a huge fan of (he's always been my favorite SNL cast member). Naturally, I'm a huge Fallon fan and I will choose the Tonight Show 99 times out of 100. But, I'll definitely give Colbert a shot.

For me, Letterman became a bit too old school and repetitive for me. As it stands my rankings are:

Fallon, Conan, Leno, Letterman, Kimmel.

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For me, Letterman became a bit too old school and repetitive for me. As it stands my rankings are:

Fallon, Conan, Leno, Letterman, Kimmel.

If you're able, watch "Late Night" throughout its run and the pre-heart episode "Late Show." His heart episode was a virtual dividing line for Letterman's career on-air.

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For me, Letterman became a bit too old school and repetitive for me. As it stands my rankings are:

Fallon, Conan, Leno, Letterman, Kimmel.

If you're able, watch "Late Night" throughout its run and the pre-heart episode "Late Show." His heart episode was a virtual dividing line for Letterman's career on-air.

Interesting, I'll have to check it out!

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I guess my personal late night tune in rankings based on my time spent...

1. Conan O'Brien

2. Stephen Colbert

3. Craig Kilborn

4. David Letterman

5. Jon Stewart

6. Jay Leno

7. Arsenio Hall

8. Tom Snyder

9. Craig Ferguson

I really only watch Kimmel bits on youtube... Fallon is an annoying uncreative manchild... Meyers is cardboard.

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@2001mark

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Of the shows I've seen significant episodes of (during their initial runs), I'd rank:

1. Late Night with Conan Obrien

2. Late Night with David Letterman

3. Late Show with David Letterman

4. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

5. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Haven't watched too much of Jimmy Kimmel, but I would assume he'd be right above or below Late Show with David Letterman.

There was a period of time (and still may be, but I wouldn't know because I don't know what channel he's on or even when) where Conan Obrien was just heads and shoulders ahead of anyone in the industry. His was the only show I'd go out of my way or stay up late just to watch.

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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My ranking, from best to worst, of the big guys in this industry recently (or at least, the ones I have ever really watched) is ...

1. Conan

2. Leno

3. Fallon

4. Letterman

5. Kimmel

I've never found Kimmel or Letterman to be engaging. Fallon is so-so. Leno was pretty good, not hilarious, but certainly funnier than the bottom 3. Conan is just funnier to me. He is the only one of these hosts who has actually made me laugh out loud, and has done so on multiple occasions. That's pretty big because I practically never laugh out loud when watching TV. Maybe sometimes during Seinfeld.

I think it's all about delivery for me. I'm sure all 5 of these guys have similarly funny jokes, on paper. I think Conan just delivers his jokes in the best ways (especially when he does certain voices) and seems to be the best at improvising, or at least coming across as improvising, especially after the delivery of a joke. Often his little improvisations between jokes are funnier than the jokes themselves. Seems like the other 4 guys like to kind of stick to the script and to me that kind of works against them. I guess goofiness also goes a long way for me. I also think Andy Richter is funny and a good sidekick for Conan.

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I think it's all about delivery for me. I'm sure all 5 of these guys have similarly funny jokes, on paper. I think Conan just delivers his jokes in the best ways (especially when he does certain voices) and seems to be the best at improvising, or at least coming across as improvising, especially after the delivery of a joke. Often his little improvisations between jokes are funnier than the jokes themselves. Seems like the other 4 guys like to kind of stick to the script and to me that kind of works against them. I guess goofiness also goes a long way for me. I also think Andy Richter is funny and a good sidekick for Conan.

Absolutely. Conan took Dave's show & kept going off the rails... & hasn't looked back since.

Having had written for both SNL + The Simpsons, Conan certainly has some comic chops to lean on.

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I think it's all about delivery for me. I'm sure all 5 of these guys have similarly funny jokes, on paper.

I don't think they do at all. That's why I never liked Leno - his delivery was fine, if pedestrian, but his writers were terrible. Letterman was clearly the best of those two on both counts.

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I guess my personal late night tune in rankings based on my time spent...

1. Conan O'Brien

2. Stephen Colbert

3. Craig Kilborn

4. David Letterman

5. Jon Stewart

6. Jay Leno

7. Arsenio Hall

8. Tom Snyder

9. Craig Ferguson

I really only watch Kimmel bits on youtube... Fallon is an annoying uncreative manchild... Meyers is cardboard.

I've always sort of divided my 'rankings' based on the three key elements of late night hosting: monologue, second-segment comedy (desk pieces, remotes, etc.), and the ability to parry with interview subjects in an engaging way.

Regarding monologue, the best of them all, bar none, was Johnny Carson. Craig Ferguson is second, but it's an Earth-to-Jupiter distant type of second. David Letterman was third, Conan O'Brien fourth. A long-forgotten Greg Kinnear would be fifth in my book, and the rest frankly not worth mentioning.

In second-segment comedy, the best of them all, again without parallel, was David Letterman. Craig Kilborn could do some damage in the second segment, as can Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien. Even Johnny Carson's second segments were routinely hit-and-miss affairs save when he'd break out an Art Fern, Aunt Blabby or Floyd R. Turbo. Big disappointments in this area were Craig Ferguson and Arsenio Hall. Hall's show format wasn't well suited for desk pieces (in fact, he had no desk) and as solid a hit as Ferguson was with his monologue, his "I don't give a :censored:" approach to the second segment was beyond transparent.

Now, as far as parrying with interview guests, the list sort of gets turned upside-down, and it goes old-school. Tom Snyder and Dick Cavett are 1A and 1B in this category, with each having the unique ability of being completely engaging without offending the guest or insulting the audience while doing so. Arsenio Hall was good at it as was Johnny Carson and Bob Costas (yes, kids, Bob Costas once had a late night show on NBC), but not to quite the same level. David Letterman could turn it on when he wanted, as could Craig Ferguson, but generally by the time the third acts came on both CBS shows, you felt comfortable flipping over to something else, knowing you weren't going to miss much.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were each doing something so different from the traditional late night template that it's really a disservice to them to compare them to the likes of Carson, Letterman, etc. In this genre Colbert should probably be judged on how his "Late Show" stint turns out.

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a good-ass post

Can you agree that Jimmy Fallon is a lisping facile man-baby who isn't good at a single thing other than "hey remember ___?" and "celebrities are so great, let's play games!"?

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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I've always sort of divided my 'rankings' based on the three key elements of late night hosting: monologue, second-segment comedy (desk pieces, remotes, etc.), and the ability to parry with interview subjects in an engaging way.

Because it's Labour Day & I'm bored... I'll rank my subjective top 3 of each of your criteria...

Monologue:

1. Conan O'Brien... in-jokes with nearly every joke he tells, it's great.

2. David Letterman... while everyone else had longer opening sets, Dave every single night would sneak in the hardest hitting joke of the night anywhere... out of nowhere in the middle of his set without warning. Was awesome.

3. Craig Ferguson... because f the cue cards.

Worst: Arsenio Hall... canned & out of date jokes, even in his heyday.

Desk segment:

1. Conan O'Brien... again, constantly inviting comedic chaos without a parachute.

2. Stephen Colbert... while a bit more controlled than Conan, Stephen was master at verbal hilarity, timing, & blistering prop jokes.

3. Craig Kilborn... loved his flair for having a great time on set, not least their in-jokes like Ascot Nights + 5 Questions.

Worst: Jay Leno... dear lord have mercy.

Interviewing:

1. David Letterman... this is not even close. Not everything had to be a giggle, never shy to converse with rather than quiz his guests.

2. Tom Snyder... I'd tune in because the show was pure fascinating conversation. I miss the format.

3. Craig Ferguson... though he admittedly seemed weaker the more mainstream the guest- that's to say he had much better 1-1's with ppl who could keep up with him. Hollywood has a lot of flakes, thankfully I noticed Craig wouldn't be stuck with too many canned stars to interview.

Worst: Arsenio Hall... holy cow what a softballer. Only Fallon is worse except I don't watch him.

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@2001mark

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The "with" in the marquee is intentional, and the marquee is complete. It's a bit of an inside gag as to why it's there, but it's deliberate.

I said there was an inside gag to the "with," and I've found out that they extended the joke to the actual set design... the "The Late Show with" logo at the top of that image is directly above the spot where Stephen Colbert will deliver his monologue. So every night if you read it from ceiling to floor, it'll be "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." (Though I'd read it as "Late the Showithw" myself. :D)

And where the people are standing in the back? That's his entrance point - the same rough area as David Letterman's, but with the appearance of a garage door.

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Pretty decent debut. Opening segment was tame... yet the Trump-Oreos brought out the Colbert we all love... the Jeb 1-1 was what is was, though to be fair he'd been booked for months & months now, they obviously thought it'd be Jeb v Hillary featured after Labour Day.

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Pretty decent debut. Opening segment was tame... yet the Trump-Oreos brought out the Colbert we all love... the Jeb 1-1 was what is was, though to be fair he'd been booked for months & months now, they obviously thought it'd be Jeb v Hillary featured after Labour Day.

I was rather disappointed in Colbert doing a monologue. It felt like he didn't want to do it, but felt like he should at least try it to satisfy tradition. There was a lot that was heavy-handed that felt like Letterman, but wasn't in Colbert's humor wheelhouse. The Mentalist switch joke didn't go over much at all, and a lot of the jokes of the monologue felt like bad Leno-style cracks.

Once he finally got to the desk it was pleasantly familiar. The abstract joke regarding the haunted skull that wanted him to shill hummus was, I feel, stuff that came from Colbert's writers or Colbert himself - felt natural, just like the Oreos/Trump stuff. I think he'll go more and more toward this and away from the classic stand up traditional stuff as he makes the show his own.

The Clooney interview wasn't great, but I enjoyed the deliberate awkward silence. Colbert needs to settle into dealing with mundane celebrities, because Clooney's a great guest who he didn't get a lot of mileage out of.

Jeb was alright. Jeb clearly had a lot of scripted answers prepared for the interview and he was obviously nervous as hell. Colbert wasn't letting him talk, which was frustrating, but Jeb also stumbled around his talking points some. I'm looking forward to Colbert and Biden, since Biden's got a lot of charisma and is a better speaker than anyone w/ the last name Bush, so that should be interesting.

Musical performance was terrible. Jon Batiste for some reason terrifies me. He's got this uncomfortably intense face and stares right into the camera a lot, and it looks angry, but the guy is very talented and I know he and Colbert have a good rapport. Anyways. Not a bad start, but not great either. Gonna take time.

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