Good news! US late night comedy is back after the five-month writers’ strike.
Donald Trump called razor-sharp hosts like Bill Maher, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel the “low-rated creeps of late-night TV”.
“This from a man who buried his ex-wife on a golf course just so he could continue to cheat on her,” sniped Kimmel
On Real Time, Maher had tips for Trump’s future cellmate: “Don’t believe him when he says how many cigarettes he’s worth… explain to him he’s not allowed conjugal visits from his daughter” etc.
Light relief came from a congresswoman getting slung out of Beetlejuice the musical for giving her date what few would mistake for a Hollywood handshake.
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United StatesTV has done late night well for 70 years, peaking with David Letterman and Jay Leno.
Letterman’s show was more off-the-wall than an antique squash ball, with stunts like strapping a camera to a monkey and Dave’s Top Ten lists.
Big Foot’s Top Ten Peeves included his driving licence photo made him look like Gregg Allman.
Leno was a joke machine with a nightly 12-minute opening monologue of fresh gags. Politicians of every creed copped it (less so today, predictably).
Brits James Corden, John Oliver and brilliant Craig Ferguson did well over there too.
Our telly is poorer for not delivering nightly topical comedy. ITV tried and failed with The Nightly Show. They picked hosts who weren’t funny and had a producer with a humour bypass censor the jokes.
Late-night telly has to take risks and can’t pull punches. I’d commission five different hosts, with their own writing teams, to take a night each – low-budget but also low on interference from the suits.
Competition would sharpen the jokes. Some would be offended but any channel that sent us to bed laughing would win the ratings war
● Low-rated creeps of late-night TV? Wasn’t that the working title for ITV’s Night Network?
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