Best Late Night Talk Show Host?

[Straight Shooter]

Discuss amongst yourselves

 

[PirateKing]

Jon Stewart. The rest annoy me.

 

[Galactic]

Conan.

 

[BigSwede]

Letterman.

 

[Thomas O'Malley]

None... Who's interested anyway in these chat sessions? :dunno:

 

[Supafly]

All of them have their strong points... but all-over the best for me is Letterman. The others tend to be a little over-the-top and I sometimes get the impression they play it too hard.

Letterman is steady and great.

 

[JBoy11]

I think Craig Ferguson is the best, he's always got me laughing no matter who's on or what's going on and with him it's not just about promoting a celebs new movie or book or cd, he has fun with them and makes it entertaining to watch.
Leno and Kimmel are both pretty good too. Conan really isn't very good at all. Letterman is just boring and dry and not funny and Fallon is just plain sad, he shouldn't even be on tv

 

[emceeemcee]

Craig Ferguson is alright but sometimes laughs at his own jokes too much. Letterman is OK.

 

[316sherm]

Conan

 

[Shifty]

Letterman has always been my favorite.

 

[feller469]

Letterman is king. I am still amazed Jimmy Fallon is still in the industry. Maybe he is funny behind the scenes but I have always found him simply not funny. Friends of mine like him, but I don't get him at all.

 

[PlasmaTwa2]

It's Conan!

Fallon is not actually all that bad. I remember he was horrible when he first took the job but he's grown into the role rather well since he took it.

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

I was going to start this very thread a couple weeks ago.

I would say of all those the one who would be most enjoyable to have a cocktail with would be Leno. Then Conan and then Fallon and Daly.

Funniest of all those is probably Kimmel, although Conan can get me rollin' from time to time.

 

[Ace Bandage]

Stewart and Colbert, FTW!

 

[Jack Davenport]

I have always been a fan of Letterman. I believe I was junior in college when Late Night first aired.

All of the irreverent humor from late night talk shows started with Letterman who completely changed the old school style of talk shows from the Carson, Jack Parr Joey Bishop style of boredom. Although Carson was pretty damn good at times.

I like Conan and Jimmy Kimmel a lot too, but gotta give Letterman credit for being the best and influencing the others.

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

I have always been a fan of Letterman. I believe I was junior in college when Late Night first aired.

All of the irreverent humor from late night talk shows started with Letterman who completely changed the old school style of talk shows from the Carson, Jack Parr Joey Bishop style of boredom. Although Carson was pretty damn good at times.

I like Conan and Jimmy Kimmel a lot too, but gotta give Letterman credit for being the best and influencing the others.

Let me guess. You read that article on Letterman in RS that came out a couple months ago?

 

[Jack Davenport]

Let me guess. You read that article on Letterman in RS that came out a couple months ago?

No I did not. Is that their take also? I am just old enough to remember when Letterman first started. I also remember some mid day talk show he did on NBC when I was in high school.

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

No I did not. Is that their take also? I am just old enough to remember when Letterman first started. I also remember some mid day talk show he did on NBC when I was in high school.

Yes.

It's a long ass article and I don't feel like Googling right now, but here is a snippet:

By Rolling Stone
September 20, 2011 12:40 PM ET


The new issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands and available now through Rolling Stone All Access, has an incredibly in-depth feature about David Letterman's groundbreaking first year on television. "He did the thing that everyone's tried to do since and has never done," Jerry Seinfeld tells Rolling Stone Contributing Editor David Browne. "Which is take the talk-show form and redo it. The mindset was, 'We're tired of pretending there are no cue cards and no cameras and nothing's rehearsed. It's late, and we're going to take over this piece of territory and do our own thing.' Now that mindset is everywhere."

Late Night With David Letterman premiered on NBC on February 1st, 1982. The producers of The Tonight Show told them that they could not book the old-school showbiz vets (Bob Newhart, Don Rickles, etc.) that frequently sat on Johnny Carson's couch. "Late Night was forced to settle for a parade of outcasts and eccentrics who helped give the show its crazy universe personality," Browne writes. "On any given night, you could stumble across the gay British writer Quentin Crisp; the intense and troubled author or Being There, Jerzy Kosinski; or a little-known journalist like Jon Alpert, who showed gripping footage of El Salvadorian guerillas attacking villages."

Other highlights from the article:

• Jimmy Kimmel says that David Letterman forever changed comedy. "You see his influence in every talk-show host – Jon Stewart, Conan, Colbert, all those guys," he says. "We're all 100 percent guilty of stealing from Letterman. That show changed everything and it changed the humor of the United States more than anything I can think of. We all got a lot cooler all of a sudden."

• Letterman's early remote bits where he would walk around Manhattan and interview perplexed local business owners also forever changed the culture. "Looking back at the early remotes, it's easy to see some of the origins of reality TV: regular folks put on camera and turned into stars," Browne writes. "Late Night's first anniversary show featured a red carpet with many of the show owners Letterman had interviewed."



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/how-david-letterman-reinvented-tv-20110920#ixzz1dVJJljax

 

[Jack Davenport]

Yes.

It's a long ass article and I don't feel like Googling right now, but here is a snippet:

I don't agree with Rolling Stone much, but they pretty well summed it up. I remember watching his show at first and was taken aback by some of the off the wall shit and actually wondered if he would make it. It all seems tame now.

Now I see why you asked if I had read it. Thanks for the link.

 

[LukeEl]

I am usually asleep on weeknights before they come on, but I do catch Kimmel once in awhile.