Each week, Late Night Last Week highlights some of the best late night TV from the previous week. This week, we cover a new wave of reactions to Stephen Colbert’s cancellation, Josh Johnson’s superb first week behind the desk of The Daily Show, and Robert Klein’s 89th appearance on The Tonight Show.
The big news in late night television last week remained Stephen Colbert. The CBS host returned following a weekend spent processing the news of The Late Show’s cancellation. “It sunk in that they killed off our show, but they made one mistake,” Colbert said on the July 21 broadcast. “They left me alive.”
Colbert figured the audience might be in need of a pick-me-up, so he invited Lin-Manuel Miranda and Weird Al Yankovic to the stage to sing “Viva La Vida,” an obvious reference to that viral moment from a recent Coldplay concert. A spotlight then moved around the room, highlighting a number of Colbert’s fellow late night hosts who gathered in the Ed Sullivan theater to show solidarity , including NBC’s Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, former Daily Show colleagues John Oliver and Jon Stewart, and New Year’s Eve duo Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper.
The news last week also shifted away from Colbert, as Trey Stone and Matt Parker began the latest season of South Park (another Paramount property) with a depiction of Trump that included the president literally undressing and getting into bed with Satan. The creators issued a sarcastic apology.
But the new cycle quickly pivoted back to include Colbert, especially after the man who founded Late Night, David Letterman, came out and called the company’s decision “gutless.” But now that the week of reactions has passed, the real question becomes, what now? It is clear that Colbert himself is still figuring out how to navigate this final era of his Late Night tenure. The show of solidarity from his fellow hosts was sweet, but one couldn’t help but wish for more, to actually hear from them—perhaps that will come later.
Colber—and indeed us all—can take solace in this fact: the history of comedy is the history of such set-backs, of poking the bear and sometimes getting bitten. That threat is what makes it all worth doing. And so now we wait with bated breath to see not just how Colbert responds, but how the rest of the comedy world will make sure they don’t get bitten too.
The week also brought a wave of on-air reactions from Colbert’s fellow late night hosts, most notably over on Comedy Central, where Jon Stewart declared: “I’m not giving in! I’m not going anywhere!”
“I think?” he added.
Stewart was scathing in his critique of Paramount, which owns both CBS and Comedy Central. He took the view that the cancellation was, in fact, a political move. But he was also realistic about the cultural and financial status of late night television, describing the genre as “a Blockbuster kiosk inside of a Tower Records.” Yet in acknowledging that truth, Stewart made the point that such struggles did not mean that the network should just ditch and run.
“I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment,” he said.
But Colbert was certainly not the only big late night news last week. Over on The Daily Show, correspondent Josh Johnson finally got a chance to host the program—and he did not disappoint. In his first monologue, Johnson had the good fortune of tackling that ever-more-ridiculous story: the president’s response to the Epstein files and the news that the Justice Department is now engaged in talks with Ghislaine Maxwell.
Johnson was understandably shocked by this. “Wait,” he said, “you haven’t talked to Ghislaine Maxwell? Epstein’s accomplice? The woman he’s in the most pictures with?
In this first appearance, Johnson did not hold back. “Stick with me here: How funny would it be …” he said, before laying out a scenario in which Ghislaine grabbed an FBI agent’s gun and took her own life. The audacity of the joke elicited a gasp from the audience, followed by a heavy laugh, especially as Johnson flashed a knowing smile on his face. “Trust me,” he seemed to say, with the look of a seasoned host. The audience was immediately back in.
“The FBI would have to come out, like” he said, continuing the joke to heavy laughs. “Okay, okay, I know how this looks. But I swear—here’s how much I want you to believe me: we did do the first one, okay?”
It was the beginning of a fantastic week of shows for Johnson. And the audience agreed. According to LateNighter, Nielsen data showed that Johnson’s debut behind the desk was the highest-rated, non-Stewart-hosted episode of the show this year. Strikingly, Johnson did, however, beat Stewart in the 18-49 demographic, the one advertisers prize above all.
Just when we thought the bench of hosting talent at The Daily Show couldn’t get any deeper, it indeed has.
Finally, we end with a legend. A true legend. A man who in a world in which so many adjectives are diluted, truly deserves the description, “comic icon.” On July 23, Robert Klein made his 89th appearance on The Tonight Show. The first, Klein shared with the audience, was on January 19, 1968, fewer than six years into Johnny Carson’s tenure. Last weekend, Klein received a lifetime achievement award from the Borscht Belt Fest.
Jimmy Fallon asked Klein to reflect on his involvement with Saturday Night Live, which stretched all the way back to the show’s first season. Klein remembered giving Lorne Michaels what he described as the worst piece of advice. “I said, you gotta tape it, you can’t do it live,” Klein said, before then impersonating a sad trombone.
He also talked about seeing comedians for the first time in the Borscht Belt. “Non-Jews went too for the food. There were masses of pot roast,” he said, “And stuff that came with a cardiologist.” It was there, Klein remembered, that “comedy was king.” He recalled seeing the performers pull up in their Cadillacs, make a few hundred bucks, and, more importantly, make people laugh. “What a high calling,” he said. Amen.
Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.
