Every week, Late Night Last Week highlights some of the best late night TV from the previous week. In this week’s late night TV recap, Jon Stewart tackles the Biden book being pushed by CNN, Shaq gives away some shoes, Lisa Gilroy hosts After Midnight, and John Mulaney tells an Uber joke.
For decades now, few institutions have been more at the center of Jon Stewart’s comedic crosshairs than the 24-hour cable news channel. Stewart’s logic has always been that these networks, whether it be Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN, are only needed in their current form around big events like 9/11, not on the average day where they must fill their airwaves with “partisan hackery,” as he said during his famous appearance on CNN’s Crossfire.
But in his monologue last Monday, Stewart touched on another power of that news machine: its ability to sell books. If you are reading this, you have probably encountered an ad, article, or clip discussing the recent book co-authored by CNN’s Jake Tapper on the mental and physical decline of Joe Biden while in office. “Like most people in America, I am most looking forward to reading a book,” Stewart said. “But when? WHEEENNNNNN?!”
Cue montage of book plugs by Tapper, ending with: “You will not believe what we found out.” The irony of future news being plugged on a 24-hour news channel was like the proverbial barreled fish for Stewart. “Don’t news people,” Stewart slowly began to ask, “have to tell you what they know when they find it out?”
“Isn’t that the difference between news and a secret?” he added.
You may also know that just before the book was actually released last week, the former president went public with the news that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Stewart played a montage of hosts and journalists reacting to the news, all ending with a plug or at least noting the forthcoming book. “It’s just fun to watch them not only continue to push the book in light of this difficult news, but to actually frame this difficult news as perhaps even more of a reason to buy this book,” he said.
But for Stewart, the real irony of the situation came from the fact that this “bombshell” of a book is not, in fact, anything of the sort. While many of the inner details of Biden’s decline may be new, the public, as Stewart pointed out, could not only see this with our own two eyes, but poll after poll showed that he should not have sought a second term. The public could see what much of the media did not, and what many Democrats tried to hide.
“Most of the public knew that it was a bad idea for Biden to run. We knew it. And that’s what is so hilarious about politicians,” Stewart said, “the cover-up doesn’t work when everyone knows you’re lying.”
“And the media,” he added, “tasked with covering them, have somehow ended up inside the bubble with them.”
In keeping with our discussion of the good ol’ USA, few things are more American than giving away free stuff to a live television studio audience, or, as it could be called, an advertisement delivered in the form of a gift. Few things are more contrived than the studio giveaway—you think that crap got under the seats all on its own?
But last Thursday, we got one of those rare instances of a giveaway actually, possibly, probably being … spontaneous? In the lead up to Memorial Day, Jimmy Fallon invited members of the U.S. military to be his live studio audience. The guest: Shaquille O’Neal, who was in town as part of his co-hosting duties on Inside the NBA. O’Neal joined Jimmy Fallon to also talk about his new documentary series, Power Moves, chronicling his efforts to revive Reebok (he’s a part-owner).
On the show, Shaq also talked about his father, who was a drill sergeant in the Army. Later, in discussing his new Reebok shoes, an idea seemed to come to Shaq in real time. He declared that he would send everyone in the audience a pair of their own. But rather than make a grand announcement, Shaq seemed genuinely concerned with the logistics. “No, seriously. Write your name, address, get a piece of paper, give it to this lady right here,” he said, pointing off screen.
Fallon then chimed in that they would help get everyone’s address. If it was all planned prior to taping, then both Shaq and Fallon are way better actors than anyone might have thought. The wheels of capitalism continue to spin, but it was nice to see what was actually, or at least very much seemed to be, a truly nice and spontaneous gesture on television.
It’s graduation season in America. And while After Midnight host Taylor Tomlinson was off at a sibling’s graduation last week, Lisa Gilroy had the chance to fill-in as guest host. “I also have siblings,” Gilroy said at the outset of her monologue, “but luckily mine are dumb as hell so I’m here.”
The comedian and YouTuber crushed the guest hosting duties, especially the monologue. But that could not be done without first making a few things clear to the audience, who, she worried, might be wondering if there was some kind of “mix-up at the white, blonde lady factory.” “Lisa is hosting for Taylor Tomlinson?” Gilroy asked, impersonating a concerned fan. “Does this mean Hillary Clinton is doing the AMC intro now?”
John Mulaney began the Wednesday, May 23 episode of Everybody’s Live with a simple question: is Uber good? The host discussed both the good and bad of the platform. For example, Mulaney said he was a fan of the way the app changes its appearance on Halloween so that moving cars appear as jack-o-lanterns. “And if you think about it, Uber is a lot like a jack-o-lantern,” he said. “They both have triangle eyes, they both only come out once a year, and they’re both filled with slimy stuff.”
Before Mulaney even finished the joke, he turned to a member of the audience: “Alright, that’s interesting that you laughed,” he said, “Why did you laugh? That joke made no sense.” Mulaney went on to explain that they had conducted an experiment to see if “the rhythm of the joke would work when the examples made no sense.”
Mulaney then thanked his guest for participating, said they should probably be a little embarrassed, and moved on—but for some reason I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Why go through all of that to not dwell on it? Was that the bit? Is it even a funny bit? Is this all part of the experiment? This Mulaney guy sure knows how to get in your head.
Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He’s been writing Paste’s late night TV recaps since 2024. 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.
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