James Corden will soon step down as the host of The Late Late Show on CBS. My view of the man is just about identical to the one expressed here by my pal Paul Harris. I like Corden in certain special bits on his show which I watch on YouTube. (I always watch his Carpool Karaoke segments just to see if my house is in them. He drives around my neighborhood a lot.)
I liked him as a host on the Tony Awards and a few other gigs. I even liked him in the movies of Cats, The Prom and Into the Woods. But I rarely watch his nightly show where everything and everyone are fabulous and wonderful and awesome and everything merits a standing ovation.
And Paul's right: It's kind of pointless to speculate who may replace him. There's sometimes an obvious choice for an 11:30 talk show slot the way some of us predicted Stephen Colbert would take over Letterman's program. But 12:30 is almost always someone no one saw coming. No one predicted Conan O'Brien or Tom Snyder or Craig Kilborn or Craig Ferguson or Seth Meyers or Mr. Corden. I would guess though that the folks at CBS are at least seriously looking to see if there's a worthy candidate who isn't white, male or neither.
There must be. But I have no idea if they'd go with that person. I'll also guess that a major requirement for the job is that the new host be real Internet-savvy and able to generate online content because that's becoming almost as important as putting a good show on conventional TV.
Paul wonders what Corden's going to do. I'll tell you what I'd like to see him do. My favorite musical comedy is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and at the time he got the call about hosting The Late Late Show, Corden was in talks about starring in a new Broadway revival of it. I believe he's occasionally said he really wants to do that someday and I'd sure like to see it. I think he'd be fabulous and wonderful and awesome and would merit a standing ovation. But he might be too busy starring in every movie Hollywood makes adapting a Broadway musical to the screen.