James Corden does his final Late, Late Show this Friday. It was a program I rarely TiVoed even though I enjoyed most of the segments of it I watched on YouTube. I also liked Corden in other things…like hosting The Tony Awards. He just tended to interview (and usually, fawn over) people I didn't care much about. I also may have simply watched too many late night talk/comedy programs…enough to break a long-time addiction.
I watch Fallon when he has on a guest I especially like, which happens around twice a year. Same with Colbert, though that's more like two or three times a month. Actually, I TiVo his Late Show but don't watch many of them. I do catch his opening monologue when The Events of the Day seem to lend themselves to a flood of topical jokes. That's happened a lot lately. I also like Seth Meyers' "A Closer Look" segments, which I think feature some of the sharpest political humor ever done on television.
Jimmy Kimmel…I don't know what I think of that guy. I like a lot of his monologues but I can't stand any bits that involve stopping people on the street and putting them on camera. I didn't like 'em when Letterman did those. I didn't like 'em when Leno did those. I never liked hidden camera shows either. They always seem to flow from someone saying, "Hey, let's come up with an idea where random people can't help but look uncomfortable or stupid!"
Getting back to Corden — who also did some of that — I thought a lot of his comedy bits were quite brilliant, though I guess I'm glad to see the end of his Crosswalk Musicals. You may have found them amusing but you weren't, like me, stuck in traffic jams at least twice because of them. In Los Angeles, there's almost nothing you're not allowed to do to the general public if you're filming or recording a TV show or movie. Here's a link to Mr. Corden's last Crosswalk Musical. He also will no longer be driving past my home doing Carpool Karaoke.
CBS is not replacing him with another talk show. I think it's about time the networks experimented with other kinds of shows in those time slots. If they do try another talk show there, I have a suggestion: Do it absolutely live to the East Coast, vow not to edit for other time zones and don't rehearse bits in advance or write lines that are supposed to sound ad-libbed. Of course, that would mean finding a host who can do that and is brave enough to try.
Just before he was signed to host The Late, Late Show for CBS, Mr. Corden was reportedly about to star in a new Broadway revival of my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I haven't heard what plans he has for the future but I hope that's somewhere in them. I think he'd be quite wonderful in it. He's gotten a lot of bad press lately that suggests he's not as nice off-camera as he is on. I hope that's not true because I think he's a very talented guy.