As I mentioned here the other day, Regis Philbin is guest-hosting The Late, Late Show on Monday and Tuesday nights. I pointed out that he was taking no chances with his guest list on Monday night: Alan Alda, Martin Short, Tony Danza and Susan Sarandon.
Well, Tuesday night he has David Letterman, Martha Stewart and Tracy Wolfson. Since Letterman is in New York and is not in reruns next week, my first thought was that he'd be on via satellite since The Late, Late Show is done out here. But then I realized: Martin Short is currently appearing on Broadway in It's Only a Play and Tony Danza is in Honeymoon in Vegas. So maybe they're taping in New York, which is where I think all of the guests over those two nights are based, as is Regis. That would be kinda interesting, right?
Assuming that's true, here's what I think is happening. They're taping episodes this week here in L.A. with Kunal Nayaar and Billy Gardell hosting…episodes that are not scheduled to run until sometime in February. They've already taped some more episodes ahead with Drew Carey hosting. James Corden takes over late in March so what they seem to be doing is taping ahead — with shows this week taping on both coasts — so that they'll be done with all the guest host shows in time to not be taping in L.A. in March. That would then allow time to redo the studio for Corden and for him to do test shows in there. I can't recall any late night network talk show ever taping more than a few days ahead but I think that's the plan here.
[UPDATE, fifteen minutes later: Yeah, just found a couple of online news stories saying Late, Late Show is taping in New York this week. None of them mention though that they're apparently also taping in Los Angeles this week.]