BW Late Nite: How I’d Make A Late Night Talk Show

I went through way too much trouble for an image I’m probably never going to use again. I need to get all my assets on all my programs that I can. Anyway, to set this up I need to go into current events for a moment. I tried to keep it to one paragraph so we can get back to what matters, but due to 2025 being…2025 it still trickles in now and then. Sorry.

For those of you in the archives or don’t follow American late night television, talk show host and former The Man Show and Win Ben Stein’s Money co-host Jimmy Kimmel decided to go conspiracy theorist on his ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live or whatever it’s called because I never watched it. Days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk during a live gathering at a college with his wife and two young children watching, Kimmel decided that despite all evidence to the contrary the shooter had to be MAGA because he didn’t want to believe “his side” could possibly kill someone they don’t like in cold blood like that. This got Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group, local station owners whose channels include ABC affiliates in different markets, to decide to refuse to air his show and some advertisers said they’d pull their ads from their show. ABC’s response was to indefinitely cancel the show…for one week. I’ve had shorter vacations. Sinclair and Nexstar as of this writing have opted to stick to their guns. Note that I’m writing this on Tuesday night, so any changes I may miss…and this is just set-up to the actual conversation.

I made a joke in the chat of Literature Devil’s Morning Nonsense stream on YouTube that all the complaints of free speech violations by Kimmel’s Hollywood supporters (in light of similar firings on the right, most of which were done on X-Twitter rather than their own shows) meant that if not having a talk show on a major network is a free speech violation (tell that to Tucker Carlson, whose firing from Fox News Kimmel celebrated, while Carlson just moved his show to X-Twitter as it was starting to add video podcast options to its service), then my not having a talk show must be a violation of my free speech. “Where’s my talk show?” It was just a gag making fun of a silly idea as there are plenty of other platforms that aren’t as prestigious as the major network spot (and probably won’t pay him as much money)…but I got to thinking, and this is it for the political stuff, “what if I DID have a talk show?”

It’s actually a running “show” in my mental streaming TV, but it will never happen. The bit there is that a bunch of drunk guys made a move to prove they could make any idiot a talk show sensation, and I was the idiot chosen. That came off more like a high budget version of Attack Of The Show than anything on current late night talk shows…so how would I run a BW Late Nite talk show more in line with those? Well, I thought it would be a fun article, to challenge all of the rage drama that is dominating conversation right now and reducing my article fodder, so let’s do that.

In hopes of getting rid of the last bit of sociopolitical talk for this we’ll start where the show would: the opening monologue. My humor would be a bit more balanced, possibly leaning right because it’s me and would stand out from all the other left-leaning hosts in late night who ignored Johnny Carson’s advice to keep it unbiased, so in this current climate I suspect at least half of the Hollywood system would avoid me like the plague. We’ll focus on who remains, and I will have a place to fill in their spots anyway. I’d like to hire good writers because comedy writing is not my strong suit, if Jake & Leon and the amount of time since my last Captain PSA comic haven’t convinced you. The occasional one-liner isn’t enough. There’s not much else to really say. It’s the usual comedy meant to relax the audience, play court jester to all sides in politics and with celebrities, and just set a fun atmosphere for the rest of it. I’m not going to use it to attack anyone, but some commentary is inevitable. I’m not Greg Gutfeld any more than I am Steve Colbert. Everyone should be able to laugh at something, bringing everyone together for the rest of the show. More people getting along means more viewers and studio audience members, after all.

I haven’t watched a talk show for the majority of my life, even in the late Johnny Carson days. By the time I was old enough to stay up and didn’t have work/school the next day or something else to do I never really got invested in talk shows. I’d see clips, and Carson’s Comedy Classics would collect the funnier skits and guests. I assume comedy routines are still present. I’d probably have the usual parodies, man-on-the-street interviews, or some other silly running routine. Carson had some great ideas that could be modernized for the internet age and other things I and my staff would come up with. All of this is allegedly not the big draw, but it’s always fun to add for the people involved and continuing to relax the audience before going beddy-by for the night without going to bed angry. If I did feel the urge to add commentary, it would still have jokes and I’d put some kind of silly “COMMENTARY ALERT!” bit on the screen, but this would not be the norm and I would not set out to make people who disagree angry for being “owned” or some crap. I’d present all sides, including my own and what I agree with, as honestly and truthfully as I could, separating extremist points of view from the actual mainstream. This is a lost art in life in general right now.

Then you have the musical guests. This is where I start breaking away from the crowd, but not without precedence. When Arsenio Hall had his syndicated late night talk show (remember when we had those, Americans?), he pushed music formats that hadn’t been seen in general public before, like hip hop and rap. While I’d have traditional music–which includes the music Arsenio brought to the mainstream as well as country, rock, pop, and the like, I would do for synthwave and lo-fi what he did for hip hop and rap. While Daft Punk managed to pop up on one or two I bet I’d be the first American talk show host to introduce special musical guest Vanello.

My house band would probably be playing smooth jazz. That’s usually a good choice for house bands. I only know a handful of bands but I do enjoy having it on in the background. Plus I could have Rasshan Patterson as a guest. We’d talk both jazz and Kids Incorporated. I’m also the kind of guy who would bring Kids Incorporated, Kidd Video, and The Guys Next Door back for reunions, along with surviving members of groups that still want to perform together. If I could get KISS to perform “Don’t Touch My Ascot”, especially in full KISS makeup, I might only be entertaining myself and maybe anyone else who gets the reference, but it would totally be worth the hassle to make it happen. I wouldn’t be a talk show host dictator…but let me have that one moment while they’re all still here!

There’s more to entertainment than movies, TV, web shows pretending to be TV, and the occasional music.

It’s the guest where I would stand out. Having guests who would talk more about the movie, show, or whatever else they should be promoting over their politics (good luck with that out of a good chunk of Hollywood) would be welcome. Of course I’d also have to have people who care about what they’re adapting, which would also cut down the available creators. I’d be too driven to explain why fans are upset about yet another poor adaptation enough to not bother no matter how “woke” it is or isn’t. My guests are there to promote their project, joke around, and treat all potential customers like human beings. I would do the same to them. I would not have guests just to shame them, like The View tries to do so often. Jimmy Fallon had Gutfeld on his show to promote Gutfeld’s new game show, What Did I Miss, and the conflicting politics between the two were never brought up. Greg had an anecdote of previous encounters before the great political divide of 2016, discussed the game show and their both being late night talk hosts, and everyone had a good time. That’s what I would want to bring to my show. I’ll still make fun of extremists, and right now it’s the left’s extremists in charge of the media climate, but if we shift back to McCarthy at some point you can bet I’d rag on them as well. I just wouldn’t make it my sole focus.

To fill out the space left by Hollywood SEECA types (snobs, elitists, egotists, corporatists, and activists) I’d bring in people left behind by the Hollywood system centered talk shows. Voice actors? They’d be on, especially for stuff that focuses on the celebrity guest voice over the regular show’s cast. People who worked on and even created the original version? It would be interesting to see their angle versus the remake/reimagined version. Comic creators who are actually good and worth promoting whether they work for the Big Two or not? No media pecking order here. That’s why the video game creators would be here as well. If I could get an interview with the people behind Kamen Rider Zeztz you know I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s the current show and they’d get the same treatment as any actor working on an American show because it’s the first time the franchise has an international release. Ultraman actors would also be called in. Big company, small company, indie work on YouTube, YouTube/Rumble media commentators…all good here.

I wouldn’t even mind doing the occasional roundtable discussion with YouTube commentators. If I could do a segment that had some combination of Gary from Nerdrotic, Sasha from Casually Comics, Comic Drake, Just Some Guy, Literature Devil, Perch, and Linkara just talking about favorite comics new and old, it would be the highlight of my career, even more than KISS’s ascot defense. Toy collectors, Transformers discussions including the media (TJ Omega would be welcome anytime), short comedy videos like Corridor Digital, YouTube animators, webcomic creators, indie music makers…they’d be treated with the same attention and boost as the Hollywood types, which might be another reason the more egotistical actors and performers would stay away. More room for Cirque Du Soleil to perform. If you’ve seen them show up in Daily Videos, Saturday Night Showcase, or part of past feature articles on this site, you can bet I’d invite them on. The network or whoever picked up syndication rights would probably want me to focus on the “big names” believing that would be the big draw, so I’d have to, but I would push for all these other creators and performers that get lost in the system because they aren’t making the “correct” media. I’d want all of the entertainment choices out there to have a seat on my couch.

Takes on a different meaning for this discussion.

All of this moot, and not just because it would never happen. I’m not famous. I’m not a former stand-up comic. I’m not a draw with my name, though if Sinclair and Nexstar want to use me for an alternate late night talk show host they can air on their stations I could use the money. No, the problem is talk shows have been slowly dying even before the 2016 election drove one side insane. (I was busy not dying that year so I wasn’t paying that much attention to which putz got into the White House.) Arsenio’s attempt at a comeback was a miserable failure and there are no syndicated late night talk shows, while the daytime talk shows are also slowly dying off. Current viewership numbers for talk shows are in the tank, so starting a new one sounds like a bad use of money.

Why? Well, the one-sided divisive politics are only one reason. Current celebs have been showing off their ego and how little they care about the people who pay to see their movies and concerts even when politics aren’t involved. Social media has allowed us to see a side of them talk shows never gave us, and it’s a very ugly side. There are new ways to see what celebs are up to thanks to websites, YouTube, and streaming channels both live and on demand that focus solely on entertainment news. Anyone who actually cares about what’s coming already has avenues they don’t have to stay up late for and be told then and/or everyone they love and care about are the Great Evil. In short, we don’t really need talk shows anymore because what they do are better handled by people in a spare bedroom of their house and with more honesty, while drawing in a more balanced audience of world views coming together to mock Hollywood, a system talk shows are just way too tied to.

The traditional talk show is an outdated system. They’re never going to adapt because the old ways are such a status symbol of the Hollywood system they, like the rest of the industry they celebrate, are going the way of newspapers. These hosts are no longer able to command the high salaries they managed to get contracts for back when talk shows were interesting, fun for everybody regardless of politics, and promoted people we wanted to see. My version would be more open not only because it needs to embrace new media but because being outside the system they never go the time of day. The current Hollywood system is where the real “fatigue” is coming from. They just don’t work anymore and making a new one would be a waste of time and money no matter how famous the host is.

Still, I would at least have a talk show worth talking about. I’d want a place in Connecticut because that’s where my family and most of my friends are, but New York is overrated anyway right now.