About 25 years ago, I used to watch Jay Leno regularly. Every now and then I watched Letterman. I was single back then and just out of A&M and onto my first job.
Then I got married, had kids, and life happened.
Leno and Letterman are gone, Conan still hangs around.

The other issue is everything is so woke and PC these days, so any edgy joke will get some group protesting and using social media to "cancel" them. So jokes are tame and hence boring.

I don't watch Late Night at all anymore.

What about you all?

Watching the first 30 minutes of so of Late Night with David Letterman was a pre bed ritual for me for a long time. Now I'm lucky to make it to 9 PM.

Of course, it was really funny too.

Dave was the best. Nothing else comparable. Craig Ferguson grabbed my attention but the rest are like milk toast.

Nope, unless you find the same repetitive safe jokes at the same acceptable targets amusing and give a crap about the personal lives of celebs, there's probably better on a few dozen channels.

Occasionally YouTube will recommend a clip from someone's recent show. If I watch it, I'm usually reminded of why I don't watch them anymore.

No formula at all here except for "let's annoy people because it gets a laugh".

I was visiting friends at t.u. the night this aired. Was in Jester dorm, everyone on their floor had their doors open. Pretty sure this was required viewing each night.

When this guy completed this Stupid Human Trick, the whole hall yelled like someone had just scored a touchdown with no time left in a game.

This is what made Letterman great back in the day before he became a bitter shill for the liberal movement after Leno got the Carson show.

Rolling Stones sticker on the fan

I used to be a causal watcher of Fallon. But without trying to get too political, Trump broke these people. You could no longer turn on any of these late night shows without it being all political ranting and raving.

I haven't watched one in five years.

I want to see "will it float" and the "history of rap". Not zomg republicans stupid inbred racists. If I wanted to hear that I'd watch MSNBC.

I started watching Gutfeld. He mocks all the other media while also mocking himself.

I almost never watch anything on TV when it is first broadcast. Usually, if anything worthwhile happens on the talk shows, it shows up on YouTube the next day, so I watch it then. For instance, if I hadn't seen it on YouTube, I wouldn't have known anything about the April Fools gag where Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon surprised their studio audiences by flying cross country and hosting each other's shows, or when James Corden and his staff did a parody "We don't talk about Jada, no, no no" after the Oscars. (The Justin Timberlake as Matt Damon bit on the Fallon-as-Kimmel broadcast was hilarious). I find myself watching a little bit of everything by just cherry picking the clips that are posted later on YouTube. If that option had been available to me back in the day, I probably never would have stayed up to watch Letterman every night.

Ol_Ag_02 said:

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I used to be a causal watcher of Fallon. But without trying to get too political, Trump broke these people. You could no longer turn on any of these late night shows without it being all political ranting and raving.

I haven't watched one in five years.

I want to see "will it float" and the "history of rap". Not zomg republicans stupid inbred racists. If I wanted to hear that I'd watch MSNBC.

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As much as they hated the guy and probably donated money to Biden to see him get elected, the late night talk show people and everyone at SNL must have died a little on the inside when Trump lost because it made them have to think about material after coasting for four years.

Literally tool of the left .

Dave's off script moments were the best.

I loved The Colbert Report, but can't stand real Colbert's show.

Fallon has the best musical bits, but his interview skills are pretty terrible.

Since COVID happened I got into listening to Smartless and Conan O'Brien needs a Friend and haven't been back much to late night TV

helloimustbegoing said:

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I loved The Colbert Report, but can't stand real Colbert's show.

Fallon has the best musical bits, but his interview skills are pretty terrible.

Since COVID happened I got into listening to Smartless and Conan O'Brien needs a Friend and haven't been back much to late night TV

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Colbert Report was a blast. Once he quit playing a role in a long-running bit and showed who he really is it got old. And like most talk show hosts he got lazy due to his raging case of hate for the right.

1. Leno headlines were great
2. The guests and musical acts for were hit or miss, so I would only tune in for the ones of interest to me
3. Craig Kilborn was awesome
4. These days late shows are fodder for deranged libs

In summary, no I don't watch them.

Johnny Carson was the GOAT, no question. His monologue was must-see-TV for me every night before crashing.

Great personality all around. And when he made political jokes, they were fair (and funny).

There are so many more options these days. Of course, I enjoyed the greats (as I recall, anyhow): Carson, Leno, Conan. Sometimes I enjoy Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers.

I certainly like comedy, but I like it to be witty/intelligent and not polarizing BS.

If there's no comedy (or nothing that I think is comedic), then I'd prefer to learn something (or fall asleep learning something, lol).

IMO there's a ton of interesting content on YouTube (funny & educational), of course there's a lot of idiotic crap too.

Here's an example of a YouTube history channel that I recently stumbled upon: https://www.youtube.com/c/TimelineChannel

Craig Ferguson's show was way too short.

The late night talk shows now go out of their way to alienate the non-woke. The stuff they say about non-liberals would not fly if it were the other way around.

I don't understand how the double standard is acceptable but I'm one of the non-woke so they don't want me as a viewer.

scd88 said:

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The late night talk shows now go out of their way to alienate the non-woke. The stuff they say about non-liberals would not fly if it were the other way around.

I don't understand how the double standard is acceptable but I'm one of the non-woke so they don't want me as a viewer.

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They can't see the double standard.

maroon barchetta said:

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helloimustbegoing said:

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I loved The Colbert Report, but can't stand real Colbert's show.

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Colbert Report was a blast. Once he quit playing a role in a long-running bit and showed who he really is it got old. And like most talk show hosts he got lazy due to his raging case of hate for the right.

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Watching Colbert's path has been seriously disappointing. Colbert Report was impossibly funny in the mid-2000s. Everyone knew it was a bit, but it balanced edgy with good natured and it was always clever. Colbert today is just so bitter. The Late Show promo spots are cringy and humorless. No thanks.

Johnny Carson reruns….

No. They went 95% political in 2016. Not interested.

TriAg2010 said:

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maroon barchetta said:

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helloimustbegoing said:

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I loved The Colbert Report, but can't stand real Colbert's show.

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Colbert Report was a blast. Once he quit playing a role in a long-running bit and showed who he really is it got old. And like most talk show hosts he got lazy due to his raging case of hate for the right.

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Watching Colbert's path has been seriously disappointing. Colbert Report was impossibly funny in the mid-2000s. Everyone knew it was a bit, but it balanced edgy with good natured and it was always clever. Colbert today is just so bitter. The Late Show promo spots are cringy and humorless. No thanks.

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Yeah it really sucks. I watched the Colbert Report every single night it was on. The amount of stuff he was able to do that was off the wall was so hilarious. I realize he wanted to stop playing a character and couldn't turn down the CBS money, but I think I've watched it 2-3 times since it came on. He was really good on Smartless though, mostly because he and Sean Hayes just geeked out about LOTR.

I watch reruns of Johnny Carson. Carson is the GOAT.

They all became unwatchable because Trump broke them and now they have to walk on eggshells to not make too much fun of Biden.

I grew up watching Letterman and today's late night is a shell of what was once great.

At some point these shows, as well as some sports, forgot that the role that made them popular was being an entertaining escape for people. Not wallowing in the topics and miserable **** we deal with the other 23 hours of the day

DannyDuberstein said:

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At some point these shows, as well as some sports, forgot that the role that made them popular was being an entertaining escape for people. Not wallowing in the topics and miserable **** we deal with the other 23 hours of the day

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Part of the reason i don't bother watching espn. They need to shut up and tell me about sports. I don't care about some former roid head's opinion on politics or social justice. Tell me who won the game.

Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel. They're funny if you don't get your feelings hurt easily

One of the reasons I limit my talk show viewing to YouTube highlights as that I just don't care about most of it. I find things I like from most of the hosts, but not enough to watch their whole show. Kimmel's show is probably the closest thing to Letterman in style of humor, and Fallon is the closest to Carson in his willingness to sacrifice his last shred of dignity for a laugh. Conan also had a Carson parallel in his habit of giving up the spotlight to regular return guests and let them do what they do (Norm McDonald), like Carson used to do with guests like Buddy Hackett. Colbert has always had his moments, but he's kind of a one trick pony. I thought he was an odd choice for Letterman's successor, but he is a good interviewer. The empty couch on any of those shows is the closest parallel to Leno. And none of the current crop makes me laugh as much as Craig Ferguson did back in the day. I really don't give a rat's ass about the politics. It's either funny or it's not.

Conan, I find annoying at times.

Leno, I liked, but I think he kisses too much ass.

Letterman is edgy but he wasn't too likeable.

Conan was always my favorite. He really does let the guest shine over himself. Helps set up the joke and then plays dumb when it happens. When he has Bill Burr on his show it's gold. It really is impossible to get anyone right of center or even center on air these days but Conan didn't make entire shows political punchlines just had the one off jokes. His remotes were the best parts of his shows. Now he's got a podcast which is pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately, he does bring on the left wing superstars on his podcast occasionally but I just skip those.





Craig Ferguson has some of the best YouTube clips when he has beautiful guests on. He's always good for a laugh but his show couldn't keep my interest for the full length so clips are all I've really seen.

infinity ag said:

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Conan, I find annoying at times.

Leno, I liked, but I think he kisses too much ass.

Letterman is edgy but he wasn't too likeable.

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If by "annoying", you mean the best host of the past 30 years, then we agree.