... Stephen Colbert, and the swan song of The Late Show, including the return of Strike Force Five.
I’m not taking stock of the wider state of late-night TV, at least directly, right now.
My aim is to gather some of the most interesting coverage of and content related to Colbert’s exit from the 11 o’clock hour after nearly 30 years, dating back to his days as
a Daily Show correspondent, over 20 of them as a host and 10+ broadcasting from the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Hey! Stephen recently led a tour of the Sullivan’s auditorium for Architectural Digest [14:29]. Known as CBS Studio 50 when it housed Ed’s “rilly big shew” and built a century ago as Hammerstein’s Temple of Music by Arthur Hammerstein in honor of his father, it’s possessed — as Late Show viewers have seen — of such remarkable features as a majestic dome refurbished and retrofitted with deft, modern graphic elements by Colbert’s staff.
The above, like all further video links in this post, goes to YouTube.
Need a laugh?
I’m conflicted. The dissonance of firing up the blog again, rooting on my Phillies, and hoping to get out for my birthday this weekend despite such unending pain existing half a globe away is acute. Yet I just passed an hour listening to Episode 5 of the podcast Strike Force Five while doing some graphics work for an upcoming project and the only reason I’m not incapacitated from cackling out loud nearly the entire time is that my asthma’s so bad I’ve kind-of unconsciously trained myself not to push out breath as I’m silently convulsing in hysterics.
Strike Force Five united late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers in a series of highly candid, very lightly structured conversations, sponsored to bring in money for their staffs as the strike by the Writers’ Guild of America halted production of their programs. Twelve installments were released over six weeks.
Picking up where I left off yesterday…
Image © 2010 and characters TM Bryan Lee O’Malley.
“Scott Pilgrim vs. the Animation” is a flashback to events not depicted in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The short video first aired as part of Adult Swim, Cartoon Network’s late-night block, when SPVTW opened back in August. Michael Cera and Alison Pill reprise their roles from the live-action feature, voicing the title character and high-school girlfriend Kim Pine. It was produced by the production company Titmouse and is visually based on creator Bryan Lee O’Malley’s art in the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels.
Has it really been a month since Conan O’Brien’s debut as Tonight Show host?
I took a look out of curiosity — as well as respect for both Conan and a late-night institution that dates back to before even Johnny Carson. The filmed opening was funny, but the rest of the taped bits offered diminishing returns and my Will Ferrell tolerance is low, so the main take-away for me was merely a vague excitement around the zeitgeist. One also has to wonder exactly what NBC has done to the TV landscape by slotting Jay Leno at 10 p.m. (ET) weeknights come the fall.
