When David Letterman made his high-profile move from NBC to CBS in 1993 in the wake of being passed over to succeed Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show, CBS not only gave Letterman the 11:35 PM Eastern time slot to create his own hosted talk show, but the subsequent 12:37 AM time slot as well, meaning that the two time slots following the late night local newscasts were now under the control of Worldwide Pants. Letterman offered the show to Garry Shandling, and NBC sportscaster Bob Costas, who was a veteran of late-night hosting, having helmed NBC's Later from 1988 to 1994; both of them declined for varying reasonsnote .
Letterman then decided to offer the show to broadcast veteran Tom Snyder, whom Letterman greatly admired, and felt he owed a favor to, as Snyder's The Tomorrow Show was cancelled by NBC when Letterman's Late Night hit the air in 1981. CBS executives, however, wanted someone younger (Snyder was already in his late 50s), and someone who had a background in comedy. Letterman - as well as co-creator and executive producer Peter Lassally - insisted on Snyder, and eventually won out in August of 1994, with The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder premiering on CBS on January 9, 1995 from Studio 58 at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, though he would do the occasional show from New York City. Snyder's Late Late followed the same format of his aforementioned Tomorrow, as well as the Costas-era Later, in the fact that it was an intimate one-on-one interview series with no studio audience, no house band, and no announcer. It was also unique among late-night talk shows as it was aired live in the Eastern and Central time zones, with the audio feed being broadcast across the country on CBS Radio, allowing listeners in the Western United States to catch the show without having to wait until the late night hours. Much like Larry King, Snyder also took calls from viewers and listeners, which was the reason for the unique TV-and-radio simulcast.
However, Snyder's Late Late heavily trailed its direct NBC counterpart, Late Night with Conan O'Brien in the ratings (though, there was absolutely no animosity between the two, as Snyder flew to New York to interview O'Brien in 1998). In 1998, CBS once again asserted that Snyder be replaced when his contract expired in September of 1999; Snyder would announce that he would leave Late Late sometime in 1999, though well before his contract ran out. Whether or not CBS wanting to replace him so eagerly drove him to leave is anyone's guess (Lassally says that CBS made the decision to replace him). Almost immediately, Worldwide Pants selected Craig Kilborn - at the time hosting Comedy Central's The Daily Show - to replace Snyder. Kilborn, however, was still under contract with Comedy Central at the time of his hiring, leading to him and CBS being sued for breach of contract, a lawsuit that was eventually settled in the summer of 1998. Snyder's last Late Late Show as host aired on March 26, 1999. In 2000, Snyder would be one of the guest hosts of The Late Show while Letterman recovered from heart surgery. Snyder's theme song was composed and performed by saxophonist David Sanborn, who played in Letterman's World's Most Dangerous Band on Late Night.
Kilborn began his run four days later, on March 30, 1999. His successor at The Daily Show, of course, was Jon Stewart, who had been one of Snyder's guest hosts (Kilborn had also interviewed Stewart on TDS multiple times). Kilborn's Late Late Show leaned into the traditional late night talk show fare, bringing in a studio audience, though still no house band, and Kilborn himself would be his own announcer, though he would have his voice modulated. His main segment was "In the News", which of course, was like The Daily Show, where he would put a humorous spin on the day's headlines; for a brief time in 2001, this segment was retitled "The World of Whimsy" in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Other segments included a Fridays-only segment called "What Up?" where Kilborn and three guests would discuss the week's news. Another segment was the recurring "Tuesdays with Buddy", where Kilborn would interview Buddy Hackett about his career. Kilborn had two different theme songs during his tenure: the first was composed and performed by Crowded House lead singer Neil Finn, and the second was done by Chris Isaak.
In August of 2004, Kilborn shocked everyone - especially his bosses - by announcing that he would not renew his contract, and step down at the end of the month, his final show airing on August 27. He would later say that the late night time slot was "too crowded" (whatever that means) for him to succeed. Executive producer Lassally, however, claimed that Kilborn left for the oldest reason of them all: money. Kilborn's ratings weren't much better than Snyder's, and some numbers were lower.
With Kilborn's departure being so sudden, CBS and Worldwide Pants had no successor to put in his place, so, they would spend the rest of the year having various celebrities guest host, using these episodes as on-air auditions. The plan was to have named a successor by October 2004, but this ended up extending into December. The auditions began on September 20 with Drew Carey, whose long-running ABC sitcom had aired its series finale just 12 days earlier. Following Carey were Jim Gaffigan, Jason Alexander, and Tom Arnold, just to name a few. After more than 20 guest hosts took to the chair, four finalists were named: then-MTV VJ Damien Fahey, and comedians Michael Ian Black, D.L. Hughley, and Craig Ferguson, Carey's Drew Carey Show co-star. Each finalist would host a week of shows, then CBS and Worldwide Pants would make their decision. Of the four, Ferguson impressed Lassally the mostnote , and so, upon his recommendation, Letterman selected the Scotsman, with the announcement of his hiring coming on December 7, 2004. With the audition process done, the show would continue to have guest hosts to close the calendar year.
Craig Ferguson began his tenure on January 3, 2005. See the respective page for more on his era. Ferguson departed the show on December 19, 2014, having announced that he would be leaving on April 28 of that year, just weeks after Letterman announced his own retirement that would take place in 2015. Ferguson's nearly ten years at the helm was the longest run of any Late Late Show host. Ferguson wrote and sang his own theme song, rearranging it late into his tenure. In 2012, the show moved from Studio 58 to Studio 56, where CBS's failed first foray into late night talk shows - The Pat Sajak Show - was taped.
In September 2014, CBS announced that Tony Award-winning English actor and comedian James Corden would succeed Ferguson beginning in March of 2015. Unless one was a Doctor Who fan, or had seen Gavin & Stacey on BBC America, Corden was a relative unknown in the U.S., his selection perhaps drawing a bigger "Who?" than Ferguson's. Even Corden himself feared that he would only last six months on the job.
In between Ferguson's departure, and Corden's debut, guest hosts were brought in to helm the show from January to March 2015, although all of the shows were taped in January in order to tear down Ferguson's set and build Corden's. Not all of the shows were taped on the LLS set. The second week of shows were special after-dark editions of CBS's daytime talk show, The Talk, and the final week of January shows was taped on the set of CBS This Morning in New York City without a studio audience, although some interviews on the two shows hosted by Whitney Cummings were taped in California, particularly her chat with Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings on the set of 2 Broke Girls, for which Cummings was a co-creator and co-executive producer. The February 20 show - hosted by Will Arnett - marked Peter Lassally's last as Late Late Show executive producer, and the end of Worldwide Pants' involvement with it, thanks to Letterman's retirement from The Late Show, which occurred on May 20, 2015. English TV producer Ben Winston's Fulwell 73 Productions would take over from Worldwide Pants as the show's main production company. The final pre-Corden episode aired on March 6, hosted by Drew Carey. Corden made two cameo appearances prior to his taking over: One on Ferguson's third-to-last show on December 17, 2014, and the January 23, 2015 episode guest hosted by Judd Apatow, where Corden acted as a job shadow, wanting to "learn from [Apatow's] mistakes."
Corden began hosting on March 23, 2015, also from Studio 56. See the respective page for more information on his iteration. His Late Late Show would be the only one with a house band, this one fronted by comedian and musician Reggie Watts. Corden relied heavily on bits that would go viral outside of the television broadcast. The most famous of these segments was "Carpool Karaoke", where Corden would drive around Los Angeles (and sometimes other cities) with famous singers, talking with them and singing their biggest hits with them as the songs played on the vehicle's sound system. In 2016, Apple began airing a series based on the segment on its Apple Music service, moving to Apple TV+ in 2022. In the series, various celebrities are paired together driving around and singing along to famous pop songs.
Corden's Late Late Show tenure drew the highest ratings in series history, and won multiple Emmy Awards, the only LLS incarnation to win Emmys. On April 28, 2022, Corden announced that he would step down from the show in 2023, citing a desire to return to London with his wife and children. In February 2023, CBS announced that Corden would not be replaced, meaning that the show would end with his last episode. A Stephen Colbert-produced revival of the 2013-2017 Comedy Central panel game show @Midnight, titled After Midnight, replaced it. It premiered on January 16, 2024, hosted by young comedian Taylor Tomlinson.
Corden's final episode - as well as the Late Late Show series finale - aired on April 27, 2023.
This is not to be confused with the long-running RTÉ show of the same name, which has been on the air since 1962, making it the second-longest running late-night talk show, behind The Tonight Show.
Specific series who have their respective pages:
Tropes associated with The Late Late Show include:
- Broadcast Live: In Eastern and Central time zones; also simulcast on CBS radio so listeners could call in.
- Catchphrase: "...so fire up the colortinis and watch the pictures as they fly through the air." When the show was simulcast on CBS Radio, "colortinis" was replaced by "simultinis".
- Grand Finale: Other than a montage of clips at the end of the show, Snyder's final go as host on March 26, 1999, was an otherwise normal episode, as he interviewed Dennis Miller. For the only time in Snyder's tenure as host, he was introduced by an offscreen announcer, stage manager Mark Kennedy, who had been introducing him - without a microphone - for many shows before finally getting to do it for the television audience.
- Guest Host: On occasions when Snyder was ill, Jon Stewart and Martin Mull filled in.
- Instrumental Theme Tune: A saxophone piece by David Sanborn
really captures the feel of a city at night. - Motor Mouth: Snyder had mellowed a bit from his Tomorrow days but still tended to be extremely chatty.
- Rearrange the Song: While the basic tune remained the same, the show used three different versions of the theme tune in the first year:
- When the show started, a slower saxophone piece was used.
- By March 1995, this gave way to a faster tune that finally was replaced by the theme that was used for the rest of the run by December of that year.
- When the show started, a slower saxophone piece
-
Spiritual Successor: To Snyder's old Tomorrow Show on NBC, which was replaced by David Letterman's Late Night when a disastrous format change killed it. - Studio Audience: None, as that had been one of the changes NBC made to Tomorrow that led to its demise, so Snyder completely avoided it here. The guffaws you heard when Tom recounted his day (where the monologue would go in a more traditional show) were from the crew.
- Unbuilt Trope: Snyder's freewheeling, casual style of interviewing and eclectic range of guests makes his various shows, including this one, feel like Podcast ancestors.
- Variations on a Theme Song: The show used an even more upbeat version of the theme for at least the second anniversary week in 1997.
- Grand Finale: Kilborn's final episode as host on August 27, 2004, featured surprise in-studio appearances from "friends of the show" Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, and a surprise appearance from Wayne Newton from the storefront of the CBS Television City gift shop in Las Vegas (which is still in business as of 2024). Scheduled in-studio guests (although they were on very briefly towards the end of the show) were Jimmy Jam and Adam West. Farewell video messages came from NBA star Kevin Garnett, then playing for Kilborn's beloved Minnesota Timberwolves, supermodel Petra Němcová (who said that Craig discovered her), and Dennis Farina. Clips of the show's 1999 launch promo campaign, where Kilborn sang rewritten versions of "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, were shown (including one to start the broadcast), as well as a brief clip of a visit to legendary producer and actor Robert Evans's house earlier that day. Upon entering the studio for the final time at the start of the show, Craig saved a choking audience member with the Heimlich manuver, caught a black kitten that jumped from one of his bookshelves, and used his Healing Hands to help a man in a wheelchair walk again (obviously, the choking man and man in a wheelchair were actors; Craig actually caught the kitten, then tossed a stuffed version of it aside). The show closed with Kilborn having a Dance Party Ending to Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster" with the two aforementioned men he "saved", plus some others, as he spun around until suddenly, he was all alone in the studio. He exited one last time, but not before giving the audience a farewell wink, followed by a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue (see below) that immediately preceded the Worldwide Pants Vanity Plate.
- Guest Host: After Kilborn left, several people rotated as guest hostsnote . The guests were whittled down to four finalists — D. L. Hughley, Damien Fahey, Michael Ian Black, and of course, Craig Ferguson — who hosted one week each.
- Mythology Gag: Kilborn also had the segments "5 Questions" and "A Moment For Us", which he had originated on The Daily Show. He brought his "5 Questions" segment to his short-lived weeknight show, The Kilborn File.
- Running Gag: Dick Vermeil's teary Super Bowl victory speech, the PG&E rapping grandmother.
- Title Theme Tune: "The Late Late Show is starting. The Late Late Show is starting now...with Mr. Kilborn." Sung by Chris Isaak, no less.
- Unperson: During his final show, Kilborn sends a cameraman out into the hallway near the studio, where we find a painter using a roller to paint over Kilborn's name on the show's logo on the wall.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The epilogue that ended Kilborn's final show said he "immersed himself in charitable works, the arts and botany," but that his "true passion" was drinking in the afternoon, "around 2-ish," which was also the same time he would be "laughing a man's laugh." This was complete with black-and-white footage of Craig sitting in a leather chair, wearing a silk robe, and doing various thinking poses.
- Actor Allusion: In the one episode she guest-hosted, Aisha Tyler did a brief pre-recorded sketch on the set of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation with series star William Petersen (they were playing themselves). Tyler played the recurring character of Mia Dickerson on CSI in its fifth season, which had just premiered a couple of weeks before her guest host shot. Just before the sketch was shown, she referenced her role as Charlie on Friends, even showing a photo of herself on the set filming a scene.
- Affectionate Parody: In his one episode as guest host, Jason Alexander and Stephen Collins nearly reenacted line-for-line the scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture where Captain James T. Kirk usurps command of the starship Enterprise from Collins's character in the film, Captain Willard Decker, with Alexander playing the Kirk role, complete with a black toupée and imitating William Shatner's unique manner of speaking. Collins recites all of Decker's lines word-for-word, while the Alexander!Kirk eventually deviates from Kirk's lines, instead answering Decker's question of "May I ask why?" with, "Because you Klingon bastard, you killed my son!", then quoting the opening lines of The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (which Shatner, of course, made a recording of, where he dramatically read the lyrics instead of singing the song), randomly saying the name of his The Practice/Boston Legal character Denny Crane (the latter series, a spinoff of the former, had just premiered weeks earlier), causing Collins to improvise briefly, before closing the sketch with the famous "KHAN!" cry from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in response to Decker's accusation of finding a way to take back a Starship Command.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: In the one episode he hosted, Tom Caltabiano's first guest was Ray Romano. The two are longtime friends, and, in fact, the week that Caltabiano hosted, a documentary he directed, 95 Miles to Go, showcasing the travel between stops he and Romano were making during a standup tour of the southern United States, had its world premiere at the Deep Ellum Film Festival in Dallas. (Caltabiano's turn as host took place on October 18; the film festival went from October 14-21.)
- Non-Human Sidekick: During one of the shows he hosted during his finalist week, Craig Ferguson pitched a potato sitting in a doll's armchair as a potential sidekick, leaving it up to the audience to decide whether or not the potato should stay using the phones and internet (this was obviously a bit, as Craig concluded by saying that if the audience rejected the potato, "It's French fries for everyone, I'm afraid.").
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: During the same bit with the potato sidekick, a video called "The Art of Bailing" was shown. It was full of Non Sequiturs, beginning with the practice of hay baling, saying that it wasn't to be confused with the actress Bai Ling, before going on to talk about Richard Nixon's resignation from the presidency; Larry King's many marriages; mentioning basketball great Elgin Baylor and Baylor University, before bringing up Ashlee Simpson's then-recent infamous Saturday Night Live lip-syncing incident, then concluding with this from the announcer voicing the bit:The act of giving up on something before seeing it out has become an important part of— oh, forget this crap! I'm out of here!
- Signing Off Catchphrase: Damien Fahey imported his Total Request Live sign-off, "Thanks for watchin'. Thanks for carin." to the shows he fronted.
- Unperson: The show retained the Late Late Show logo in the same typeface as it was during Kilborn's run, with his name merely removed. This trope was subverted during the aforementioned Aisha Tyler/William Petersen sketch. Tyler asks Petersen if she should take up CBS's offer to guest host the show, prompting Petersen to respond that, "Craig Kilborn doesn't even watch The Late Late Show anymore."
- Chris Isaak's instrumental theme continued to be used, with the part with the lyrics going unused.
- Unperson: As was the case during the period bridging Kilborn and Ferguson, the show's logo from Ferguson's final years was retained, with his name removed.
