I know there are talk and variety shows the world over (‘Sábado Gigante’ type ones), but do any other countries have Carson/Letterman/Leno type nightly show. If those names mean little to you, do you have a show that:
Starts with a ‘monologue’ (about ten minutes of ‘topical’ humor, usually jokes about current politics, celebrities, and the local traffic).
The host moves to the desk and banters with his portly sidekick/flamboyant bandleader for a minute.
The host then does a comedy bit from the desk or hosts a skit for another 10 minutes.
There is a very famous first guest, who sips from a mug, says a funny anectdote, and plugs their new film/CD/series/book for ten minutes.
If the person is really famous, they may leave right afterwards to ‘catch a plane’.
An ‘up and coming performer’ is next for the next few minutes.
Sometimes a “regular” person who does something odd, or a really old person (centegenarian old) is interviewed instead. The first guest (if still there) just sits around uselessly and chuckles, except Robin Williams or Jim Carrey.
A stand-up comedian may do a bit in the second segment. If he is any good, he’ll get ‘called over’.
Finally there is a musical act, if the musical act is ‘legendary’, he or she will also be the first guest. If not, they will just shake hands with the hosts and guests and say a word or two.
As far as I know, this format seems unique to America, but I may be wrong. Is there an Australian Jay Leno, or a Japanese David Letterman?
There’s been various attempts over the years (mostly at weekly shows), but there’s no nightly Australian show that matches the US’s “Tonight Show”.
The closest substitute would be “Rove (Live)”, which is on once a week. It follows the “monologue-guest-regular acts-closing musical act” format. The show doesn’t have its own band on set, however.
I remember about ten years ago on a trip to Oz seeing some late night talk show where the guy was blatantly ripping off Letterman’s schtick. I forget his name, tho’.
There are a number of daytime shows in Japan that follow the same format, but no nighttime ones that I know of.
There was, however, “Tonight 2” which ran from 1982 until just last year. It was set up as a semi-news/entertainment program kind of like 20-20, except that they frequently covered topics such as strip clubs, sex shops, brothels, hentai manga, etc., in between their spots on new restaurants and vacation spots. While most American shows try to act shocked and upset, this one treated the topics as much more positive. I remember one time when one interviewer asked a worker at a sex club to demonstrate a typical “course”, and she promptly stripped off her top, handed him a vibrator, spread her legs and told him to get to get work. As he was going at her, the female announcer continued the interview. They didn’t actually show the male announcer getting a hummer, but they show the interviewee’s head bobbing up and down in his lap (as the female announcer continued talking with them).
I’ve read that there’s a German ripoff of “Late Night With David Letterman,” with a host that looks and acts just like a somewhat younger D.L. The set design was said to be strikingly similar, as well.
And isn’t “The Tonight Show” (the actual American one, with Jay Leno) broadcast in Ireland?
A couple have popped up in India. One comes to mind, it follows the same format as Leno and Letterman and the sets are pretty much identical as well. The host is a really funny Indian comedian, I think his name is ‘Shekhar Suman’ and he’s great at impersonations. All the bollywood stars come onto his shows - but I’m not sure of the musical bit at the end thoguh, and I’m not sure whether the show is still running.
Sadly, Japanese TV has been getting steadily more conservative. When I first arrived in 1995, one could find bare breasts or simulated sex acts during an evening of broadcast TV maybe 5 days out of the week. Now the prime-time landscape is a barren, nippleless wasteland of prudery. Thank the Dao for satellite TV.
Oh, and I doubt that she was actually blowing him. Knowing how long the camera crews take to set up and how many takes they do of the same scene, the poor girl would have had lockjaw by the time they finished.
I’m not entirely sure, due to my intense dislike of everything Graham Norton has done that wasn’t his small role in Father Ted. However, the UK has had a number of attempts to have a “Tonight Show” style of show.
The most obvious was the “Steve Wright Show” (I think it was called) that was on BBC1. I don’t think it was nightly but instead was weekly on (IIRC) Saturdays. However, it was almost a complete copy of the format, even down to gimicky things like “Celeb in the audience” (which I am sure I used to see Letterman doing).
Another attempt was “The Jack Docherty” that went out nightly on Channel 5 when the channel was first launched. It, again, copied the format but it was always limited by a much lower budget. On this site you can see pictures of Kiss on Jack’s show, which illustrates how close in design the set was to the Tonight show model.
Well, we used to have a couple of shows, most of them bombed, though.
Pretty much the only one left is the “Harald Schmidt Show”. AFAIK the show features no nudity, but if you click on that link the sponsor’s ad features a scantily clad woman
The show is rather similar to DL, as Harald Schmidt is the “Letterman type” somehow. (They even make fun of it and have viewer mail brought in by the “Letterman”.)
They also have “Stupid Pet Tricks” and skits like that which usually are pretty funny and take up most of the time.
When he has guests they mostly suck, because either they are no-name German actors/starlets nobody cares about or they are English-speaking stars that don’t care about being there and translating the conversation renders it awkward and forced.
We’ve got the longest running one in the world in Ireland. The Late Late Show.
It used to be huge. Over a quarter of the country would look at if every Friday and a power station had to be at the ready to deal with all the kettles going on during the advertisments. The show covers very serious political and social subjects and also the normal music and celeb interviews. Sometimes it can be the most boring thing on the box but other times it can be the best thing on all week.
On UK TV there have been various nightly chat shows - Jonathan Ross (think that was nightly), Johnny Vaughan, Graham Norton, and some on channels that I don’t get over in Ireland. I think Norton’s show’s eclectic enough just about to be able to sustain the format, but Vaughan’s got tiresome very quickly. People tend to get a bit annoyed with them after a while: I get the feeling people prefer them weekly (Parkinson and so on).
Four or five years ago they tried something like that in Mexico. I forget the name, but it was a very typical Tonight Show format with the host coming out from behind the curtain, the bandleader mugging for the camera, a brief joke-oriented monologue, and then a semicasual interview format.
It sucked, and was pulled off the air after a handful of installments. The host was TV Azteca hack Jaime Camil, who has since reincarnated as an indistinguishable pop singer.
