Pisaries Creator

If you want to learn the origin of late night, the evolution of late-night programming, and the current state of late-night programming, this documentary series covers all of the subjects and more. From Mary Kay Stearns and Steve Allen, Ernie Kovacs and Jack Parr, and bunch of hosts until Johnny Carson aired in October 1962 and Dick Cavett as well. This brings Late Night to the early 1990s where Carson dominated for decades and due to the rivalry, he never let Joan Rivers have her due. The Tonight Show reins would either be given to Jay Leno or David Letterman. The late-night war of supremacy began, and the outcome led to the rise of other late-night hosts coming out of the woodwork later. Arsenio Hall paved the way for minority hosts in the 2000s such as George Lopez, Trevor Noah, Amber Ruffin, Desus + Mero, and the short-lived Whoopi Goldberg, Wanda Sykes, and Mo’Nique as hosts.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert started a new style of late night, and of course, one of my favorite late-night hosts, Conan O’Brien. Chelsea Handler and Samantha Bee came out of the woodwork and proved to be more successful than past female late-night hosts. Then came 2014 where Leno reinforced his terrible personality for many of his non-followers and Letterman (one of the greats) willingly passing the torch to Stephen Colbert. Trevor Noah replaced Jon Stewart and then left to be replaced by Jon Stewart. Jimmy Fallon took the reins from Leno and James Corden came and went, Seth Meyers and Bill Maher are still here, Stephen Colbert unfortunately is on his way out, and the future of late-night remains to be seen. Since the TV is no longer the only place to spread news and information in a comedic way for a while, evolution will continue with late-night programming as it did in the beginning. There are six episodes that are around 35 minutes in length.

I rate The Story of Late Night FOUR FINGERS and ONE THUMB at 100%.