The Colbert Report and Craig Ferguson’s run at The Late Late Show come to their end this week. The final episodes air Thurs. and Fri. on Comedy Central and CBS at 11:30PM and 12:35AM respectively.
Whether you’ll be able to feel it or not, this is the end of an era in late night televised comedy. Colbert’s shift from cable to network is big, going from a very successful, but very atypical late night show in The Colbert Report to the most traditional one at The Late Show, though many of us believe Colbert will be able to update it for his current fan base.
Craig Ferguson claims that he’ll go walk the earth and solve crimes with his robot skeleton sidekick Geoff Peterson after he leaves his show. However, we think that it’s only a few months to a year off before Ferguson is back hosting a show. Again, for our money, he’s one of the best interviewers in late night history. That’s why it’s particularly painful to see that CBS uploaded very few, short, out-of-context clips of his show on his YouTube channel. Ferguson could easily get in on the same demographics as late night Internet kings like Fallon, Kimmel, and Conan, but alas, you would have to watch a whole episode at CBS.com just to watch a whole interview or a clip of stand-up, which is something very few people, especially in key demos, want to do.
No matter how you feel about it, both shows have always been worth tuning in for and you definitely should tune in for their swan songs this week.
What might be most fascinating is that the final guests of The Late Late Show and The Colbert Report will be Jay Leno and The Grim Reaper AKA Grimmy, respectively. Somehow, that’s a very fitting contrast between old and new late night.