Former New York Times television columnist, bestselling author, CNN and LateNighter pundit and my friend Bill Carter joins me for a wide open discussion about the White House attack on late night talk show hosts. We start by celebrating Jimmy Kimmel for going Brooklyn-rogue and standing up to bullies Donald Trump and his FCC chairman Brendan
Just yesterday, I was watching one of my 16mm film prints of CBS sports reels used to promote seasonal programming back in the ’60s and ’70s. Some early ones featured OJ Simpson back when he was a star running back, first in college at USC and later as a member of the Buffalo Bills. Simpson
Talk about Double Jeopardy! I have to agree with my friend Bill Carter, the former New York Times TV critic, who tweeted that this week’s Jeopardy hosting announcement from Sony Pictures Television was “A guidebook for how to mess up succeeding a legend.” It wasn’t that, on Wednesday, Mayim Bialik and Mike Richards were officially
The situation with situation comedies today is no laughing matter. When the news shows for fall were announced this spring, there were few comedies on the list – and one was a reboot of The Wonder Years. The best new comedies that are made today, many for streaming services, could compete for awards as dramas,
The headline on John Doyle’s TV column Monday in The Globe and Mail said it all: “American late-night is reinvigorated. In Canada, we’ve got nothing.” Sad but true. Doyle points out that the gloves are so far off in American late night circles when it comes to political commentary you can see the bare knuckles.
If you’re a late night talk show fan, you’re not going to want to miss a second of The Story of Late Night. The six-part docuseries premieres Sunday night on CNN. As executive producer of the series, author and former New York Times TV columnist Bill Carter takes a deep dive into the genre, one
On Sunday, CNN premieres The Story of Late Night, a six-part docuseries examining the nearly 70-year history of television’s post-primetime talk shows. The series was produced by Toronto-based Cream Productions. To set it all up, listen to my conversation with Bill Carter (above), the long-time New York Times columnist and bestselling “Late Shift” author who
It’s a sad fact: many hours of TV history have been lost in order to make room on shelves for large, bulky videotapes. Among the most tragic examples are the first nine or ten seasons of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. The years in question are 1962 to roughly ’71, the New York years