As is fitting the week before the Super Bowl, the spon-con this week in late night was insane. There were three different YouTube videos starring Katseye on The Tonight Show. Did you know their State Farm spot will be in the first commercial break of the game? I do, because they talked about it with Jimmy Fallon and Jake from State Farm on The Tonight Show. I’ll say this: When the highest-rated late-night show gets canceled for allegedly not being profitable, we should probably chill and accept these moments of brand integration with grace and understanding.
But! That’s not even getting into the weird li’l side hustles we saw on late night this week: Amber Ruffin promoting her new play, as well as Guillermo giving Kate Hudson some of his branded salsa. And I’m not sure what exactly Fallon has going with Sardi’s, but this week they re-created a booth from the restaurant on The Tonight Show for Ethan Hawke — complete with original caricatures and custom plateware. It’s the second time in recent memory that Fallon has collaborated with the Broadway institution (previously doing the rollout for Billy Crudup’s portrait on The Tonight Show). Maybe it’s not financially motivated, and he just loves the Great White Way. But it’s noticeable. Here’s what else caught our attention this week in late night.
Jimmy Kimmel interviewed All Her Fault child star/Thom Browne fashionista Duke McCloud on Tuesday night, and it was the perfect child interview. The kid is media trained, for starters. Kimmel tried to get him to curse on TV, repeatedly, and he resisted. Good for him! But McCloud was just normal enough to keep you from being concerned about the perils of child stardom. The way he whispered when he said things he thought he shouldn’t was adorable. Babe, that’s not how microphones work, but I get the impulse.
Jon Stewart searched his own name in the Epstein-files database, something he was certain we all did when the files dropped over the weekend. But unlike the rest of us (right???), Stewart was in there. He talked about it Monday night on The Daily Show. Epstein floated a Woody Allen stand-up special on Apple TV or Amazon, and TV producer Barry Josephson suggested a biopic about Allen narrated by “somebody like Jon Stewart.” Stewart was outraged … that they were looking for a Jon Stewart type rather than just making him the offer. It was super novel seeing someone who’s in the files address it. Also good to see? Stewart’s anger that all the people mentioned (for sex crimes and not V/O auditions) will probably see no consequences. Nobody does aggrieved on late night like Jon Stewart. It’s why he’d be such a good Woody biopic narrator.
Summer House’s Amanda Batula was so free and breezy on WWHL Tuesday night. She was up front about her split from Kyle Cooke, and fellow guest Ciara Miller was equally honest about how happy Batula’s single life makes everyone. The good vibes were infectious. It’s the energy WWHL is always going for but doesn’t always achieve. She and Miller thanked Prozac for the evenness of their keels, and Eli Lilly should look into giving them some sort of brand deal. It was a perfect ad.
Ian McKellen was not the only Late Show guest to address the current ICE crackdowns and growing resistance to them (shout-out to Mark Ruffalo’s ICE OUT pin), but he was the only one who got Shakespearian with it. At the end of his extended interview with Stephen Colbert, McKellen recited a monologue Shakespeare wrote for Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle’s play Sir Thomas More. The speech is about the humanity of immigrants and the inhumanity of trying to turn them away. It was stunning work.
If Seth Meyers has spoken to you more than once, then he’s going to introduce you on Late Night as “my friend.” It’s very charming and helps endear himself to the guest and the guest to the parasocially involved audience. But Meyers does put his money where his mouth is, because he lets his friends get away with murder on his show. Or if not murder, birth to a vegan ham. It started Monday, with Paula Pell doing an extended bit where she pretended to be pregnant and give birth onstage, only for it to have been a ham she shoplifted last Xmas. On Tuesday, Amber Ruffin tried to bully Meyers into releasing his nudes. Then on Wednesday, James Acaster did an extended bit about Seth Meyers jacking off a dog for a live episode of Taskmaster. And on Thursday, John Early whispered his appearance because he was “on vocal rest.” Meyers ran the table by letting his guests’ freak flags fly. Sorry, not guests — friends.