Assemble the Strike Force Five!
Monday night’s episode of Late Show I watched Voltron late night reunite with host Stephen Colbert Tonight showjimmy fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live!jimmy kimmel, Late nightSeth Meyers and Last week tonightJohn Oliver.
Colbert introduced his “four best friends on TV,” and welcomed his late-night rivals/peers/friends/contemporaries/well-wishers with a group hug. The quintet recalls the last time they spent time together, on Colbert’s birthday two years ago. Colbert noted that the five of them together were “dangerous” and that is to say Daily showJon Stewart is now “Designated Survivor.”
While the hosts joked — Kimmel quipped that he understood why Colbert’s show lost “$40 million” because there were “too many people in the band” — they settled into an interesting existential discussion about late night.
“Late night is a bit of a weird place,” Colbert said, noting that while he was navigating his conflicts with CBS over CBS. Late showhe was constantly being asked to “fend for himself late at night” to continue to exist. At the opening of the discussion, he asked his peers to “raise the issue late at night.”
“Look at the numbers, the fact of the matter is that more people are watching late-night TV now,” Kimmel said, noting that people are watching in different ways now and not just streaming, including YouTube. “People have so many different choices, and yet they still come to us.”
“When I went offline for a few days, people canceled Disney+,” Kimmel added. He then pointed to Colbert’s audience and jokingly asked, “Why don’t you cancel Paramount+? Because you never had it in the first place?”
Feigning concern, Oliver, the future Paramount employee, interrupted: “Jimmy, even [Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery] Deal done, if I could just make a counter: Paramount+ might have some good programming…unless it gets done, in which case it could screw itself up now and forever.
“Why do you have to defend so late at night? Why does this question even have to be asked?” Kimmel asked Colbert. “Like Ryan Seacrest doesn’t get asked [about] Wheel of fortune Or whatever the hell he’s hosting.
“I’d really like to hear Ryan Seaquist defend,” Oliver replied Wheel of fortune…Like someone next to me says “drive.” Wheel of fortune“The right to exist” and I would lean forward waiting for what he had to say.
“Late night is one of those things that has been there in our whole lives, where it’s just a part of our lives,” Fallon said. “I never thought of it as a job when I was growing up. I just thought Johnny Carson came with the TV. People want to go to sleep, have a good laugh, and go to bed happy.”
Colbert then asked: “Did it ever occur to you guys, when you were younger, especially when you were starting out in comedy, that you would be doing a job that the President of the United States might have strong feelings about?”
“You know what’s even weirder, we’re doing a job where he has strong feelings for his wife,” Kimmel joked, referring to Melania Trump’s recent attempts to fire him.
“Most of us have avoided that part,” Myers joked.
The interview ended with a game, where the five hosts revealed who was most likely not to watch a guest’s movie, most likely to go out with a guest, most likely to cry, and who had the highest rating on Wikifeet. For reference, Colbert had the best feet and even dropped a sock, exposing his toe.
Also on Late showthe comedy quintet revealed that they will reunite for a special emergency episode of Fifth Strike Force In honor of the series finale The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen, the non-profit organization that provides meals in response to humanitarian, climate and societal crises around the world.
the Fifth Strike Force The podcast came into existence during the dueling Hollywood strikes of 2023. The five late-night comedians came together for a limited 12-episode show on Spotify to raise money for their unemployed employees. The podcast, which featured candid conversations between the five, was a huge success.
A brand new video episode of Fifth Strike Force It will be available May 13 on Spotify, on the YouTube podcast channel, and wherever you get podcasts.
