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| Carson Daly seems surprised, so are we! |
Looks like Alec Baldwin is in talks with NBC to take over Carson Daly's Last Call gig.
In defense of Alec Baldwin for "Last Call" host, his "Here's The Thing" podcast really good podcast online...I mean really good (his interview with David Letterman, was one of the most insightful glimpses in the late night hosts life, since Howard Stern interviewed him a year ago) and while Carson Daly does not even come close to having the charisma of the former "30 Rock" star, Carson Day's "Last Call" is still one of best shows underrated programs on TV.
But it wasn't always that way.
The early version of the show was horrible as Daly followed the whole late night blueprint created by Steve Allen and perfected by Johnny Carson. The only difference was Daly looked stiff behind the desk, he told lame jokes and show's writing was horrible.
At that point, I wouldn't have blamed NBC if they replaced him as host with Paula Deen ya'll!
But a thing funny happened before the axe fell, Carson totally revamped the show.
"The Voice" host got rid of the studio and pre-shot "Last Call" on the road, where he interviewed guests in interesting places around and outside of Los Angeles.
He used 5D and 7D Cannon cameras to give the show a richer cinematic texture (plus those Cannons are cheaper than studio cameras) and his directors and producers employed interesting camera angles, coloring and effects to give the show a visual hipness that most late night shows lacked.
More importantly, he and his crew interviewed interesting actors, rappers and musicians that sometimes didn't get much airtime as well as introducing new artists, filmmakers and bands that you would never been seen on the other shows because they were not "ratings worthy", which is simply a better word for unknown. (In fact, quite a few of my posts here has either been me talking about these "unknowns" I saw on Last Call).
The revived "Last Call with Carson Daly" in essence played to Carson Daly's previous MTV/TRL strengths of focusing on the talent and not himself, (the only difference being that the interviews had more grit ,and there were not a bunch of kids screaming).
If Alec Baldwin does takes over the "Last Call" gig, he will no doubt follow the one on one model of the original "Last Call" host Bob Costas". Which was great back in the day, but I wish NBC would at least attention to the new model that Daly cultivated because whatever young demographic that is watching "Last Call" now, will probably go away if Baldwin is named new host.
In actuality, Alec Baldwin's own coolness and quick wit is probably be a better fit age-wise for the "Tonight Show", but NBC already jacked that gig from Jay Leno and gave it to Jimmy Fallon.
Since the Tonight Show is out of the question, I would rather see Alec Baldwin takeover Fallon's "Late Night" spot, but it seems like Seth Meyers might takeover the spot, (I don't agree with Donald Trump much, but I don't think Meyers is all that funny. Doing "Weekend Updates" on SNL is one thing, but a whole show with Seth? Ehhh...)
Another piece of this puzzle is that once again there are no minorities even considered for any of these late night gigs. If Chis Rock can find W. Kamau Bell in San Francisco to host a show on FX, I'm sure there are quite a few brothas across the country could host one of these shows.
(However, this leads to a whole discussion about the lack of opportunities in front of , behind the camera as well as who's calling the shots at the top and that's another discussion for another day).
As this late night merry go round goes goes round and round, the one person who probably is enjoying all of this is David Letterman.
He's still number two behind Jay Leno, yet CBS CEO Les Moonves said Letterman can basically can leave whenever he wants.
Now that's a late night gig most these guys on NBC should really be fighting for.
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