It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O'Brien to host the Tonight show-a job he had been promised five years earlier-skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. SynopsisĪ dramatic account of the politics and personalities behind NBC's calamitous attempt to reinvent late-night television. With an insiders expertise and a laugh-out-loud voice on every page, Macks explains how late-night TV redefines the news and events of any given day, reshapes public opinion, and even creates our national zeitgeist. Kristen Stewart and John Edwards), Macks covers the landscape of late-night comedy and punctuates the narrative with hysterical personal anecdotes and draws from more than half a million of his own jokes written over the span of twenty years.

worst guests (think Billy Crystal and Martin Short vs. Jon Macks, a veteran writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, takes us behind the scenes of the late-night world for an in-depth, colorful look at what really makes these hosts the arbiters of public opinion.įrom the opening monologuewhats funny, whats dangerous, whats untouchableto the best vs. Today, we have more than six popular late-night shows that air every night of the week, and with the recent major shake-ups in the industryJimmy Fallon taking over Jay Lenos desk at The Tonight Show, Stephen Colbert replacing David Letterman on The Late Show, John Oliver creating a whole new format at HBOlate-night television has never been more relevant to our public consciousness. comedy time slot on network television has remained an indelible part of our national culture. Ever since Johnny Carson first popularized the late night talk show in 1962 with The Tonight Show, the 11 p.m.

The War for Late Night by Bill Carter