Yahoo News Late-Night Stars Take To The Stand-Up Circuit & Podcast Studios Amid Strikes
What are all of the late-night stars up to right now?
As The Late Show, The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night and The Daily Show were the first shows to be hit by the writers strike back in May, the hosts of those shows have not had the opportunity to give their hot takes on television in over three months – although the majority of them have all been regularly seen on picket lines across New York and LA.
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Admittedly, the strike has largely been over the summer, when many of them would have been on hiatus, but it’s still interesting to see what they’ve been doing since having their desks taken away.
“I hate being off,” Seth Meyers told Deadline in April. “My vacation is doing the show. It is more fun than the beach. It is more fun than skiing. I’m done early enough to see my kids at night so it’s not this thing that like takes me away from my family, so there’s no upside to not doing the show. I wish we did more weeks as it is now.”
Talking of vacations, Meyers has launched a podcast about them with him brother, Josh Meyers.
The duo launched Family Trips with the Meyer Brothers in May with guests including Colin Jost, Tom Holland, Amy Schumer, Pete Davidson, Amy Poehler and Timothy Olyphant.
One of his guests was his late-night peer John Oliver, who was a regular guest on NBC’s Late Night. Oliver, whose HBO show Last Week Tonight is also off air, told Meyers how angry he got when a member of the public mentioned his extra time off.
“I was on an elevator and someone was getting off the elevator and said, ‘It must be nice to get extra vacation time’ and I was so angry I went after them and my wife pulled me back. [I said] ‘Actually not, it’s very difficult, there’s a lot of things to worry about right now’,” he added.
The British comedian has also spent a large part of the time on tour, performing standup in cities such as Durham, Nashville (at the Grand Ole Opry House), Denver, Phoenix and Atlanta.
He is also teaming up with Meyers on a double header in New York later this month. The pair play the Beacon Theater on August 17 before Oliver does more shows in Boston and Austin.
Meyers has also been through Atlanta and Denver, as well as El Cajon, CA, Ridgefield, CT and Amsterdam in Holland.
Jon Stewart, former host of The Daily Show who now fronts The Problem with Jon Stewart, re-entered the late-night Emmy race, vying for a gong in January against Meyers, Kimmel and Colbert as well as Stewart’s Daily Show replacement Trevor Noah, who himself left the talker last year (although not Oliver, who is now up against SNL and A Black Lady Sketch Show in a scripted variety category).
Ahead of more episodes of his Apple TV+ series, Stewart is also taking to the road, joined by former SNL stars Pete Davidson and John Mulaney. The trio are taking Jon, John & Pete to Springfield, MA, Bethlehem, PA and Atlantic City in September.
Colbert has also been making appearances. The Late Show host teamed up with comedian and Full Circle star Jim Gaffigan for An Evening with Stephen Colbert and Jim Gaffigan in June at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Saturday night, where Colbert joked he was telling jokes into a hairbrush at home as a result of the strikes.
Kimmel, while going viral for a dinner party at his lodge in Idaho, has also been at the stand-up comedy coal face. He hosted a benefit for Project ALS at his comedy club in Las Vegas, a show that also featured Sarah Silverman, Nick Kroll and Patton Oswalt.
When these hosts will be able to grace their own stages is obviously unknown, but once the writers strike, at least, is over, with talks between the WGA and AMPTP taking place later today, expect them to be back up and running relatively quickly.
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