New kings of late night talk

With old fogeys like David Letterman and Jay Leno prosperously retired and going to send off-cam after decades on the tube, a new generation of TV talk show hosts has taken over the “late-late” telecasting slot. How are they faring in comparison to the iconic “old geezers” they replaced?

“Saturday Night Live” alumnus Seth Myers makes his “Late Night” show a hearty hoot, but is sometimes faulted for taking too long getting celeb interviews on the program going.

Since he comes from the musical-theater world, James Corden’s “Late, Late Show” has a puckish penchant for satirical song-and-dance numbers that most of the competition can’t swing.

But his best suit is his occasional “out-of-studio and on-the-road” sing-along “Carpool  Karaoke” trip with big stars who don’t mind making slap-happy idiots of themselves to “prove” that they can’t carry a tune—but, can definitely scream it at the top of their constricted lungs!

If liberal political satire makes your viewing day, “Real Time with Bill Maher” could be your guilty TV pleasure.

Trouble is, the host is so hung up on his hyper “hates” that some of his guests are shell-shocked—and can’t get a word in edgewise!

“Watch What Happens Live” is a bracing breeze to view, because its host, Andy Cohen, is obviously having such a great time on it—that it’s catching!

Old-timer

A realistic old-timer, Conan O’Brien on “Conan” still hasn’t lost his surreal, madcap edge, as well as his “demented” yet childlike view of comedy and life—

which to him are one and the same thing!

As for “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” it’s the most safely “mainstream” late-late show currently on-air—except  when it’s occasionally being as dangerously crazy as all heck.

A particularly bizarre example of Fallon’s penchant for “ridiculous” risk-taking is the classic “moment” when he stopped the show by doing a series of “dual cartwheels” with a female guest star—who, like him, should have known better!

If Fallon is the well-connected gonzo, the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” is the talk TV scene’s “B-grade” country bumpkin.

Kimmel is cheerfully pedestrian and macadam, but that’s how the show is similarly unposh fans love him—so, who’s complaining?

As for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the deadpan host cut his teeth on snide and above-it-all political satire before he went full-throat and full throttle into talk-show hosting.

The best of the lot? We watch any and all, but we find ourself more regularly gravitating toward Fallon and Colbert’s shows.

That sounds quirkily contradictory—but that’s par for the highly subjective late-late televiewing scene!