Joe Musich writes to ask for my thoughts and speculation on "…the look of the CBS Colbert show? What will happen to Worldwide Pants the entity? Will Worldwide have a bearing on the CBS Colbert show? Will Dave switch roles and pick up a political talk show at Comedy Central? He might be good at that. And what will become of Paul, Felicia, and the band?"
Well, what happens with Dave's production company Worldwide Pants will depend on what Dave decides he wants to do with the rest of his life. No one around him seems to think he's interested in another TV show of any kind but who knows? The man will be 68 next year when he hands Late Show off to Stephen Colbert.
That's about the age Johnny Carson was when he stepped down from The Tonight Show and pretty much disappeared from television. But that was not Carson's intention at the time he retired from that program. From all reports, he had nothing particular in mind he wanted to do in the entertainment field but figured something would present itself…and nothing did. Johnny made a few deals to develop specials but never followed through on them. (I was peripherally involved in one project where he was considering — or at least said he was considering — a producer role on a proposed revival of his old game show, Who Do You Trust. He decided against that as he decided against just about everything else he was offered.)
Will Dave go that route? Beats me. At this point, it may beat Dave, as well. But if he does find something he wants to do, Worldwide Pants may be the production entity. And I would imagine he will keep the company alive to manage its various assets. Carson Productions still exists to sell material from all those Tonight Shows and Dave owns a couple of decades of Late Shows and some other programming W.P. produced. I doubt though it will be involved in the new Late Show unless Worldwide Pants owns that title, in which case it might be a silent profit participant.
The idea probably will be for Colbert to do a show that will neither look nor feel like Letterman's. He'll have a new set, a new band, a new theme, a new announcer, etc. They may or may not do it from The Ed Sullivan Theater. (We may get a hint about that when Colbert visits Dave's show next Tuesday.) One factor to consider is that CBS will probably want Dave to do his last broadcast on a Friday then have Stephen debut the following Monday. It may not be possible to bring in a whole new set and do all necessary renovations to that theater over a weekend. On the other hand, it is a great facility and CBS will want to put something in there…
So I would expect Paul and Felicia and Alan Kalter and others to just go elsewhere. I can sure see someone pouncing on Paul Shaffer to head up a new show somewhere…maybe a hip music program.
And as I was writing that reply, I got this question from Jeff Madeira…
So what do you think will become of Craig Ferguson? Are his late night days numbered? Who might they get to replace him?
Given that CBS has not moved to quash rumors that Ferguson will be departing, I would imagine that replacing him is at least on the table over there. That would be a shame because I think he's enormously entertaining and clever…though I imagine he'd have little trouble finding other venues in which to be entertaining and clever. He does have a new game show soon to debut, which may have been a "tell" that he's known for some time he wasn't going to be busy with an 11:35 show and might not even have 12:35 much longer.
If they do keep him, that would be a partial answer to Joe's question above about Worldwide Pants. Worldwide Pants produces Ferguson's show now.
Who would replace Craig? Well, Chelsea Handler is out there actively campaigning for the job. She tweeted a photo of herself outside the CBS building and told all she was there for meetings. CBS issued a statement that said she was not there to discuss 12:35…so that suggests she will never be there to discuss 12:35. I doubt she is under consideration. My feeling is that if Ferguson is replaced — and it's still an IF, let's remember — it'll be by someone with some experience on TV but not that kind…like Craig Ferguson was. I also think CBS will be looking to counter the idea that they're only interested in white guys and they may also think it's time to experiment with something other than a show where one host sits behind a desk and interviews people with something to plug.
One thing to consider: Does Colbert's deal give him control and/or ownership of the show that follows him the way Letterman did? It's an interesting aspect to all this. Carson and Letterman had both — ownership for the obvious financial benefits of producing one's lead-out, control to make sure the show that followed didn't upstage them or compete for guests. Leno never wanted to own the show after his and from all reports, never interfered with what Conan and then Jimmy Fallon wanted to do as long as they didn't book the same guests right before he did. Colbert may at least have a heavy say in what follows him and may even own the time slot.
Lastly for now about this daypart, Lane Ingham writes…
I agree with you that the announcement of Colbert came so soon after Dave announced his retirement that it had to have been in the works for some time. But I wonder why CBS felt they had to announce it so quickly. Why not drag out the suspense for a few months?
This is just a guess but the battle for Dave's seat could have gotten ugly. When Mr. Carson announced his abdication, NBC already had a deal with Leno but that wasn't known at the time and they apparently talked about delaying the press release about Jay for a while.
The problem was that the instant Johnny set his departure date, a large part of show business exploded. Stars, including some pretty big people, were on the phone to their agents. A lot of top Hollywood deal-makers were determined to land the gig for their clients and the longer NBC let them think there was a shot at it, the more threats and pressures would be brought to the game. A gent who was involved in the midst of that from the NBC side told me it was difficult to make a deal with anyone about anything else while Johnny's job still seemed to be out there for the taking.
We think of the battle to replace Johnny as between Dave and Jay but there were a lot of other people who wanted to be Carson's successor and some of them had pretty strong, determined agents. I heard that one Very Big Movie Star called his agent about five minutes after Johnny announced his retirement and the V.B.M.S. said, "That job is mine! Lock it up for me or you're fired!" It was probably not in the network's interest to have that kind of thing go on for long. That's why I think Dave did not announce his decampment until Les Moonves was at least reasonably sure they could and would get Colbert…but they'll probably never admit that.