cbs late night

[flashback]

does anyone else miss the cbs late night programing from the 70`s to the early 80`s that was on at 11:30 weeknights besides me.it had a great mix of movies and tv reruns.now that i am retired its david letterman and that guy who follows him .

now that i am retired i wish i had a late night program like that to see late at night now that i can see tv late at night every night now.

 

[Robnoxious]

does anyone else miss the cbs late night programing from the 70`s to the early 80`s that was on at 11:30 weeknights besides me.it had a great mix of movies and tv reruns.now that i am retired its david letterman and that guy who follows him .

That guy that follows him is Craig Ferguson and is IMHO the best host on the late night circuit right now. He may or may not float your boat but you should give him a whirl for a week or two and see for yourself. Most of everything he does is off the top of his head and you'll never get a more natural flow of conversation out of a guest with anyone else on television. If you stick around long enough you'll learn the formulaic blue notecard talking points flow of the likes of Letterman and especially Leno are far beyond played out and Craig brings a welcome change to that stilted format.

My guess is you are probably burned out on Letterman and Leno and the rest, hence your desire to have the CBS late night of old but in the case of Ferguson you might be missing out on something that operates a little different than what you are used to. You just might actually like it. Or you won't but that's that's what makes the world go round.

Give it a shot: http://www.youtube.com/user/TVsCraigFerguson

 

[flashback]

does anyone else miss the cbs late night programing from the 70`s to the early 80`s that was on at 11:30 weeknights besides me.it had a great mix of movies and tv reruns.now that i am retired its david letterman and that guy who follows him .

That guy that follows him is Craig Ferguson and is IMHO the best host on the late night circuit right now. He may or may not float your boat but you should give him a whirl for a week or two and see for yourself. Most of everything he does is off the top of his head and you'll never get a more natural flow of conversation out of a guest with anyone else on television. If you stick around long enough you'll learn the formulaic blue notecard talking points flow of the likes of Letterman and especially Leno are far beyond played out and Craig brings a welcome change to that stilted format.

My guess is you are probably burned out on Letterman and Leno and the rest, hence your desire to have the CBS late night of old but in the case of Ferguson you might be missing out on something that operates a little different than what you are used to. You just might actually like it. Or you won't but that's that's what makes the world go round.

Give it a shot: http://www.youtube.com/user/TVsCraigFerguson

i just liked the blend of shows and movies on cbs late night but could not have watched it most nights.unfortunatly now that i can it is a thing of the past.


i am with you on letterman.he was great on nbc when he followed carson but then now is lacking.

 

[LKellerIII]

Do I miss staying up late to watch reruns of 1 hour cop shows, stretched out an extra 6 or 8 minutes because of added commercials? Uh...no.

Why not find some old shows you like that are playing throughout the day on cable or on your local stations, then set your DVR or VCR to record them. Then you can watch them anytime you want - late night if that's your preference.

 

[Studio20]

Actually, The CBS Late Movie had a better and less worn out selection...and a neat intro.

 

[1069_KIFR]

Crime Time after Prime time!

 

[DToTheJ]

For awhile, CBS' lae night schedule consisted of a one-hour drama ("stretched out an extra 6 or 8 minutes because of added commercials," as LKeller pointed out above) followed by a movie which was the antithesis of its lead-in: a movie, usually two hours in length, jammed into an 80-minute window!

 

[LKellerIII]

Actually, The CBS Late Movie had a better and less worn out selection...and a neat intro.

Crime Time after Prime Time.

Yes - the packaging was clever - you have to give CBS credit for that. The process is called: "when you have lemons, make lemonade."

In those days, Johnny Carson was the king of late night with dominant ratings. We all know that what CBS really wanted in late night was a hit franchise talk show. As smart a man as Merv Griffin was, he couldn't dent Carson's ratings on CBS - reportedly, he only agreed to the CBS show when the network agreed to pay him way more than Carson. So when Merv couldn't deliver the ratings, he was gone. Then there was The Pat Sajak Show , of which nothing more need be said.

I doubt CBS meant the Late Movie (ha, ha) as anything more than a filler until they could latch onto original programming that would be more compelling and get better ratings.

Fortunately for CBS, nothing lasts forever - my memory is that Carson's ratings finally started to dip a little in the last years of his run - probably because he worked only 3 days a week toward the end. Then, of course, he retired and the late night wars became a 2 way race between Leno and Letterman.

 

[kms575]

does anyone else miss the cbs late night programing from the 70`s to the early 80`s that was on at 11:30 weeknights besides me.it had a great mix of movies and tv reruns.now that i am retired its david letterman and that guy who follows him .

That guy that follows him is Craig Ferguson and is IMHO the best host on the late night circuit right now. He may or may not float your boat but you should give him a whirl for a week or two and see for yourself. Most of everything he does is off the top of his head and you'll never get a more natural flow of conversation out of a guest with anyone else on television. If you stick around long enough you'll learn the formulaic blue notecard talking points flow of the likes of Letterman and especially Leno are far beyond played out and Craig brings a welcome change to that stilted format.

My guess is you are probably burned out on Letterman and Leno and the rest, hence your desire to have the CBS late night of old but in the case of Ferguson you might be missing out on something that operates a little different than what you are used to. You just might actually like it. Or you won't but that's that's what makes the world go round.

Give it a shot: http://www.youtube.com/user/TVsCraigFerguson

I completely agree, Ferguson is brillant!

 

[Ultimajock]

...when Tom Snyder left The Late Late Show and Craig Kilborn (yecch!) took over, Tom made a very prescient observation -- there was going to be a missing element in late night, and that was the absence of a conversation rather than wall-to-wall comedians grabbing whatever laughs they could. And, as usual, Tom was accurate. Ferguson, the best of the lot, will be serious when appropriate (check the YouTube of his monologue about public celebrity meltdowns and why he's really uncomfortable when comics poke fun at them, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbaRyDLMvA), but the rest -- Letterman included -- are usually lacking in that regard. (I'm not even considering Carson Daly in this one; he's the reason I always find myself tuning into Poker After Dark late and missing Leeann Tweeden's intro.) Damn, do I still miss Snyder, and Cavett, and Costas...

 

[flashback]

...when Tom Snyder left The Late Late Show and Craig Kilborn (yecch!) took over, Tom made a very prescient observation -- there was going to be a missing element in late night, and that was the absence of a conversation rather than wall-to-wall comedians grabbing whatever laughs they could. And, as usual, Tom was accurate. Ferguson, the best of the lot, will be serious when appropriate (check the YouTube of his monologue about public celebrity meltdowns and why he's really uncomfortable when comics poke fun at them, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbaRyDLMvA), but the rest -- Letterman included -- are usually lacking in that regard. (I'm not even considering Carson Daly in this one; he's the reason I always find myself tuning into Poker After Dark late and missing Leeann Tweeden's intro.) Damn, do I still miss Snyder, and Cavett, and Costas...

dick cavet was the best late night tv show host i can remember seeing.his intelectual yet down home style together was great.he did not dumb things down yet kept it on a down to earth levil at the same time.

he was entertaning and thought provoking at the same time.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Until Letterman moved to CBS I never really saw anything much that they had in late night that I cared about other than a short period when they had MASH reruns. If I didn't want to watch Carson I usually preferred what WREG CBS 3 in Memphis pre-empted CBS's late night programming with. It started out in the 70's with movies, and in the 80's and early 90's (pre-Letterman) with reruns of MASH and later Cheers. THis was one case I've talked about before where I liked the local pre-emption better than the shows that were dropped.

 

[firepoint525]

Anyone here remember how Letterman, when he was on NBC back in the '80s, used to make fun of the CBS late-night programming, correctly panning what they called a "movie" as actually a rerun of some prime-time drama.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I found this info on the history of CBS Late Night: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_Late_Night

There was more than I knew there I would like but didn't get to see, especially in the 1976-1984 period, like MASH and WKRP reruns, The Avengers, and The Prisoner. I only got to see it occasionally from KFVS 12 in Cape Girardeau, MO, and mainly remembered MASH, but not the others.

 

[WPPCProductions]

I always liked the CBS late movies,David Letterman is great ,Craig Ferguson's show is boring ,but he's a great actor in series tv.some of the locals push Craig Ferguson's show a half hour to a hour later for local programming.{syndi shows}ET,Magazine shows,Game shows ,drama or sitcoms.We have here on WFSB is a rerun of ET.Craig's show will follow.