Catherine O’Hara’s Improv Skills Won Late Night This Week

Happy uncanny valley to this, the most liminal week of late night. The entire week was spent focusing on what had occurred the previous Sunday (Taylor Swift’s boyfriend making it to the Super Bowl) or on what will happen next Sunday (the aforementioned Super Bowl). Because life in late capitalism is nothing but horror stacked inside of horror like a nesting doll of pain, there are now ads for the ads that are going to air Super Bowl Sunday. And there are also talk-show segments plugging ads that will run on the Super Bowl. Gronk and Arnold Schwarzenegger both went on The Tonight Show to announce that they were going to be in Super Bowl spots. They also played games that were tied into (sponsored by) those ads. The cherry on this Sunday Sundae was the steady beat of folks doing the last bit of promo before the Oscars. Or plugging Argylle, which is not a real movie. And if you mean to tell me Argylle is a real movie, I would call you a liar and a fucker. But while you wait to find out who Agent Argylle really is, here are the funniest bits on late night this week.

5. After Midnight Claps Back

This was the most truly online After Midnight has felt. The show licensed a TikTok from someone who was convinced Taylor Tomlinson was conned into hosting this show (and that @midnight ran in the ’90s). The clapbacks were well-observed, but what most intrigued me about this clip was the meta-narrative. Imagining the researcher or associate producer in charge of clearance reaching out to this guy to secure the rights to air his anti–After Midnight screed on After Midnight. The people who make the show deciding this was the video to respond to. The guy fucking around and then finding out. It’s discourse like this that makes the internet the heaven/hell twofer it is.

4. Know Your Place As a Guest

Paul Walter Hauser’s side gig as a pro wrestler is reaping huge dividends in the talk-show space because he’s not afraid of going for some cheap heat. Hauser gently ribs Colbert for having a mush-mouth moment in this interview, which prompts Colbert to gently correct the Emmy winner. In wrestling terms, it’s a work. Nobody is actually mad at anybody for calling anybody out about anything, but it’s more conflict than we’re usually given in a late-night spot. And conflict is the essence of story.

3. James Corden Preaches Corporate Synergy

This guest spot on Late Night With Seth Meyers by James Corden encapsulates everything I miss about The Late Late Show. Namely, that Corden was never afraid of parting the kimono — highlighting the artificiality of late night and the corporate scaffolding that held it up. Corden asks fellow West Ham supporter Seth Meyers when he’s going to join him for a footie match and suggests getting NBCUniversal to pay for the trip. Meyers thinks that’ll never work, then Corden reminds him that Peacock is the official home of whatever league those games belong to. “Corporate synergy!” he pleads. It’s giving “Screw You, Taxpayer,” one of the most high-concept Kids in the Hall sketches. Seeing the angles and then working them was always one of the best things on The Late Late Show,and I’m glad that energy extends to Corden’s post-league career.

2. The Tonight Show Reinvents Carnac

Babygirl literally reinvented the wheel with “Tonight Show Connections.” Which is good, because the wheel is structurally sound but old as shit. This new desk piece on The Tonight Show uses the New York Times game to list nouns, then link them with a silly pop culturally relevant connection. That’s essentially what Johnny Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent did … I am assuming, because they only time I ever saw Carnac was in the Simpsons episode “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet.” The point is: Old things should, in fact, be new again.

1. “Don’t Do This”

Two of the best actors of this century reenacting the stoned ramblings of two nightmare persons: Catherine O’Hara and Bryan Cranston performed the Denise Richards/Dorit Kemsley “Your jacket is upside-down” fight from this season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,and it was transcendent. When Cranston said he needed to create his own Dorit (because he was jealous of O’Hara getting a costume), I knew we were in for some Art. O’Hara, who seems less plugged into the Bravoverse than Cranston, just put her own Schitt’s Creek clueless enthusiasm into the performance, and we were all the better for it. A truly transformative piece of reenactment.

Bethy Squires , 2024-02-02 15:12:42

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