Your favorite late night talk show host?

We had Terry Wogan in the 80s doing Monday to Friday talkshows, in the One Show slot. He was great and basically a slightly toned down, prime time version of his Eurovision persona. He was wry without being mocking and I don't think the BBC recovered that slot once Terry decided he was tired of it.

Michael Parkinson was my favourite though. His interviews with Ali are legendary.

I really like Colbert, his monologues really remind me of the Colbert Report which I miss greatly.

I really really like Desus and Mero, there doing something completely different from all of the cable late night TV shows

I used to be way into Colbert and Conan, but what I've seen from both lately has felt... a little lacking? I don't know.

But my current favorite(s) is a clear choice.

@bbalpert: @dizzyhippos: Yes! I always make sure to catch every Desus & Mero episode. Kind of difficult since both Vice and Youtube has blocked my country from watching, but yeah they are both hilarious and insightful.

All time greatest is David Letterman. To be sure, Johnny Carson was a giant in late-night ; yet, he was not a nice person to his friends and colleagues.

Probably Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien.

I was a Letterman fan. I really enjoy some of Fallon’s skits but I can’t make it through a show of interviews.

Use to watch Conan all the time, but not so much now. So, I'll say Conan.

For all time, I completely agree with Ferguson. His style was completely unique and he was the only person who I would stay for the interview portion of the show. He had such a natural way of talking with people it didn't feel like a scripted conversation with talking points A-D, but just a natural conversation between a man who was uniquely interested in what his guests had to say. I admit, perhaps other late-night hosts have this same vibe, I've not sat through dozens of interviews for anyone else besides Conan, Leno or Letterman all of whom I would contrast strongly with his style.

For pure comedy its gonna be Conan, because he was who I grew up with as a kid. The show I'd stay up too late on a school-night just to catch the monolog. Not for everyone's taste, but then Ace Venture 2:When Nature Calls was my favorite movie ever as a kid (I'll still sit down and watch it and laugh as an adult despite knowing its absolutely awful) and he's the closest to that kind of humor I found on tv.

For 'who I would most like to be a guest of the show on" Absolutely Jimmy Fallon. Boardgames! Fun! Pure silly joy for life and the act of living. He might not be that way in real-life but from his show all I get is a massive attempt to make people smile and be happy. That's cost him in this age where the people who tend to watch such shows wanted Colbert's style of all-in against trump humor, and I know a lot of people think he is too silly or too simple or etc. But man, wouldn't it be cool to play some of those games he always has guests playing?

As for the 'who I watch to laugh away my "I'm a democrat and trump scares me constantly' fear? I want to say Colbert, because I and my family do watch his opening a lot..but really its Myers. The problem is I watch his 'closer look' segment pretty often via youtube, which he seems to do every night in a very 'weekend update SNL style, which makes sense Re:head writer etc etc. And I like that kind of comedic stuff. I don't often tune in via tv however, so it goes to Colbert.

Lacking from my opinion are the Daily show and such spin offs. "late Night shows" to me are the shows that follow the evening news. Otherwise that first entry would be "John Stewarts run on the daily show" and the political one would be "Colberts run on the colbert report, or maybe jon oliver if I actually had a HBO subscription beyond the few months I sign up to watch GoT.

Colbert, then Seth Rich's "A Deeper Look" segments, followed by Kimmel monologue

I look back fondly on the hours watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report and Craig Ferguson in my formative years.

Nowadays, the majority of my YouTube viewing comes from watching Colbert monologues, Seth Meyer's A Closer Look segments and anything by Full Frontal. On that note, Samantha Bee has come out almost from day 1 as being one of the most unique voices on American late night; yes it is because she is a female presenter in sea of dudes, but it's because of this that she can approach the same stories as the other hosts a week after the fact and still wring out some entirely new jokes.

Also, it isn't US late-night, but one of the best news satire shows we have here in Australia is Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell, which has a certain madcap nature that I've not seen in any American show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82zCcYpIado (apologies for the potato quality of this clip)

Right now my favorite late night talk show host is The Sopranos but before that it was Cheers. Maybe next it will be Orphan Black I hear they are a great host. Seriously late night talk shows are pointless now so I just watch old TV shows before bed. If Conan, Colbert, or Kimmel do a memorable bit it's all over the internet the next day. I sure as shit don't want to waste my time hearing what project some celebrity is plugging.

I watch random segments from Conan’s youtube page these days, that’s about it. I used to watch him in Late Night, Tonight Show and Conan when those still showed over here, but that stopped years ago.

Most of them are basically the same person with the same ideologies and the writers who hang in the same circles anyway, it seems?

I like Conan though. Jimmy Kimmel is kind of insufferable to me.

Fallon, Conan, and Corben. I tend to like my late night hosts to lean more towards comedy than politics.

I started out with Carson, but Letterman was the one I tuned into nightly. For a while, I enjoyed Stewart and O' Brien, but fell off of Daily Show at some point and became disinterested in politics so I never returned. With O' Brien, I left with his departure from Late Night on NBC. John Oliver is kind of good right now, but I only catch bits posted to YouTube.

Honestly, the whole process of celebrities sitting down to plug their stuff just bores me to tears. I can't remember the last late night talk show I watched. It's got to be over five years ago, probably longer.

@flagranterror: Just you and me, buddy. I think Fallon is pretty good.

Desus and Mero by far.

I know it's popular to shit on Fallon and I totally get it. The guy just seems disingenuous and he isn't very funny.

Best late night host is easily Eric Andre

Graham Norton, the best combination of levity, mischievous and hard hitting questions by far.

Desus and Mero.

Every late night show is exactly the same. Monologue, joke segment, interview, interview, music. It's always topical, the interviews always stiff and overly prepared. After awhile I'm tired of watching the same show with different hosts.

Desus and Mero feel different, aren't afraid to be themselves, and get very interesting conversations out nearly every guest. There are multiple guests, usually athletes I know little about, that I am indifferent too who I end up liking after their interview.

Jay Leno was great :(, sad that he left.

Conan was great when I watched him regularly some 10 years ago, don't know how he is now.

The others are terrible, it's like they forgot the entertainment part these days.

Conan, obviously.

The growing disdain for Jimmy Fallon is oddly vindicating. For a while there, I was genuinely concerned that I was just a complete wet blanket asshole for not loving his show the way so many people seem to. I mean, I could appreciate how people theoretically could be entertained by him; I was just 100% not one of those people. The whole lip-sync battle/"impromptu dance party" vibe just comes off to me as a show that's trying desperately to convince you you're having fun instead of actually being fun, much less funny.

Fallon's show is the equivalent of being a bar and just wanting to have a nice bourbon, and a bachelorette party shows up, puts the jukebox on Sweet Caroline, and starts yelling "BUH BUH BUH". I get that they are ostensibly enjoying themselves, but I'm finding their gleefully vapid fervor to be insufferable on so many levels because a) I'm slightly jealous that I'm not amused that easily and b) there's this weird groupthink thing because it's too obnoxious to ignore, so I feel like people just peer-pressure participate in the "fun" because they think they're supposed to, much like Fallon's show.

So, yeah. It's good to see I'm not entirely alone here. To Fallon's credit, he does seem like he's genuinely trying, but the guy simply isn't particularly funny/talented. Either he's self-aware of that or his producers are, because his show seems designed almost entirely as a distraction to that reality. Having, say, Justin Timberlake dancing is the shiny object. Enough on that.

Conan is the correct choice for late-night.

Conan and Desus and Mero for sure. My girlfriends roommate had Jimmy Fallon on and I called him vanilla and bland. She goes "......he's the opposite of that, he is so out there" and I just wanted to jump out of a window.

They're all bad. I had some small hope that Colbert would actually break the mold and do long-form interviews with interesting people rather than talking to movie stars and pop celebs, but it turns out pop celebs are what that audience wants. Fair enough, just not for me.

If we're talking "ever", than yeah, it's Craig Ferguson...if we're talking current...it's nobody. Late night TV has gotten really bad. Young Conan was good when I was a lad, but the format is just dated and everything all of them are doing feels so forced, especially coming off of Craig taking the rules and throwing them out the window.

I respect Conan, Colbert and Kimmel, but I can't watch those shows. They just aren't good TV.

Graham Norton

I was gonna say Letterman but Graham Norton is pretty good! It's too bad that I only consume Talk Shows through YouTube these days.

Right now my favourite late night host is Seth Meyers. I think he's got the right balance of funny jokes and insightful political commentary. I like John Oliver, for instance, but he's not necessarily that funny.

Plus, Seth is the kind of host who's always seems like he's having a ton of fun doing what he does. His interviews do tend to be a bit dull, though.

I haven't watched a late night talk show in probably a year, but they were regular viewing for me in college (about 2 years ago). I was definitely a huge fan of Seth Meyers at the time. Good mix of humor and unapologetically earnest political advocacy (that doesn't feel like the right word, but it's what I have stuck in my brain right now). I just felt like he didn't hem and haw around political issues like most hosts did at the time. Of course that's probably all changed by now.

I had no idea that there was so much love for Craig Ferguson. Gonna have to go back and check out some of his stuff.

Graham Norton is the GOAT. Seth Meyers is in a distant second place. Closely followed by Colbert.

Mike Bullard man, he was the boss.

I always thought Dick Cavett was an amazing interviewer. But sadly they don't really make shows like his anymore.

Conan in the '90s. Haven't watch talk shows since then.

Craig Ferguson and Conan were my favourite. Don't watch much Conan anymore, mostly just Colbert. He's great, occasionally amazing, but sometimes bizarrely bland. Wasn't quite as biting when he first started compared to The Colbert Report, but once the Trump train got a-rolling he got his teeth back some.

If Jon Stewart counts it'd be him, bar none.

I grew up watching Johnny Carson. I occasionally catch reruns of his show on Antenna TV and most of them hold up surprisingly well. Nobody comes close to Carson for me.

My second choice would be Conan, although his show was a bit more entertaining in the Late Night days.

Letterman and Conan for me. I wasn't more than 12 yo when letterman made me burst out in laughter and I've revisited some of his early shows growing up, with a new appreciation and understanding of the subtle, couldnt give less of a fuck, he masterly portrayed. Jimmy Fallon and James cordon I despise, they are the watered down versions of games, like dlc and micro transactions, a plague.