Reeling Backward: The Late Shift (1995)
The story behind the original late night television war was derided at the time, but it offers a trenchant view on the egos and backroom dealing of show biz that is relevant to our own times.
It’s almost hard for anyone under age 45 to even comprehend, but not so very long ago late night television was an empire ruled by one man. Looking at today’s fractured and diminishing audiences for the hoary model of “jokes and interviews with celebrities,” you might not think the story of the chaotic succession after the monarch exited the stage would be relevant today.
Anything but.
Heavily derided at the time of its release, 1995’s “The Late Shift” was a look at the battle for who would fill Johnny Carson’s shoes on “The Tonight Show” on NBC, a perch from which he’d ruled the after-11:30 p.m. world virtually unchallenged for 30 years. The competitors were David Letterman, who’d hosted his own show following Carson’s for the previous decade, and Jay Leno, an A-list stand-up comedian who had been serving as Johnny’s regular guest host on his own show.
The movie was based on Bill Carter’s book of the same title, an exhaustive tome stocked with all the backroom deals and sordid details of what really went down. It’s a terrific piece of entertainment reportage using direct sourcing rather than innuendo and gossip. I’d recently reread the book and decided to take another look at the movie it was adapted into, co-written by Carter and George Armitage and directed by television veteran Betty Thomas.
The made-for-TV movie was pretty well trashed at the time, partly by the showbiz circles surrounding Letterman and Leno, neither of whom comes off in particularly glowing terms. Interestingly, no one has ever seriously challenged the accuracy of Carter’s book, which the movie follows quite closely, mostly just condensing some of the details and roster of characters for a 95-minute film.
It did go on to earn an impressive eight Emmy nominations. An HBO original, “The Late Shift” is currently available for streaming on their Max streaming platform.
Much of the scorn was based on the movie’s admittedly not-sterling production values, especially the makeup effects to make actors John Michael Higgins and Daniel Roebuck resemble Letterman and Leno, respectively. The prosthetic chin they granted Roebuck is pretty egregious — but honestly not a terrible exaggeration of Leno’s actual mug, which he himself delights in making jokes about. Louis CK, while sitting as a guest on his show, once dubbed Leno “the weirdest-looking guy on the planet Earth.”
Remember, in 1995 no TV-based studio — even HBO, considered the gold standard at the time — was spending anything like feature film budgets on their flicks. If you can gaze past the generally chintzy look of “The Late Shift,” it offers a trenchant view on the titanic egos and skeevy Hollywood backroom dealing that is still relevant today.
Even though you may know how it all turned out — Leno got “The Tonight Show” and Letterman decamped to CBS to start his own competing show — it’s still a fascinating look at how showbiz really works. What’s more, it offers perspective on subsequent events and the current status of late night TV.
Conan O’Brien, then an unknown writer from “Saturday Night Live,” replaced Letterman in the follow-up show on NBC, and eventually was involved in his own tussle with Leno over who sat behind the desk on “The Tonight Show.” Leno has consistently been portrayed as the bad guy in this affair — with Letterman often stoking the ire — because O’Brien’s ratings tanked and Leno took the slot back a short time later.
The truth in that second round of the war for late night played out much like the first one depicted in this movie. It’s more complicated and messy, and really the only bad guys are the network executives obsessed with recruiting the best talent and chasing the #1 spot in the ratings.
In 1992, Leno was being pursued by CBS to start his own show to take on Carson, who by that time had an audience that reflected his own silver-haired status. Arsenio Hall had gotten a lot of attention as the upstart grabbing eyeballs through a syndicated show that was younger, hipper and Blacker.
Leno was too loyal to Carson to really consider the offer — not to mention the last guest host who’d crossed Carson, Joan Rivers, was deep-sixed harshly.
In the “sequel,” after some years of success at NBC, O’Brien had become the target of his own recruiting frenzy. To keep him, NBC signed him to a contract that said he would be guaranteed to take over “The Tonight Show” from Leno… but not for five years.
This little piece of history always seems to be forgotten in the O’Brien/Leno contretemps. Leno got flagged as the sore loser because he “stole” the job back from his successor. But Leno had not been consulted about the O’Brien’s deal. At the time it was signed, he was in his early 50s, had been hosting “The Tonight Show” for a dozen years and consistently winning the ratings battle with Letterman. He probably thought, why am I being pushed out at the top of my game?
We see a similar dynamic playing out in 1992-93, the time depicted in “The Late Shift.”
Carson, played by impressionist Rich Little in a not-terribly compelling performance, knows he is being pushed out the door and decides to walk out on his own first, surprising everyone by announcing his retirement at a press event. Little did anyone know, just a week earlier Leno had signed a deal guaranteeing him “The Tonight Show” whenever Johnny left.
So in terms of a Letterman/Leno battle, it had actually ended before it started.
This deal had been signed, sealed and delivered by Helen Kushnick, Jay’s ferocious longtime manager. By far the most fascinating part of the movie is the portrayal of Kushnick and her relationship with Leno by Kathy Bates, who had launched her film career just a few years earlier with an Oscar win for “Misery,”
Kushnick is foul-mouthed, abusive, manipulative and bullying — and unrepentantly so. She’s a force of nature, the woman who made it in a man’s world by always being the bigger asshole in any confrontation. When Leno takes over the Carson show, she installs herself as executive producer and immediately sets about alienating the entire town against her. This includes stealing guests booked for Letterman’s show, and banning them from Leno’s when they refuse to budge.
She discovered Leno when he was just a small-time comic working strip clubs, and nurtured him and raised him up to his current position. Among his earliest breaks was being a guest on Letterman’s show, and the two had remained friendly over the years. Leno feels an obligation to Kushnick and sticks by her, even as she’s terrorizing everyone on the show and alienating the executives.
Theirs is a classic codependent relationship, a fact Kushnick eventually throws back at Leno when he finally stands up to her, furious about her backstabbing and double-dealing. “You just want me to keep serving you the steaks. You don't want to know how I'm slaughtering the cow,” she taunts.
Eventually the two NBA entertainment honchos, Warren Littlefield (Bob Balaban) and John Agoglia (Reni Santoni), have had enough and force Kusnick off the show, giving Leno an ultimatum that he can go with her if he wants, but she’s going. This opens up an opportunity to use Letterman as leverage for “The Tonight Show” spot.
Letterman is talked by his closest producers, Robert Morton (John Kapelos) and Peter Lassally (Steve Gilborn), into protecting his position by hiring super-agent Michael Ovitz (Treat Williams) to negotiate on his behalf. He arranges for all the major players in television to pitch for Letterman’s services, which puts tremendous pressure on NBC to keep him.
Things build up to a pivotal event that seems like Hollywood BS, but was apparently told by Leno to Carter for his book. Knowing all the NBC heavyweights would be discussing the fate of keeping Leno or installing Letterman over a conference call, Leno snuck into a small office adjoining the big meeting room and listened in on the call. The next day, in a hilarious but also mercenary move, he calls Littlefield and quotes all the comments back to the hapless fellow.
From the start, it seems destined that either Leno or Letterman will end up at CBS with a competing show at 11:30 p.m. Howard Stringer, the CBS boss played by Peter Jurasik, seems happy either way as long as he can break up rival NBC’s monopoly.
Roebuck’s Leno is given less screen time and space to explore the character. For the first half he’s a bit of a schmuck, kowtowing to Kushnick, and only seems to come alive when NBC considers dumping him for Letterman. The real Leno was not happy with the film due its portrayal of him as a weak follower who fell backward into good fortune.
I have to say on seeing the film again, Higgins’ take on Letterman is a delightful tour de force, a complicated portrait of an awkward guy. He had so much talent and natural comedic instincts, but constantly undercut himself and shunned people he should have been trying to make allies.
The real Letterman greeted the movie in his usual peevish, “I’m-an-asshole-but-funny” way, lambasting not just the film in general but specifically Higgins’ performance as a “circus chimp” and “budding psychotic.” He went out of his way to humiliate Higgins, inviting him to appear on his show but then intentionally running over so he got bumped.
Carter actually wrote a follow-up book, “The War for Late Night,” that chronicled the Leno/O’Brien fiasco, and there were reports (never realized) that another film adaptation would happen.
(O’Brien, for my money the true funniest guy on late night since Carson, joked that actress Tilda Swinton should play him.)
Of course, Leno was eventually pushed out before he could decide the terms of his own retirement, forced to cede “The Tonight Show” to Jimmy Fallon, who has championed a mode of lightweight, inoffensive comedy that at times can feel like watching marshmallows toast.
And what’s the state of late night TV now? I’ll just say it makes the buffoonery depicted in “The Late Shift” seem like cool, measured professionalism. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert lean so hard into political partisanship they tend to come across as mean-spirited scolds.
For my part, there’s nothing more pathetic than an affronted comedian.
We traded in one late night king for many princelings who get most of their eyeballs from clips of their shows streamed on YouTube or the like. Ultimately, “The Late Show” is a spot-on portrayal of something very real: the human tendency to produce the bitterest antagonism over things that just aren’t very important.