Tom Snyder (1995–1999) Tom Snyder hosted the program from its inception in January 1995 until March 1999. The choice of Snyder as host was made by
David Letterman, whose contract with CBS gave him (via production company
Worldwide Pants) the power to produce the show in the time slot immediately after his own program and who had an affinity for Snyder, whose NBC late night series
Tomorrow had been succeeded by
Late Night with David Letterman. The time slot on CBS previously carried repeats of
Crimetime After Primetime. Snyder departed
CNBC to host
The Late Late Show on CBS. Snyder's show featured a mix of celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers, but was otherwise quite unlike the program hosted by Letterman; Snyder was a former newsman, not a comedian, and his show featured an intimate
interview format with no studio audience present, similar to his old
Tomorrow show of the 1970s, or to
Charlie Rose show and
Later, which had abandoned the format the previous year and had followed
Late Night under Letterman on NBC. Though the show lacked a studio audience, Snyder still frequently gave extended conversational monologues, many of which contained jokes that prompted audible laughter from the off-camera production staff. Without the need for an audience, the show originated from the intimate Studio 58 at CBS Television City. Throughout most of the show's run, it was also
simulcast over some
CBS Radio stations, and Snyder accepted calls from viewers/listeners somewhat in the manner of
Larry King; to accommodate this, the show was broadcast live in the Eastern and Central United States and on radio in the west, a rarity for late-night talk shows that had otherwise transitioned to tape, though due to existing syndication contracts and resistance to give up local control of timeslots, many stations, such as
WJZ-TV in Baltimore, would delay it to as late as 3:05 a.m. When Snyder was on vacation, the show featured guest hosts such as
Jon Stewart or
Janeane Garofalo. Saxophonist
David Sanborn composed and performed the theme music and several other songs featured on the show, all of which were
smooth jazz pieces to fit the show's low-key, middle-of-the-night mood. Sanborn had previously been a guest saxophonist in
The World's Most Dangerous Band during
Late Night with David Letterman. Unlike other late-night shows,
The Late Late Show did not have a
house band (a tradition that carried on to its iterations under Kilborn and Ferguson) or any announcer, except for the last episode, when Snyder allowed one of his staff members to announce an introduction. Letterman had offered the
Late Late spot to
Garry Shandling, a former permanent guest host of
The Tonight Show, but Shandling turned the offer down in favor of
The Larry Sanders Show (NBC had previously approached Shandling about succeeding Letterman on
Late Night but he had also declined that offer, the job ultimately went to
Conan O'Brien). He also offered the slot to
Later host
Bob Costas who also declined. Shandling lampooned the selection process on an episode of
The Larry Sanders Show entitled
Life After Larry in which Snyder is poached from the post-Letterman timeslot for the spot following the fictional Sanders show. Letterman then insisted on Snyder despite CBS wanting a younger host with a comedy background and a more traditional late night talk variety format. In 1998, the network reportedly reasserted its desire for a host who could attract a younger demographic and asked Worldwide Pants not to renew Snyder's contract when it expired in September 1999, though other reports portray the decision to leave as Snyder's decision, with Snyder informing management that he wished to depart before his contract ended, as early as January 1999. Snyder returned to CBS to guest-host some episodes of the
Late Show while Letterman recuperated from heart surgery in 2000. Longtime late night television producer
Peter Lassally was executive producer of Snyder's iteration of the program and mentored
Jon Stewart when he was a guest host filling in for Snyder.
Craig Kilborn (1999–2004) When Snyder announced he was leaving, the show was reformatted to resemble
Letterman and other major late-night talk programs.
Craig Kilborn took over in March 1999, having left
The Daily Show (where he was succeeded by
Jon Stewart) to become the new
Late Late Show host; previously, he was an anchor on
ESPN's
SportsCenter. Kilborn left the program on August 27, 2004, two weeks after surprising executives at CBS and Worldwide Pants by announcing after several weeks of talks that he was not seeking a contract renewal. In a June 2010 interview, Kilborn stated that he left late-night television due to his belief that the late-night time slot was too crowded for him to succeed. Executive Producer Peter Lassally later said that Kilborn quit because he did not get the raise he wanted.
Transition (September 2004–December 2004) With Kilborn only announcing in early August that he would not be returning to the
Late Late Show in the fall, CBS and Worldwide Pants executives decided to have a series of guest hosts helm the show in on-air auditions. While initially saying they would choose a permanent host by the end of October, the process ended up extending into December.
Drew Carey was the first guest host on September 20, 2004, and again the following night. culminating in four finalists being involved for week long final tryouts: Craig Ferguson, D. L. Hughley, Damien Fahey, and Michael Ian Black. It was announced on December 7, 2004, that Ferguson, a
Scottish comedian best known from his role as Mr. Wick on
The Drew Carey Show, was to become Kilborn's permanent replacement.
David Letterman later said he made the selection based on the recommendation of
Peter Lassally. Following the conclusion of the on-air auditions on December 3, 2004, guest hosts continued to fill out the roster until the end of the year and included Jason Alexander, Donal Logue, David Alan Grier,
Aisha Tyler,
Drew Carey,
Sara Rue,
John Witherspoon,
Joe Buck,
Susan Sarandon,
Don Cheadle,
Daryl Mitchell,
Bob Saget, Jim Rome, Ana Gasteyer, Damien Fahey, and D.L. Hughley.
Craig Ferguson (2005–2014) Under Craig Ferguson's tenure as host, the show started with a
cold open, followed by
opening credits and a commercial break. A loose comic monologue then followed, consistently including a greeting ("Welcome to Los Angeles, California, welcome to the
Late Late Show, I am your host, TV's Craig Ferguson") and the proclamation that "It's a great day for America, everybody!". From 2010 the monologue also included
banter with
Geoff Peterson, his "robot skeleton
sidekick", voiced and controlled by
Josh Robert Thompson. This
animatronic was constructed by the
MythBusters'
Grant Imahara but went through many revisions, the most important was the regular live control and voicing by Thompson. This changed the dynamic of the show as Ferguson had a recurring 'sidekick' to banter with. After another commercial break, the banter continued with Ferguson sitting behind a desk. He usually read and responded to viewer e-mail and (beginning in February 2010)
Twitter messages for random responses to viewer questions. During segments Ferguson occasionally received phone calls (voiced by Thompson) from a variety of characters, including celebrities, the 'very shy' band (Alfredo Sauce and the Shy Fellas) allegedly hiding behind the set's curtain, room service, a duplicate Geoff, and Miriam, a possible stalker who confused Ferguson with former host
Craig Kilborn. Ferguson called his Twitter followers his "robot skeleton army." Generally one or two celebrities were interviewed; Ferguson started each by dramatically ripping up note cards written for the interview, "signalling to the audience, and to the guest, that this conversation need not be rigidly managed." At the end of an interview, Ferguson usually asked his guest to engage in one of various rituals; options included "Awkward Pause", "Mouth Organ", "Guess What the Queen Is Thinking", the "Big Cash Prize," or simply joining Ferguson in throwing
Frisbees at the show's "horse,"
Secretariat (actually two interns dressed in a pantomime horse costume). Occasionally Craig requested Thompson (as Geoff) to interpret the thoughts of Secretariat or others, in one of a variety of celebrity voices, most notably
Morgan Freeman. During a guest appearance, Morgan Freeman described Thompson's prompted vocal impression of himself as "impeccable". Sometimes the show featured a
stand-up comedian or a musical guest, the latter of which was typically pre-taped. A "photo of
Paul McCartney" joke (wherein Ferguson called for a photo of McCartney, which was actually a photo of actress
Angela Lansbury and vice versa); the show often used variations of this gag featuring other pairs of look-alike celebrities, such as
Cher being shown as
Marilyn Manson, and a picture of
Ann Coulter being shown whenever Ferguson requested a photo of
Tom Petty. The show ended with "What Did We Learn on the Show Tonight, Craig?", a segment that started with an animation of a kitten and in which Ferguson "removes his tie, puts his feet on his desk, and summarizes the preceding hour of TV." Since the introduction of the Geoff character, Ferguson usually discussed the day's lesson with the robot. Ferguson's tenure included the show's first
high definition broadcast, on August 31, 2009. In March 2010, the
Late Late Show won the
Peabody Award for Excellence in Television for its "Evening with Archbishop
Desmond Tutu" episode. According to the Peabody Board, "the Scottish-born Ferguson has made late-night television safe again for ideas." The show had
Peter Lassally as its executive producer through Ferguson's entire tenure. Lassally had previously been executive producer of
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,
Late Night with David Letterman, and
Late Show with David Letterman. In April 2012, CBS announced that they had reached an agreement with Ferguson to extend his contract through 2014. As part of the deal, the network began co-producing
The Late Late Show for the first time. From the beginning of Ferguson's tenure as host until August 8, 2012,
The Late Late Show continued to originate from Studio 58 at CBS Television City, as it had dating back to the show's origins under Snyder. Ferguson often joked about the studio's small size, leaky roof, and poor lighting. On August 27, 2012, the program moved down the hall to the much larger Studio 56. Though the look of the main desk set was similar to the one in Studio 58, the extra space in Studio 56 allowed for more audience seating, a
fireplace set for Geoff Peterson, an entrance & monologue set, a musical performance area, as well as a
stable set for the show's pantomime horse, Secretariat.
Ferguson's departure Ferguson's contract was set to expire in June 2014. His contract called for him to be first in line to replace
David Letterman as host of
The Late Show. Because CBS chose
Stephen Colbert for that position, Ferguson reportedly received a windfall of as much as million (equivalent to $million in ). On April 28, 2014, Craig Ferguson announced he would leave
The Late Late Show at the end of the year. He had reportedly made the decision prior to Letterman's announcement but agreed to delay making his own decision public until the reaction to Letterman's decision had died down. He had also originally intended to leave in the summer of 2014 but agreed to stay until the end of the year to give CBS more time to find a successor. His last show was December 19, 2014, and began with Ferguson performing "Bang Your Drum" with many of his guests over the years banging drums, including
Desmond Tutu. The show featured
Jay Leno as Ferguson's guest and cameos by
Bob Newhart and
Drew Carey in the closing segment, a parody of the finales of
Newhart,
The Sopranos and
St. Elsewhere.
Transition (January 2015–March 2015) In the interim between Ferguson's departure in December 2014 and James Corden's premiere on March 23, 2015, CBS scheduled a number of guest hosts to helm the program. Repeats of Ferguson's show finished out 2014.
Drew Carey hosted the week of January 5 and did so again the week of March 2, while CBS daytime talk show
The Talk aired a special week of
The Talk After Dark episodes on the week of January 12. Other guest hosts included
Judd Apatow,
Will Arnett,
Wayne Brady,
Whitney Cummings,
Jim Gaffigan,
Billy Gardell,
Sean Hayes,
Thomas Lennon,
John Mayer,
Kunal Nayyar,
Adam Pally,
Jim Rome,
Lauren Graham, and
Regis Philbin.
Peter Lassally remained executive producer during this period and retired from television after a six decade career with the taping of Arnett's show on February 20, 2015, in which Lassally appeared in a
cameo. Shows that aired for the rest of February, into March, had been pre-recorded in January for later broadcast in order to give CBS time to dismantle the Ferguson set and traditional audience seating, and build out a new set and audience arrangement for Corden's show. Shows taped by Cummings, Philbin, and Pally originated from
New York and were recorded without an audience from Studio 57 at the
CBS Broadcast Center, the home studio for
CBS This Morning. Repeats were to fill out the two weeks between the final new Carey-hosted show on March 6 and the premiere of Corden's show on the 23rd.
James Corden (2015–2023) On September 8, 2014, CBS announced that
James Corden would succeed Ferguson as host on March 23, 2015. His show, originally slated to premiere on March 9, 2015, was delayed by CBS to March 23, 2015, in December 2014, in order to use the
NCAA basketball tournament as a means of promoting Corden's debut, and prevent a situation where two episodes would be pre-empted during the first week of the tournament. Corden's hosting tenure was the first to have a house band (the lack thereof having been a running joke during Ferguson's tenure);
Reggie Watts served as the franchise's first and only bandleader. David Letterman's contract included the right to control the time slot that follows his and produce the
Late Late Show and it was his production company, Worldwide Pants, which selected previous hosts. With Letterman's departure, CBS became the sole producer of the show. Many of the show's segments, including the recurring
Carpool Karaoke (where Corden sang with celebrity guests in a car), became
viral videos online, with the show's
YouTube channel having the second-highest number of subscribers among all associated with American late-night talk shows. On April 28, 2022, Corden announced that he would step down as host in 2023, stating that "I always thought I’d do it for five years and then leave, and then I stayed on. I’ve really been thinking about it for a long time, thinking whether there might be one more adventure." ==Retirement and replacement==