You can’t really argue about what is the hottest show in late night.
Unless you’re only counting “television” shows, or you’re keeping track of “time.” As in TV time periods.
Maybe that will matter to Emmy voters when nominees for the category that contains all the familiar late-night shows—Kimmel, Fallon, Colbert, Meyers, et al.—are announced next week.
But fair is fair: The category is for Outstanding Talk Series. Nothing in that genre is “hotter” at the moment than the spiciest talk fest in show biz: Hot Ones, the entertaining melding of celebrity interview and celebrity intestinal distress that has become a phenomenon on YouTube.
Yes, that’s not really “television.” But what is anymore?
So why shouldn’t Hot Ones, which has racked up more 13.5 million subscribers on YouTube—along with a total of 30 billion views during its near-decade in production—be permitted into the category with traditional late-night shows and the buzzy Netflix entry, John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA?
It should. Hot Ones—a show that feeds guests as many chicken wings soaked in tongue-igniting, throat-scalding, gut-enflaming hot sauce as they can tolerate, while asking them questions about early career influences and beyond—has been building popularity with viewers and celebrity guests for years. And it has now reached a point where it has achieved definitive culture crossover status: parodies on Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons.
But if it does manage to displace a more conventional late-night show and elbow its way into the Outstanding Talk Series category, Hot Ones will owe a big debt to a true legend in late night.
Here’s the backstory:
Hot Ones, the “dumbest idea” (his description) that a really creative guy named Chris Schonberger ever had, has become a surprise hit. They’ve booked guests as varied and celebrated as Will Ferrell, Jennifer Lawrence, Ricky Gervais, and Billie Eilish—not to mention a slew of late night stars—to sit with ace interviewer Sean Evans to reveal their innermost emotions while their innermost entrails are being lit up like the aurora borealis by helpings of incendiary wings.
It’s not a big-budget show. The format is basic: talk, eat; eat, talk; drink buckets of water and milk. The set is even moreso: a table, a black tablecloth and background, a bunch of hot sauce bottles; a host and guest. No monologue; no cue cards.
Celebrities have come to love it, and love being a part of it, which Schonberger attributes largely to Evans’ journalistic approach, impressive deep research skills, and his willingness to share the pain.
A few years ago, when talk of competing for Emmys first came up, Hot Ones was assigned to the Daytime Emmy Awards. (Evans earned a nomination for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host in 2021, while the show got a Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show nod the following year.) Mainly because the show posted on YouTube at 11 a.m. on Thursdays. Which had nothing to do with when people watched it, of course.
“To me, Hot Ones occupied a similar space in the culture to the traditional late-night show,” Schonberger tells LateNighter. You had the trappings: host, desk (well, a table), celebrity guest usually appearing to pump up a latest project. There are even, says Schonberger, some “recurring bits,” such as remembering tag lines from a guest’s old movies or why a certain picture was on their Instagram.
The show has a decidedly “cheeky” side as Schonberger puts it (enjoying that approach came from spending summers in England, his mom’s native land.)
Said cheekiness includes touches like dramatic music themes playing up the tension as the volcanic levels on the sauce bottles mount up. Does the music sometimes sound like Jaws? It sure does. “We want to create a little foreboding,” Schonberger says.
Having shocked themselves by breaking through into the zeitgeist, Schonberger and Evans wanted to promote themselves as challengers for the ultimate recognition. “We put a lot of work into it and we take it seriously,” Schonberger says. “So of course want to compete for the awards.”
The rules for getting consideration to make it as an Emmy nominee limit talk shows to exactly one episode to enter. That meant Hot Ones needed an episode that truly went all out to grab a viewer by the throat (and gullet.)
Enter Conan O’Brien.
Hot Ones had considered O’Brien a “dream guest” as far back as its initial potential guest list because, as Schonberger says, “Conan is a legend of American comedy.” It took nine years, but this past April Conan arrived—and the sparks flew.
Conan professed to not even eat spicy wings, disparaging their power to make strong men weep, then chowed down with unrestrained gusto. He poured extra sauce on every wing, licked them like ice cream cones, rubbed them all over his face, downed gulps of sauce straight from the bottle, and consecrated his nipples with the liquid lightning.
Evans seemed to shrink back in horror, as though O’Brien might actually explode.
“I had never seen showmanship live in the flesh at that level before,” Schonberger admits. “At some level he was like an athlete able to tap into this frequency where he didn’t even feel the pain he was so focused.”
If given gold, a smart producer spends it. “I’ve never told anyone,” Schonberger says when asked which episode they had selected for their Emmy entry. “But we entered the Conan episode.” I mean, who would question Max Bialystock: “When you’ve got it baby, flaunt it.”
An appearance from what Schonberger called a “late-night titan” would emphatically justify the inclusion of Hot Ones in the category typically designated for the traditional late-night shows.
It’s a competitive category, but Schonberger thinks it would be “kind of poetic for the legacy and the lineage of the category.”
Of course, Hot Ones may not end up even scoring a nomination—not with the storied talents of the current late-night era (plus Mulaney) all in there vying.
“It’s unbelievably competitive,” Schonberger says, but it’s also a testament to what Hot Ones has accomplished.
“We went into this with the humility of a chicken-wing talk show on the Internet,” says Schonberger. “We’re just happy to be in the conversation with people who inspire us.”
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