Generations of young funny people have dreamed of one day hosting their own late-night show.
Traditionally they’ve staged shows in their bedrooms or basements, with crayoned graphics on posterboard, a hairbrush for a mic, and their little brother as a sidekick. Maybe their dog Spike was the audience.
Now they have YouTube, and access to a potential audience of millions of other young people who identify with their dreams of show-biz success and celebrity life.
Julian Shapiro-Barnum is a passionate member of the wannabe late-night star club, as he confessed last night in the premiere episode of his new YouTube late-night entry, Outside Tonight.
He said there was no studio “backing” for the show, though YouTube itself announced Outside Tonight alongside new shows from other platform stars like Ms. Rachel and Trevor Noah at its first Creator Premieres event in New York City last fall.
Does this little frisson of activity make it seem as though the enormously successful platform is dipping its toe into some late-night waters to test them without getting substantially wet? It’s not entirely unwarranted speculation—after all, for all its struggles, late night remains one of traditional TV’s most reliable draws on YouTube
Shapiro-Barnum is an established YouTube performer with legions of followers for his show Recess Therapy, on which he interviews kids outside in New York City, finding out their feelings about life and stuff.
It’s been a significant success, with many of its videos of kids being adorable and funny going viral, and people like Amy Poehler and Michelle Obama appearing as guests.
That inspired the young man—he said on the air that he’s 26—to create this late-night entry, which is unabashedly aimed at the under-30 audience that has largely bolted from traditional late-night shows.
Shapiro-Barnum acknowledged in the show’s premiere that “late night is struggling,” citing Colbert’s cancellation and Kimmel being taken off the air temporarily. He also said “Conan died last night,” but that was a “joke.”
Shapiro-Barnum clearly has familiarity with the traditional late-night format. He hosted his guests last night from behind an actual desk, even though he had no set. The show was shot in Wagner Park in the Battery, which made for a nice backdrop when some city skyscrapers came into view.
He stood up for a monologue; the guests sat on a couch of sorts; indie rocker Beach Bunny performed; there was a pre-taped bit about a delivery to a bird-watcher; and the show even had a game segment, where guests including Poorna Jagannathan from the comedy series Deli Boys tried to guess which of four people was sober, over-caffeinated, drunk, or high on drugs.
(You may have seen a very similar segment on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.)
The major difference between this and what networks have been putting on in late night for the past 70-plus years was that this new entry was unself-consciously under-professional in both look and sound. The freewheeling style—hand-held mics and cameras, casual dress, frequent f-bombs, and a tiny audience, which included all three of the host’s mothers—was the point.
Though boasting much better production values, in some ways the show was reminiscent of way-back alternative late-night shows from Channel J in New York, which featured “avant-garde” fare like The Ugly George Hour of Truth, Sex, and Violence and Midnight Blue—minus all the indecency.
Shapiro-Barnum is more wholesome, as well as energetic and comfortable on camera; he has been shooting things like this since childhood. He plays to the group most likely to be interested in the show: young people not yet committed to adult-world concerns, many of whom populate New York apartments.
Age was the stated, and restated, theme of the premiere: resisting growing up, and how strange the world of people over 40 might be.
A segment interviewing three people over 70 about their sex lives may have been meant to be illuminating, though their answers were entirely conventional. They still have interest in sex; they are attracted to attractive people, like tennis players and Scarlett Johansson; they have all experienced sexual adventures in their lives.
In other words: consistent with the species Homo sapiens.
The A-guest was Caleb Hearon, a stand-up, actor (The Devil Wears Prada 2) and, inevitably, podcaster. He got couch treatment and answered questions about things like the most immature thing about him, whether he resented younger people (he’s 31), and when he thought his life would peak. Thirty-five, he said.
Beach Bunny fit the musical guest formula—drums and electric guitars. Several of their songs have gone viral on TikTok, which meant they fit well with the ambience. They also managed to sound fine, which probably wasn’t easy outdoors in a New York City park at night.
Outside is in the title, and there was no faking that. The production handled the technical challenges well, and the security detail obviously did good work because no New York park wanderers wandered onto the set.
Then again, they might have been cut out. The show was tightly edited, much as Shapiro-Barnum’s kid interviews are. You can’t expect kids to be consistently cute and funny in real time, just as you can’t expect a TV premiere performed alfresco to be flawless.
Maybe a little more flaw would help, though. All the editing undercut the spontaneous mood the show was going for.
Is Outside Tonight the future of late night? Who knows? But it certainly looks like nothing it’s trying to do will ever wind up losing $40 million a year.
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