A bit from a recent Late Night with Seth Meyers episode caught some viewers’ attention for the wrong reasons last week.
Like all late-night shows, Late Night was in reruns as the show’s staff enjoyed the holiday break. On January 1st, the show’s scheduled repeat was its December 11th episode (featuring guests Eddie Redmayne and Kyle Mooney). However, that episode also featured an extensive bit in which Meyers admits to running over pedestrians with his car—a conceit that played differently when it re-aired on New Year’s Day, given the New Orleans truck attack that occurred in the early hours of that same day.
The New Orleans attack saw a man with apparent ties to The Islamic State drive his car through crowds of people on Bourbon Street and then engage in a shootout with police, killing 14 and injuring at least 35 others.
Meyers’ desk piece, titled “Seth Forgives Himself,” found the host listing the things he “lets go of guilt” for, including procrastinating, overeating, and accidentally hitting a jogger with his car. As the segment went on, he revealed he had hit dozens of other joggers, including one intentionally.
Of course, the Late Night segment predated the New Year’s Day tragedy in New Orleans, as did NBC’s decision to re-air the episode on January 1. Still, the unfortunate coincidence turned some heads, with several fans taking to the r/sethmeyers subreddit to voice their surprise that nobody at NBC had thought to pull the episode in light of the events.
“Why did they allow this rerun today?” a poster wondered.
“It was presented in very poor taste! They should have pulled it,” replied one commenter.
“I’m kind of shocked they didn’t pull the episode and replace it with another rerun,” said another.
Another commenter suggested the most likely scenario is that the coincidence of content simply didn’t occur to anybody in advance of the episode’s re-airing, particularly with many employees presumably on their own holiday breaks.
Late Night with Seth Meyers took centerstage on NBC 24 hours earlier on New Year’s Eve, with the network devoting its stroke-of-midnight programming to the show’s Day Drinking with Seth Meyers New Year’s Special. Late Night returns with new episodes this Tuesday, January 7.
