Vance DeGeneres’ late-night story began before most people even knew what late night could be. In 1974, he and his roommates were shooting Super 8 comedy shorts in New Orleans; within two years, one of them—Mr. Bill—was airing on Saturday Night Live’s first season.
As he tells Mark Malkoff on this week’s Inside Late Night, that overnight success eventually came with complications—but late-night TV wasn’t done with him just yet.
Twenty years later, he returned to the time period, this time as a correspondent for The Daily Show during Jon Stewart’s first week as host. His audition piece—a field report from Saskatchewan about a farmer predicting weather by licking pig spleens—aired that Thursday. The next day, the show was asking how quickly he could move to New York.
DeGeneres recalls how the series was still finding its voice, but already sharpening its political edge—especially on a New Hampshire trip with Steve Carell and Mo Rocca during a Republican debate, when candidates and reporters weren’t quite sure if the trio was legitimate press or something else entirely.
Click the embed above to listen to Vance DeGeneres’ full conversation with Mark Malkoff now, or find Inside Late Night on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
