I've been a fan of Conan O'Brian for almost a decade now. I think he's a genuine person with a razor-sharp wit and a great perspective on things, and I always enjoy his show.

Recently I decided to keep watching after Conan, and see what Carson Daly's show has to offer. I hate to post a purely negative thread, but I've been, quite frankly, appalled at how crappy Last Call is. His "jokes" are based on the trashiest elements of pop culture, are cheap and cruel, and worst of all, just aren't funny, period. Carson seems like a decent enough guy, but he's just not sharp in the way Conan, or even Craig Kilbourn or Jimmy Kimmel are. He spends much time nervously tossing pens back and forth on his desk, or doing similarly unprofessional things that just scream "amateur." It also bothers me how vague an awareness he seems to have of who some of his guests are. Sir Ian McKellan is a little more than "The X-Men guy", which is kind of what he seemed to be in Carson's mind.

I've seen a few borderline-clever bits on the show--some of the "Celebrities Are Just Like Us" shots are almost kind of funny. But that's about it. And the bandleader, Joe Firstman, is one of the most awkward talk show musicians ever to be corralled into a quasi-sidekick position.

I guess there's one good thing about the show--several semi-obscure indie bands have performed there, and it's cool to see bands like The Walkmen on TV (even if only at 2:00am).

I guess I'm just surprised that this show has remained on the air the last few years. There's not much of a point to this thread other than me getting it out of my system...though I am curious what other people think about this show. any thoughts?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Commontone,

I just see the ads for Carson, and a few seconds of Carson makes my brain hurt.

I've been getting into Craig Ferguson, whose long, freeform monologues are a step above every other talk show hosts'. Also, Tim Meadows' frequent appearances are hilarious.

Ferguson is very, very funny.

Carson Daly is a talentless, uninteresting waste of late night TV. Joe Firstman, who is a talented musician and songwriter, is the only good thing about the Carson Daly show, and that's only when he's playing musical director (which is, I think, a rotating thing). Daly's interviewing skills (or lack of them) only prove that he's not funny or interesting at all. At least Letterman can take a boring, formulaic interview with a brain-dead half celeb like Paris Hilton and make it funny.

Daly does give newer indie artists slots on his show, but I can't tolerate watching him try to interview those bands.

Daly's 'charm' (I don't get it, and it's the same "I don't get it" as Ryan Seacrest) might have worked for 13 year olds when he hosted MTV's shows, but it doesn't appeal to people past puberty, as far as I can tell.

He occasionally has a semi-funny joke on his show, but most of the time, he's either trying too hard or not trying at all. The only time I ever watched the show is when I want to keep watching something after Conan, and even though it's only a half hour, seems about as long as Conan's hour-long show due to it's bland boring tone. As for bandleaders, no one beats Max Weinberg.
NO ONE.

A while back he basically admitted how much of an amateur he is when he was intentionally replaying unimpressive moments from his show and saying they were his clips for Emmy consideration. One of them was him saying "Ok, here's my next guest, wait, do I have my questions for my guest?"

In time, he might build up a better reputation as a talk show host, maybe even moving up to 12:35 when Conan moves to 11:35, but for now, he has needs lot of work before he joins the ranks of Letterman, Leno, and Conan.

i had the, uh, honor of sitting through a taping of last call a couple of years back. a friend of mine "scored" passes through a magazine he was writing for at the time. the only interview guest on the show was bob costas; talk about the two most boring white bread television personalities alive. needless to say, it was dreadful; carson has zero genuine charisma and is about as funny as a SARS epidemic. the upside was a musical performance by me first and the gimme gimmes, who were slated as musical guests for the entire weeks worth of tapings. my friend and i approached fat mike after the taping and asked him if the band lost a bet to` someone. mike laughed; it was all he could do, i suppose.