science

Late Night (franchise)

Late Night (franchise) is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Late Night (franchise) rather than just read about it. In short: Late Night is an American late-night talk and variety show airing on NBC since 1982. Late Night has had four hosts: David Letterman (1982–1993), Conan O'Brien (1993–2009), Jimmy Fallon (2009–2014) and Seth Meyers (since 2014).

Key takeaways

Late Night (franchise) belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Late Night (franchise) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Late Night (franchise) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Late Night is an American late-night talk and variety show airing on NBC since 1982. Late Night has had four hosts: David Letterman (1982–1993), Conan O'Brien (1993–2009), Jimmy Fallon (2009–2014) and Seth Meyers (since 2014). Each iteration of the show was built around its host, and maintained distinct identities aside from the title, time slot, and network. The longest-serving host to date was O'Brien, who hosted Late Night with Conan O'Brien for almost 16 years, from September 1993 to February 2009.

Hosting history

American television ratings (late-night talk shows)

History

David Letterman

The show replaced The Tomorrow Show, hosted by Tom Snyder (and later co-hosted by Rona Barrett), on Mondays through Thursdays. It did not expand to Fridays until 1987, when Friday Night Videos was moved back an hour to accommodate a five-day-a-week Late Night. Late Night originated from NBC's headquarters building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, inheriting Studio 6A from Tomorrow (it was also the studio for Letterman's morning program in 1980). The program ran four nights a week, Monday to Thursday, from the show's premiere in February 1982 until May 1987. Friday shows were added in June 1987 (NBC previously aired Friday Night Videos in the 12:30 am slot with occasional Late Night specials and reruns). Starting in September 1991, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was pushed back from 11:30 pm to 11:35 p m, with Letterman starting at 12:35 am, at the request of NBC affiliates who wanted more advertising time for their profitable late newscasts. In mid-1993, E! Entertainment Television purchased broadcast rights to Late Night. The network aired complete shows from various years five days per week from 1993 until 1996. Then Trio (owned by NBC) picked up reruns and showed them from 2002 until the channel went off the air in 2005. In 2022, David Letterman launched his official YouTube channel, which contains clips from this show and his previous morning and later Late Show programs. A number of programs were sold by GoodTimes Entertainment in 1992–93. These episodes were stripped of the series theme, open and close. No DVD release is currently scheduled (GoodTimes went bankrupt in 2005). A total of 1,819 shows were broadcast during its eleven and a half year run (an episode on January 16, 1991, went unaired due to pre-emption for coverage the beginning of the Gulf War; the program had already been shot before word came out of Baghdad that United States airstrikes were beginning). Peter Ustinov was a guest on the one-shot "360-degree" episode, during which the show's image gradually rotated 360 degrees during the course of an hour.

Transition from Letterman to O'Brien Upon Johnny Carson's unexpected retirement from The Tonight Show in 1992, executives at NBC announced that Carson's "permanent guest host" Jay Leno would take over Tonight, and not David Letterman. This was done against the wishes of Carson, who had always seen Letterman as his rightful successor, according to Worldwide Pants senior vice president Peter Lassally, a onetime producer for both men. NBC later claimed that Letterman's high ratings for Late Night was the reason it kept Letterman where he was. Letterman was bitterly disappointed and angry at not having been given The Tonight Show job, and, on Carson's advice, walked away from NBC after eleven years on Late Night. CBS signed Letterman to compete directly opposite Leno's Tonight Show at 11:35 PM. He moved his show over to CBS virtually unchanged, taking most of the staff, skits, and comedy formats with him. However, NBC owned the rights to the Late Night name and much of the intellectual property created for the show, forcing Letterman to rechristen his show as Late Show with David Letterman and re-title many of its signature comedy elements. ("Viewer Mail" became "CBS Mailbag"; sidekick Calvert DeForest was no longer called "Larry 'Bud' Melman", but instead used his real name, etc.) However, some recurring elements, notably "Stupid Pet Tricks", actually dated from Letterman's earlier morning show. Those elements were Letterman's property, not NBC's, and carried over to the new show completely unchanged. NBC was faced with an unexpected need to replace not just Letterman, but Late Night itself. The network still owned the name, but needed to essentially build a new show from scratch. The show was first offered to Dana Carvey and Garry Shandling, both of whom turned it down. Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels' company, Broadway Video, replaced Carson Productions and Letterman's Worldwide Pants as the show's co-production company, in partnership with NBC Studios. Michaels took a leadership role in redeveloping the show, and comedians Jon Stewart, Drew Carey, and Paul Provenza all auditioned for the hosting role. Michaels suggested to O'Brien, an unknown writer for The Simpsons and former writer for Saturday Night Live, that he should audition for the job. Despite having "about 40 seconds" of television-performance experience as an occasional extra on Saturday Night Live sketches, O'Brien auditioned for the show on April 13, 1993. His guests were Jason Alexander and Mimi Rogers, and the audition took place on the set of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. O'Brien was offered the show on April 26, 1993, and made his first meaningful television appearance later that day when Leno introduced him on Tonight.

Conan O'Brien

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Late Night (franchise)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Late Night (franchise) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Late Night (franchise) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Late Night (franchise) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Late Night (franchise)

In research: Late Night (franchise) appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Late Night (franchise) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Late Night (franchise) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1980s American late-night television series, 1980s American sketch comedy television series, 1980s American variety television series, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Late Night (franchise) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Late Night (franchise) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Late Night (franchise) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Late Night (franchise) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Late Night (franchise) in simple terms?

Why does Late Night (franchise) matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Late Night (franchise)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Late Night (franchise).