Dave Rubin critiques late-night television, contrasting Greg Gutfeld's profitable, lean operation with Stephen Colbert's $100 million budget and $40 million losses. He laments the loss of Johnny Carson as a unifying figure who avoided political controversy, arguing entertainers should not sway public opinion. Rubin concludes by highlighting Paramount's five-year, $1.5 billion deal for 50 new South Park episodes, framing it as vital support for edgy comedy that fights power amidst industry consolidation. [Automatically generated summary]
He was supposed to be Anakin Skywalker of the story and then went to the dark side too.
He was the one that could have defended liberalism when it needed to be defended.
And he went all in on the gender shit and everything else.
Guys, no one is due a job.
It does not matter that Stephen Colbert was number one in late night with 2 million viewers when the overall viewership of late night is absolutely dumping out and he's losing $40 million.
Can you check how many viewers a night does Guttfeld get?
So Guttfeld, we'll get the exact numbers on it in just a second.
Guttfeld, I do his show all the time.
I love Greg.
He's great.
The show is sloppy and weird and it's not overly scripted.
He has like three writers.
He may only have two.
I'm not even sure.
But he has two or three writers.
They have like seven other people on staff and they create just like a fun, silly show.
So it's making money for Fox.
And you're not going to believe this.
Corporations are in business to make money.
What is he averaging?
He averages three million nights.
So Colbert is not number one.
And I don't know why they kept saying that.
I know Guttfeld's number one in late night.
So he gets a million more viewers.
He has, Gutfeld, I'm telling you, he has maybe 12 people on staff.
So that means that with 200 people on staff and a $100 million budget, Guttfeld's doing a bit of a better job.
So let's end on this.
How do we get past all of this stuff?
All of this stuff is that there's something beyond politics out there.
And there used to be something that brought us together.
And in some sense, guys like Jon Stewart and guys like Stephen Colbert and all of the rest of these guys, Kimmel, et cetera, et cetera, it's like you guys ruined.
You ruined something that was so precious in America because we put all, no matter what we fought about during the day, in the old days at night, we pretty much watched the same things.
When those late night shows mattered, it was pre-internet, but we pretty much watched those things together and we could put aside all of the bullshit.
It did not matter.
And there used to be a guy who did that night after night after night.
And his name was Johnny Carson.
Take a look.
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People say he'll never take a serious controversy.
Man, can you imagine if we had a little bit more of that?
I told you guys yesterday that when I was in high school, I used to, like, I was a good kid.
I wasn't smoking crack or anything.
I was in bed usually by 9.30, 10 o'clock.
And the last night of the Johnny Carson show, I made sure to stay up that night because I would occasionally see little clips of Johnny Carson.
I don't even know how I did it pre-internet.
But I just, I loved the guy.
I thought, here's this guy who he just seems like a nice man behind the desk having fun with some friends.
And I suppose a little bit of that translated into what I do right now.
Actually, people say to me a lot of times, older people say to me, when I do stand up or I'm doing shows or I'm on a book tour or something, I always have my hand in my pocket when I'm talking on stage.
And that was a Johnny Carson thing.
It wasn't, I wasn't emulating him.
It was just something that he would have his hand in his pocket when he was doing the monologue.
And I always thought there was something he was just like, oh, he's just some guy doing something, not this overly produced, hyper-partisan lunacy.
We don't want that anymore.
We want something else.
And I would say the proof is in the pudding and the proof is in the numbers.
And speaking on the numbers, they just showed me this to end the show.
But look at this from Culture Crave.
Paramount has struck a five-year deal worth $1.5 billion with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 10 new episodes a year.
So they're going to give the South Park guys who are edgy, who are doing real comedy, who do things on the fly, who fight the power and all of those things, 50 episodes, $1.5 billion.
And of course, Paramount is the parent company of CBS, which just fired the guy who was losing 40 mil.
So it's nice to have a little cash in the bag so that we can get more of the poop thing from South Park and the tranny teacher and the wrestling and other things that they're doing on that show.