The Whats Won Late Night This Week

We had a lovely running gag this week in late night. A joke about a woman finding a cow’s tooth in her Torchy’s taco bombed on Monday, so they gave it another go on Tuesday. And Wednesday. One of the most fun parts of writing comedy is coming up with alt after alt after alt for a joke, pulling ever-increasingly stupid punch lines out of one’s ass. And the late-night viewing public got to be a part of that process this week, thanks to Late Night With Seth Meyers.

But the big story this week was Katie Zacharia’s one-week tenure as White House press secretary. Every show got their jabs in, but Jordan Klepper on The Daily Show did it best. It started from the premise that Klepper had made a whole welcome package for Zacharia that he didn’t want to waste, and it just got dumber from there. “Are you aware of what it’s like to spend six days working on a piece about the new press secretary and then have her get fired in five fucking days?” he asked exasperatedly. Good-bye, Katie, we hardly knew ye, and yet we still didn’t like ye. Here are some jokes with more staying power.

5. 
HIGNFY Is a Part of This Community

The “I’m a part of this community” meme spread on my TikTok “For You” page completely devoid of context. And I still wouldn’t know where it came from were it not for Have I Got News for You. As part of an overall delightful show (Amber Ruffin’s gleeful cackles were particularly fun, more on that later), the HIGNFY crowd discussed the hero of D.C. and her defiant defense of Ilhan Omar and the surrounding community. Of which she is most certainly a part of.

4. 
Liam Neeson Reads Copy

Ever since The Naked Gun, the dynamic between Seth Meyers and Liam Neeson has been really interesting. Neeson is like a friend of Meyers’s dad or the 40-year-old line cook who befriends a hostess at a Ruth’s Chris. Neeson came to Late Night with his own bit (reading prepared remarks from the Mongoose PR team), and it was fun. But it was listworthy because of the history between host and guest and off-camera mutual Akiva Schaffer. Righteous kill.

3. 
Jon Stewart Wants to Speak to a Manager

Once again, Jon Stewart is putting on a one-man show, and once again I am lolling. This time, he used clips of Trump and Marco Rubio to simulate the typical customer-service interaction— or lack thereof — under late capitalism. The rotating-hosts setup on The Daily Show has its fans (given Stewart’s recent contract extension) and its detractors (Roy Wood Jr.). But if it helps hosts shine bright for the scant days they’re on TV, then I say let it keep going.

2. 
Jimmy Fallon Goes Mad

The Tonight Show briefly descended into a Brechtian surreal theater of cruelty this week when Jimmy and the gang played a game in honor of the NBA season’s start. The game’s intro devolved into a Saw-esque monologue, then Fallon made a dude drink pond water. Or reservoir water, whatever. There’s something so unsettling about a game show where the contestants’ well-being is not considered, and The Tonight Show leaned into that uncanniness to great effect.

1. 
Amber Ruffin Roasts Skydance

Amber Ruffin had a banner week in late night. First, she tore on HIGNFY, laughing with delight at every mistake Republicans made with their pre-midterms attack ads. Then she had one of the best “Amber Says What” segments in years. It felt like a reinvention of the segment’s wheel. The runner about the book Ruffin made Meyers buy about all her favorite things was great, as was the “The More You Know” recurring clip. Plus, Late Night With Seth Meyers won a very prestigious award during the segment. Was it an award Ruffin made up? Sure, but a win’s a win. But the real zing was the insults she threw at Skydance. Ruffin is right. “Skydance” does sound like a My Little Pony more than an omnicorp whose stock is tanking literally and figuratively as we speak. I bet its magic power is friendship.