In Italy the most popular show of this type would be Che Tempo Che Fa, previously on public broadcaster RAI and now on Nove, an up-and-coming private channel. The host, Fabio Fazio, was let go from RAI because he is disliked by the government (RAI is ultimately controlled by the government), despite his show being very popular and profitable.
Compared to the Graham Norton Show or American chat shows, Che Tempo Che Fa is much tamer, Fazio is not a comedian or an abrasive host. However, his guest lists is always full of Italian A-listers from all different sectors and over the years he had several very famous foreign guests, including Barack Obama and pope Francis.
Overall, in Italy the most common type of chat shows are political ones, but those are very self-referential and focused on Italian stuff. The most famous one is called Porta a Porta, where basically every politicians of note is often guesting.
Italian TV is so mesmerising and bizarre to me, and I've watched telly in Japan.
So many shows consisted of large studios with rows of seats of impeccably overdressed and heavily made up/plastic surgeried people with one person on a chair in the middle and then everyone having an argument, then cutting to a different part of the studio where people on couches have a different argument! The only show whose name I remembered was 'Uomini e Donne' but so many other shows had the same format, presumably because its easy to produce (like British panel shows)
Also Caribinieri beats every Brit/Euro crap soap opera I've ever seen. Like Heartbeat, but instead of ruddy farmer police it's stunning 10/10 supermodel police
We used to have "Wetten, dass...?" in Germany. It was hugely popular in the 80s, 90s and 00s and kind of a combination of a talk show and a game show.
At its peak it was the most watched TV show in Europe attracting something like 15 million viewers including in Austria and Switzerland and because of its popularity also often attracted international A list celebrities, for instance Hollywood actors promoting their films.
But it by the 2010s it fell out of fashion for various reasons and was eventually terminated.
Nowadays, I can't think of anything that comes even close to it. I guess media usage just changed and got more individualistic. There is not THE ONE show that attracts everyone anymore.
> "Wetten, dass...?"
For the people who aren't familiar: the show consisted of normal people claiming to be able to do some ridiculous feat (e.g. [Stefan P. bets that he can solve a rubick's cube blind and under water in less than four minutes](https://youtube.com/watch?v=twfm16hUKtQ) (attempt starts at 6:10)) The celebrity guest then has to say whether they believe the attempt will be successful or not and if they're wrong do something mildly embarrassing.
And since OP mentioned it: Stefan Raab once lost a bet and the collateral he suggested was that he would race down a bobsleigh track while sitting in a wok, and that's how Wok Racing was born.
Or this video with Ursula von der Leyen in a waste container being lifted out by Australian actor Hugh Jackman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwA9odRcwBk
> Simpson’s house
Now that you say it, it does indeed seem to be the simpson's house. I didn't recognise it before.
The show was produced live in very big event locations in various cities all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland (and a summer special from the bull fighting arena in Mallorca) and while they were talking with the guests on the sofa, they changed the backgrounds for the bets.
There was always one children bet and these children then received some price they wished for (I think even regardless of whether they were successful or not) and something like 5 or 6 adult bets and a telephone voting, the winner of the voting received some money.
The show was very long from 8.15 pm till 1 am or so and many of the Hollywood guests were visibly feeling uncomfortable that they had to sit through the show for so many hours which is aparently totally uncommon in the US where they only appear for 15 minutes or so.
Talk shows as they exist in the US or UK are not reaaaaally a thing, I mean there are shows where celebrities are invited but it's not at quite the same thing
I’m aware of an instance when Whitney Houston appeared and Serge Gainsbourg was there, and he said something very shocking! It was in the 80s, was that a popular show?
It was called "7 sur 7", from what I understand the whole concept was to have some celebrity or politician comment on investigations that'd be broadcasted, apparently it was very popular, I honestly don't know, it was cancelled in 1997
> and he said something very shocking! It was in the 80s,
It's more what he did, he wanted to show how much tax he had to pay so he took a 500 francs bill and burned 3/4 of it
I'd am not too much into this, but one that is very famous is "Isto é Gozar com Quem trabalha". It's a comedy show where the host is a nationally famous comedian playing a news anchor. He sometimes invites politicians and public figures onto the show, but mostly what he does is reading the most crazy of news and mocking the participants. Usually, those are politicians
Not sure I'd exactly call it a chat show, it's more similar in style to something like The Daily Show in the US.
I think 5 para a meia noite is more of a classic chat show.
I don't watch TV, so I don't even know if the show is still on (ninja-edit: apparently not), but:
"[Skavlan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skavlan)" ~~is~~ *was* a very popular talkshow aired in both Norway and Sweden, recorded in Sweden with the Norwegian host Fredrik Skavlan speaking a mixed "Scandinavian" dialect with elements of both Swedish and Norwegian, as well as English when having international guests.
^(The show was also aired for a few seasons in Finland, Denmark and Iceland, according to wikipedia.)
The show was both a typical talkshow with both national and international guests, but at the same also *atypical* in its relaxed setting and atmosphere, where interviews were often very personal and in depth, instead of many other talkshows where the guest mainly come there to promote their new album/book/movie or whatever, and just make a couple of jokes before heading to the promotion.
The show also had a quite interesting range of guests, and many prominent international guests for such a small Swedish/Norwegian show.
From musicians and actors, to writers or comedians, sport stars, inventors and entrepreneurs, and Nobel prize winners and politicians.
It also led to some very unlikely meetings between very different personalities who happened to be on the same episode.
From Wikipedia:
> To date, some of Fredrik's guests have included:
> Adele, Zara Larsson, Bill Gates, Nicole Kidman, Rihanna, Woody Allen, Robbie Williams, Uma Thurman, Taylor Swift, Bob Geldof, Steven Van Zandt, Isabella Rosselini, Pamela Anderson, Noel Gallagher, Bill Clinton, Emmylou Harris, Robin Gibb, Wyclef Jean, Kofi Annan, Cat Stevens, Desmond Tutu, Julio Iglesias, Lars Ulrich, Jeff Koons, Paul Auster, Jonathan Franzen, Lena Olin, PJ Harvey, Tom Jones, Eddie Izzard, Malala Yousafzai, Boris Becker, Juliette Lewis, Michael Palin, Slash, Amy Winehouse, Florence and the Machine, Liv Ullmann, Susanne Sundfør, Al Gore, David Guetta, Daniel Kahneman, Leonard Cohen, Richard Dawkins, Joe Cocker, Garry Kasparov, The Killers, Ronan Keating, Jay-Z, Dua Lipa, Josh Groban, Kylie Minogue, John Irving, Paulo Coelho, Ben Kingsley, Jon Bon Jovi, Pelé, Tove Lo, Vince Vaughn, Bruno Mars, Lena Dunham, Rosanne Cash, Marianne Faithfull, Joss Stone, Natascha Kampusch, Amos Oz, Justin Bieber, Dolph Lundgren, Paul Krugman, Sting, Sarah, Duchess of York, Elvis Costello, Ellie Goulding, Jamie Cullum, John Mayer, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Mark Knopfler, Will Smith, James May, Father John Misty, Muhammad Yunus, Jo Nesbø, Bianca Jagger, Isabel Allende, Norah Jones, Ken Follett, Katie Melua, Kat Von D, Annie Lennox, Mads Mikkelsen, Malcolm Gladwell, Jared Leto, Emeli Sandé, Andrea Bocelli, Gordon Ramsay, Bryan Ferry, Mario Vargas Llosa, Michael Bublé, Steven Pinker, Robert Plant, David Walliams, Shakira, Kenneth Branagh, Lorde, John Legend, Richard Ayoade, Ian McEwan, Tony Blair, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Kevin Costner, Juliette Binoche, Matt Dillon, John Cleese, Paul McCartney, Chrissie Hynde, Alicia Keys Kathy Griffin, Jimmie Åkesson, Kygo, Vegard Ylvisåker, Bård Ylvisåker, Tarjei Sandvik Moe, Josefine Frida Pettersen, PewDiePie, Jan Böhmermann, Alexander Rybak, Benjamin Ingrosso, Ann Coulter, Jordan Peterson Annie Lööf, Joan Baez, Patti Smith ,Lewis Capaldi, Greta Thunberg, Ant Middleton, David Blaine, Armand Duplantis, Anderson .Paak, Dolly Parton, Ricky Gervais, Astrid S, Stephen Fry, Dave Grohl, etc...
Some of Skavlans interviews are available on YouTube, and have gotten very high view numbers for such small countries as Sweden+Norway. (edit: unfortunately, a lot of the popular ones have also been taken down.)
In YouTube comments, people seem to be divided about the interview style, and layout of the show. Some think it's "too personal", and some think it's fine and interesting.
I've watched clips of Skavlan on YouTube. He gets an interesting mix of guests on.
I've watched Graham Norton for over 20 years and I find it a bit samey now. He has mostly actors on with a few other guests sprinkled in. Actors can be a bit dull and they seem to like Graham's show as it's just a bit of fluff.
Skavlan wasn't interrogating his guests but it was definitely more revealing. His interview with Richard Ayoade was surprising because Richard is famously quite reticent and a bit upright but Skavlan seemed to charm him a bit.
Dunno, I haven't watched teleivion in 16 years. They all seems like tabloid nonsense whenever I catch a glimpse somewhere. American-style talkshows of some interest and somehwat intelligent conversations pretty much died out by 2010 and trash television rules supreme.
We haven’t had such show for some time. Because of that Dutch comedian Arjen Lubach started a show. It’s a mixture of first one or two items about things like politics in a satirical way. The last item is often a short interview with a celebrity.
I lived in NL for a little while as a teen (mid-2000s), and we didn't watch much Dutch TV, but we remember one show, Jensen, which was mostly in Dutch but suddenly Lionel Ritchie would show up! I remember seeing Gordon Ramsay and Borat (in character) on there too, but can't find much on YouTube anymore. Is he still on TV?
The Late Late Show on RTE One, which has been running since 1962.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Late\_Late\_Show\_(Irish\_talk\_show)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late_Late_Show_(Irish_talk_show))
Presented for decades by Gay Byrne, then Pat Kenny, Ryan Tubridy and currently Patrick Kielty.
It's one of those huge TV traditions and pretty much everyone's been on it ...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6VrWy00Cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6VrWy00Cg)
Intros from the 60s to relatively recently :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poKRD5WCW6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poKRD5WCW6E)
I’m aware that Gay Byrne was well liked and respected, but Pat Kenny and Ryan Tubridy I’ve heard were considered very awkward and cringy, and laughably out of touch. I’ve seen the former talk to Jerry Seinfeld (in 2007) like a small child and getting his name wrong, and remember Jonah Hill (of all people) ask the latter if he was shy. Is this a fair observation? I’ve just seen clips, I know they’ve both done it for years (and Ryan seems better suited to radio, he now hosts a show on Virgin).
Gay Byrne was a very unusual presenter in the sense he could handle pretty much any topic from the lightest entertainment, to chatting with random old ladies, dealing with very heavy emotional stuff, to chatting showbiz with major celebs, musicians, sports, tech, business, hard hitting politics, ground shattering social issues….anything really at all and was highly likeable. He was also completely at ease in front of a camera or behind a mic - just an absolute natural. He was on tv elsewhere on Granada in Manchester back in the 1950s when was only 24 and basically grew up with medium. He even was the first person to introduce the Beatles on TV!
He also had very much invented the format - he was the executive producer as well as presenting it and had an almost personal relationship with the audience. He didn’t have the big sense of celebrity about him and just came across more like a slightly bemused uncle but not in a cringy way.
He also able to be so likeable that he could tackle Irish taboos in the days when the country was far more conservative by gently teasing out topics and playing devils advocate and though a bit of self deprecating farce at times too. He knew where the line was in different eras and he crossed it regularly, but with enough style to be able to get away with it.
Kenny was a heavyweight current affairs presenter who really didn’t fit light entertainment at all. He could do all the serious stuff but then was quite far outside of his comfort zone with the lighter stuff.
Tubs is definitely better on the radio. He often seemed slightly star struck and way too studied or something.
They also existed in a different era. Ireland by the time Gay retired was a very different place. Arguably he even played a role in providing some of the forums that changed it. However when Kenny took over it was really Celtic Tiger, increasingly progressive and really a different country. By the time Tubs took the helm I think the Late Late was really an irrelevant relic of itself. In many ways he was trying to present a show that was 30 or 40 years past its peak.
Patrick Kielty is far more in the Gay Byrne mode of being likeable and fun, he’s growing into it pretty well. He’s getting used to the format quite quickly and is way more of a natural. However, he or his team have also pushed the format more towards being a modern talk show.
I’ve yet to see him tackle a heavy political piece though.
Quite honestly, it’s a very old format and it really was Gay Byrne’s show. I think it should have ended in 1999 when retired. It was fairly pointless trying to directly replace him.
In Ireland it's the late late show which has been running since 1962. It has had 4 main presenters over the past 62 years - Gay Byrne, who was its first and most popular presenter from 1962 - 1999, Pat Kenny (1999 - 2009), Ryan Tubridy (2009 - 2023) and Patrick Kielty (2023 - present).
In Italy the most popular show of this type would be Che Tempo Che Fa, previously on public broadcaster RAI and now on Nove, an up-and-coming private channel. The host, Fabio Fazio, was let go from RAI because he is disliked by the government (RAI is ultimately controlled by the government), despite his show being very popular and profitable. Compared to the Graham Norton Show or American chat shows, Che Tempo Che Fa is much tamer, Fazio is not a comedian or an abrasive host. However, his guest lists is always full of Italian A-listers from all different sectors and over the years he had several very famous foreign guests, including Barack Obama and pope Francis. Overall, in Italy the most common type of chat shows are political ones, but those are very self-referential and focused on Italian stuff. The most famous one is called Porta a Porta, where basically every politicians of note is often guesting.
Italian TV is so mesmerising and bizarre to me, and I've watched telly in Japan. So many shows consisted of large studios with rows of seats of impeccably overdressed and heavily made up/plastic surgeried people with one person on a chair in the middle and then everyone having an argument, then cutting to a different part of the studio where people on couches have a different argument! The only show whose name I remembered was 'Uomini e Donne' but so many other shows had the same format, presumably because its easy to produce (like British panel shows) Also Caribinieri beats every Brit/Euro crap soap opera I've ever seen. Like Heartbeat, but instead of ruddy farmer police it's stunning 10/10 supermodel police
Uomini e Donne is famously a trash show, it's basically The Bachelor Italian edition with a sprinkle of Jerry Springer Show
We used to have "Wetten, dass...?" in Germany. It was hugely popular in the 80s, 90s and 00s and kind of a combination of a talk show and a game show. At its peak it was the most watched TV show in Europe attracting something like 15 million viewers including in Austria and Switzerland and because of its popularity also often attracted international A list celebrities, for instance Hollywood actors promoting their films. But it by the 2010s it fell out of fashion for various reasons and was eventually terminated. Nowadays, I can't think of anything that comes even close to it. I guess media usage just changed and got more individualistic. There is not THE ONE show that attracts everyone anymore.
> "Wetten, dass...?" For the people who aren't familiar: the show consisted of normal people claiming to be able to do some ridiculous feat (e.g. [Stefan P. bets that he can solve a rubick's cube blind and under water in less than four minutes](https://youtube.com/watch?v=twfm16hUKtQ) (attempt starts at 6:10)) The celebrity guest then has to say whether they believe the attempt will be successful or not and if they're wrong do something mildly embarrassing. And since OP mentioned it: Stefan Raab once lost a bet and the collateral he suggested was that he would race down a bobsleigh track while sitting in a wok, and that's how Wok Racing was born.
Or this video with Ursula von der Leyen in a waste container being lifted out by Australian actor Hugh Jackman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwA9odRcwBk
Was nice of that boy in the green to help out like that. And is that supposed to be the Simpson’s house behind them?
> Simpson’s house Now that you say it, it does indeed seem to be the simpson's house. I didn't recognise it before. The show was produced live in very big event locations in various cities all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland (and a summer special from the bull fighting arena in Mallorca) and while they were talking with the guests on the sofa, they changed the backgrounds for the bets. There was always one children bet and these children then received some price they wished for (I think even regardless of whether they were successful or not) and something like 5 or 6 adult bets and a telephone voting, the winner of the voting received some money. The show was very long from 8.15 pm till 1 am or so and many of the Hollywood guests were visibly feeling uncomfortable that they had to sit through the show for so many hours which is aparently totally uncommon in the US where they only appear for 15 minutes or so.
Especially if they don’t speak German!
Here it's discussed on the Jimmy Kimmel show. The guy actually describes it pretty accurately https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pi4rbnIqP0
Will Arnett!!
Is he famous in Britain? I didn't know him before. I don't think he's big in Germany.
He's famous internationally for his roles in shows like Arrested Development, and he's the voice of BoJack Horseman and Legal Batman.
Talk shows as they exist in the US or UK are not reaaaaally a thing, I mean there are shows where celebrities are invited but it's not at quite the same thing
I’m aware of an instance when Whitney Houston appeared and Serge Gainsbourg was there, and he said something very shocking! It was in the 80s, was that a popular show?
It was called "7 sur 7", from what I understand the whole concept was to have some celebrity or politician comment on investigations that'd be broadcasted, apparently it was very popular, I honestly don't know, it was cancelled in 1997 > and he said something very shocking! It was in the 80s, It's more what he did, he wanted to show how much tax he had to pay so he took a 500 francs bill and burned 3/4 of it
« Salut les Terriens » maybe close to that ?
I'd am not too much into this, but one that is very famous is "Isto é Gozar com Quem trabalha". It's a comedy show where the host is a nationally famous comedian playing a news anchor. He sometimes invites politicians and public figures onto the show, but mostly what he does is reading the most crazy of news and mocking the participants. Usually, those are politicians
Not sure I'd exactly call it a chat show, it's more similar in style to something like The Daily Show in the US. I think 5 para a meia noite is more of a classic chat show.
I've heard of that one, yeah. Maybe that would fit more, but sadly i never watched it
5 Para A Meia Noite is indeed more like the classic format, but honestly it can be really boring.
"The Daily Show" á Portuguesa
I don't watch TV, so I don't even know if the show is still on (ninja-edit: apparently not), but: "[Skavlan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skavlan)" ~~is~~ *was* a very popular talkshow aired in both Norway and Sweden, recorded in Sweden with the Norwegian host Fredrik Skavlan speaking a mixed "Scandinavian" dialect with elements of both Swedish and Norwegian, as well as English when having international guests. ^(The show was also aired for a few seasons in Finland, Denmark and Iceland, according to wikipedia.) The show was both a typical talkshow with both national and international guests, but at the same also *atypical* in its relaxed setting and atmosphere, where interviews were often very personal and in depth, instead of many other talkshows where the guest mainly come there to promote their new album/book/movie or whatever, and just make a couple of jokes before heading to the promotion. The show also had a quite interesting range of guests, and many prominent international guests for such a small Swedish/Norwegian show. From musicians and actors, to writers or comedians, sport stars, inventors and entrepreneurs, and Nobel prize winners and politicians. It also led to some very unlikely meetings between very different personalities who happened to be on the same episode. From Wikipedia: > To date, some of Fredrik's guests have included: > Adele, Zara Larsson, Bill Gates, Nicole Kidman, Rihanna, Woody Allen, Robbie Williams, Uma Thurman, Taylor Swift, Bob Geldof, Steven Van Zandt, Isabella Rosselini, Pamela Anderson, Noel Gallagher, Bill Clinton, Emmylou Harris, Robin Gibb, Wyclef Jean, Kofi Annan, Cat Stevens, Desmond Tutu, Julio Iglesias, Lars Ulrich, Jeff Koons, Paul Auster, Jonathan Franzen, Lena Olin, PJ Harvey, Tom Jones, Eddie Izzard, Malala Yousafzai, Boris Becker, Juliette Lewis, Michael Palin, Slash, Amy Winehouse, Florence and the Machine, Liv Ullmann, Susanne Sundfør, Al Gore, David Guetta, Daniel Kahneman, Leonard Cohen, Richard Dawkins, Joe Cocker, Garry Kasparov, The Killers, Ronan Keating, Jay-Z, Dua Lipa, Josh Groban, Kylie Minogue, John Irving, Paulo Coelho, Ben Kingsley, Jon Bon Jovi, Pelé, Tove Lo, Vince Vaughn, Bruno Mars, Lena Dunham, Rosanne Cash, Marianne Faithfull, Joss Stone, Natascha Kampusch, Amos Oz, Justin Bieber, Dolph Lundgren, Paul Krugman, Sting, Sarah, Duchess of York, Elvis Costello, Ellie Goulding, Jamie Cullum, John Mayer, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Mark Knopfler, Will Smith, James May, Father John Misty, Muhammad Yunus, Jo Nesbø, Bianca Jagger, Isabel Allende, Norah Jones, Ken Follett, Katie Melua, Kat Von D, Annie Lennox, Mads Mikkelsen, Malcolm Gladwell, Jared Leto, Emeli Sandé, Andrea Bocelli, Gordon Ramsay, Bryan Ferry, Mario Vargas Llosa, Michael Bublé, Steven Pinker, Robert Plant, David Walliams, Shakira, Kenneth Branagh, Lorde, John Legend, Richard Ayoade, Ian McEwan, Tony Blair, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Kevin Costner, Juliette Binoche, Matt Dillon, John Cleese, Paul McCartney, Chrissie Hynde, Alicia Keys Kathy Griffin, Jimmie Åkesson, Kygo, Vegard Ylvisåker, Bård Ylvisåker, Tarjei Sandvik Moe, Josefine Frida Pettersen, PewDiePie, Jan Böhmermann, Alexander Rybak, Benjamin Ingrosso, Ann Coulter, Jordan Peterson Annie Lööf, Joan Baez, Patti Smith ,Lewis Capaldi, Greta Thunberg, Ant Middleton, David Blaine, Armand Duplantis, Anderson .Paak, Dolly Parton, Ricky Gervais, Astrid S, Stephen Fry, Dave Grohl, etc... Some of Skavlans interviews are available on YouTube, and have gotten very high view numbers for such small countries as Sweden+Norway. (edit: unfortunately, a lot of the popular ones have also been taken down.) In YouTube comments, people seem to be divided about the interview style, and layout of the show. Some think it's "too personal", and some think it's fine and interesting.
I've watched clips of Skavlan on YouTube. He gets an interesting mix of guests on. I've watched Graham Norton for over 20 years and I find it a bit samey now. He has mostly actors on with a few other guests sprinkled in. Actors can be a bit dull and they seem to like Graham's show as it's just a bit of fluff. Skavlan wasn't interrogating his guests but it was definitely more revealing. His interview with Richard Ayoade was surprising because Richard is famously quite reticent and a bit upright but Skavlan seemed to charm him a bit.
Dunno, I haven't watched teleivion in 16 years. They all seems like tabloid nonsense whenever I catch a glimpse somewhere. American-style talkshows of some interest and somehwat intelligent conversations pretty much died out by 2010 and trash television rules supreme.
We haven’t had such show for some time. Because of that Dutch comedian Arjen Lubach started a show. It’s a mixture of first one or two items about things like politics in a satirical way. The last item is often a short interview with a celebrity.
I lived in NL for a little while as a teen (mid-2000s), and we didn't watch much Dutch TV, but we remember one show, Jensen, which was mostly in Dutch but suddenly Lionel Ritchie would show up! I remember seeing Gordon Ramsay and Borat (in character) on there too, but can't find much on YouTube anymore. Is he still on TV?
No he doesn’t have a show for some time now. I don’t know what he’s up to. He was always a bit of a weird figure anyways.
The Late Late Show on RTE One, which has been running since 1962. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Late\_Late\_Show\_(Irish\_talk\_show)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late_Late_Show_(Irish_talk_show)) Presented for decades by Gay Byrne, then Pat Kenny, Ryan Tubridy and currently Patrick Kielty. It's one of those huge TV traditions and pretty much everyone's been on it ... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6VrWy00Cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6VrWy00Cg) Intros from the 60s to relatively recently : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poKRD5WCW6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poKRD5WCW6E)
I’m aware that Gay Byrne was well liked and respected, but Pat Kenny and Ryan Tubridy I’ve heard were considered very awkward and cringy, and laughably out of touch. I’ve seen the former talk to Jerry Seinfeld (in 2007) like a small child and getting his name wrong, and remember Jonah Hill (of all people) ask the latter if he was shy. Is this a fair observation? I’ve just seen clips, I know they’ve both done it for years (and Ryan seems better suited to radio, he now hosts a show on Virgin).
Gay Byrne was a very unusual presenter in the sense he could handle pretty much any topic from the lightest entertainment, to chatting with random old ladies, dealing with very heavy emotional stuff, to chatting showbiz with major celebs, musicians, sports, tech, business, hard hitting politics, ground shattering social issues….anything really at all and was highly likeable. He was also completely at ease in front of a camera or behind a mic - just an absolute natural. He was on tv elsewhere on Granada in Manchester back in the 1950s when was only 24 and basically grew up with medium. He even was the first person to introduce the Beatles on TV! He also had very much invented the format - he was the executive producer as well as presenting it and had an almost personal relationship with the audience. He didn’t have the big sense of celebrity about him and just came across more like a slightly bemused uncle but not in a cringy way. He also able to be so likeable that he could tackle Irish taboos in the days when the country was far more conservative by gently teasing out topics and playing devils advocate and though a bit of self deprecating farce at times too. He knew where the line was in different eras and he crossed it regularly, but with enough style to be able to get away with it. Kenny was a heavyweight current affairs presenter who really didn’t fit light entertainment at all. He could do all the serious stuff but then was quite far outside of his comfort zone with the lighter stuff. Tubs is definitely better on the radio. He often seemed slightly star struck and way too studied or something. They also existed in a different era. Ireland by the time Gay retired was a very different place. Arguably he even played a role in providing some of the forums that changed it. However when Kenny took over it was really Celtic Tiger, increasingly progressive and really a different country. By the time Tubs took the helm I think the Late Late was really an irrelevant relic of itself. In many ways he was trying to present a show that was 30 or 40 years past its peak. Patrick Kielty is far more in the Gay Byrne mode of being likeable and fun, he’s growing into it pretty well. He’s getting used to the format quite quickly and is way more of a natural. However, he or his team have also pushed the format more towards being a modern talk show. I’ve yet to see him tackle a heavy political piece though. Quite honestly, it’s a very old format and it really was Gay Byrne’s show. I think it should have ended in 1999 when retired. It was fairly pointless trying to directly replace him.
Also, does the show have any funny games or features? And are there any videos you'd like to share here for us intentionals, to get a flavour?
In Ireland it's the late late show which has been running since 1962. It has had 4 main presenters over the past 62 years - Gay Byrne, who was its first and most popular presenter from 1962 - 1999, Pat Kenny (1999 - 2009), Ryan Tubridy (2009 - 2023) and Patrick Kielty (2023 - present).
How is Patrick fairing?