Ryan Williams was a segment producer and talent booker for all eight-plus years of The Late Late Show with James Corden, booking all of the stand-up comedians on that show. Before that, Williams held similar jobs at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Show with David Letterman. Williams joined me over Zoom during his first week of unemployment after the end of Corden’s show to talk about his start as an intern with Letterman, watching submission tapes for Stupid Human Tricks and Stupid Pet Tricks, booking talent for Letterman, Fallon and Corden and how the hosts and shows differed, and what the future might hold for stand-up comedians on late-night TV. Or late-night TV, for that matter.
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This transcript has been edited and condensed only slightly for your convenience.
Up until a few days ago, your life was booking stand-up comedy on TV for the better part of two decades, right?
That was a huge part of it. Yeah. I did book other guests for all the shows that I worked on as well. Not solely booking stand-up. But stand-up is definitely the thing that I’ve booked that I'm the most proud of on the show.
I don't know anybody who grows up and when asked, What do you want to be when you grow up? And they go, oh, I want to book stand-up comedy. Where did the idea of being even like behind the scenes of television as a segment producer, as it were, where did that start to germinate for you?
I grew up a huge fan of Late Show with David Letterman. My parents were big fans. They went to New York for their anniversary to sit in his audience. We would watch taped Late Shows after dinner at like 8pm. I went to school in Maryland, so kind of working in a late-night show didn't really seem like something that was possible until I was at a party and met someone who was just coming back from an internship at Saturday Night Live. I thought, wait a minute, you can live in Maryland and then go to New York and then come back and have an experience like that? So I thought well, I've got to apply at Letterman. And then I also love The Daily Show. I also love SNL. I'm going to apply to these three places. Letterman brought me in for an interview, I think mostly because I was working with the on-campus television station. I think that's one of the things they really looked for, and brought me to New York to be an intern and I got the internship and it was the highlight of my life and I got to meet Pat Farmer and I got to meet Art, the receptionist, and I got to meet all of the sort of behind the scenes cast and characters of the Letterman show that I'd grown up kind of laughing at over the years. Started there in the human interest department, which is part of the talent department and our goal was kind of to always find weirdos from like Small Town News. Find Stupid Human and Pet Tricks. And so from there kind of took on more and more responsibilities. Until at one point I don't know if you remember, but there was a kerfuffle with Letterman’s stand-up booker at the time who did an interview with The New York Times that didn't go down well, and they needed to find somebody to kind of fill that role. And the way they did that, I think was really creative, is that they gave three junior members of the staff — a writer's assistant, one of the executive producer’s assistants, and the talent kind of guy — the opportunity to start like putting together stand-up showcases. So we weren't in a decision-making kind of capacity, but we were on the frontlines, finding funny people to put on one after the other at Carolines, so the executive producers could watch and say like we like that guy, or we like that gal.
Well, you just kind of spent through six years of your career in that answer, so let's take a step back. So your internship — I love that there's a department called human interest, not to be confused with human resources, and that involves Stupid Pet Tricks and Stupid Human Tricks.
Also politicians and chefs and people from the news. Your subway heroes, your Captain Sully Sullenbergers, like those types of people who don't necessarily have representation, like an agent or manager or something like that or a publicist.
But those ones you're coming across because they show up in a headline somewhere. Whereas Stupid Human Tricks: How many videos are you watching to decide which ones to actually invite?
That is one of the things that's most interesting about — not to toot my own horn, but the career — I was there when it went from people submitting submissions on VHS and other forms of cassette tape. So literally, had one of those things, a VHS tape where you could plug all their different sizes of tape into it and still watch it on your VCR. So we would get like a handful of submissions that way from fans of the show. But then, my job was to call different CBS affiliates all around the country and ask them if they wanted to put on Stupid Pet and Human Trick auditions. It's a great sort of marketing opportunity for you to work with a local pet store or to reach out to a local car lot. It’s an event that'll bring a lot of people that radio might show up, but to see all the people who came, and so that was maybe the first two years and then YouTube got invented, and everything sort’ve shifted immediately towards YouTube. Where I would get like an email through the Stupid Pet Trick mailbag, and whereas before I would have to say you know, find a friend with a camcorder and put together a video submission reel, I can just say click on this, make it a private link, say like, Hi, my name is Tanya, I can tie my legs in a knot and then do it, and we'll be able to give you really quick feedback either way, but it really changed the game.
When it got to YouTube, then you're not relying on the local affiliates to do competitions for you, what were your guideposts in terms of — you're sitting here like you're now sitting in front the computer, you're watching a private YouTube video, how do you decide to pull the trigger and go, this one's worth bringing in?
It's kind of like that thing about pornography where you know it when you see it. Sort of the thing that you always kept in mind are that this isn't about circus acts. You know, if somebody's coming out with a bunch of juggling pins and tossing them around, that's not a Stupid Human Trick. A Stupid Human Trick is something that somebody could do in their garage or you know, at the bar or someplace with a minimum of props that is either a display of some sort of physical talent that you've never seen before, or an odd combination of ideas, or an adorable person doing ridiculous things. There were like a lot of different ways to kind of land in that sweet spot, but it was very much you know it when you see it kind of thing.
Because you started on Letterman pre-YouTube, that also was a time when Letterman was probably the be-all end-all for stand-up. You had Letterman, Leno to a certain degree, but comics didn't see that as prestigious as doing Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. So we had Letterman, Conan… and Ferguson?
Ferguson had a lot of stand-up on at that time, or at least would have new names on that I didn't know from New York,
There was still this sense back then, that to go on Letterman, you needed to wear a suit. Did that come from Dave? Did that come from Eddie Brill?
Honestly, I think that that just came from one of those unstated cultural facts that everybody kind of just accepted was part of the reality of it. It was never like a mandate or something embroidered on a pillow in the green room or something like that. But there were always times when somebody would sit down for a guest spot wearing less than a suit. (Dave) was like, ‘Oh, thanks for getting dressed up for us.’ And I think that it kind of just spiraled out of that.
The other thing. I noticed this just as a viewer on TV as well as being in the audience, but also talking to a number of stand-ups — the thing about performing in the Ed Sullivan Theater is that you might have a six-minute set, but because of the way the audience responds, you might only do three minutes of it because there's so many more applause breaks for whatever reason. What did you see?
I learned very quickly and it was more when I started booking at Fallon. It was oh my god, this set ran four minutes, 45 seconds in the club. How are we now at six minutes? Now I have to go and sit in the edit room because the chat is really great, and the games are really great and the comedy is really great. So we really need to find a minute in the stand-up because everyone was expecting it to be five minutes. So in that sense, that is very real. A late-night audience is going to stretch a stand-up set out. You've got to kind of build into it if you can.
Is there something psychological about being in a studio audience that makes them clap? Because I know it's not always flashing applause signs.
Sometimes there was a flashing applause sign. One place I worked they did have a flashing applause sign that I got the plunger for and was encouraged to hit when the audience wasn't responding to a really funny joke. The rhythms are different. You know, at a stand-up comedy club, everything is very fast-paced the whole time. And on a late-night talk show, it's now we're in a commercial break, now we're, you know, it kind of plods along in a certain way. And I think the pace in general is just slower on a late-night talk show. One thing we did at Letterman that I want to bring up because I think it's so interesting is the one rule that we did get was no hand mics everybody had to be clipped with a lavalier because that's the way Dave did it. That's the way the monologue was and it would look silly if we suddenly had a microphone on a stand somewhere. I was never told that directly, but I think that that was like a preference thing from Dave. It's like I don't get the benefit of using a hand mic. Why are we giving it to these guys? That kind of mentality.
Of course Dave came from originally being the local TV weather guy. So he was used to that kind of format.
And I think he saw that this is a television show. We're not in a nightclub. There's no reason for him to have a mic on a mic stand. It doesn't make sense to him, kind of logically.
He has a YouTube channel now and he's doing things for Netflix. But in the beginning of the social media era, he was also famously anti social media. I think he was making jokes every day for a long period about Twitter, or would misspell web addresses as w w w dot w w w slash dot whatever.
He would try to figure out how to tweet at Jimmy Fallon or tweet at whoever. And I think a lot of that came from a real place and as you saw in that Netflix interview with Kim Kardashian where he has this phone that looks like it's been carved out of a pool noodle or some kind of protective wrapper and layers of duct tape. He's not a very digital guy.
That kind of like puts the onus on you even more, especially when you come into the job, on the heels of my buddy Jason Zinoman profiling Eddie Brill, a guy who I've known for over two decades. What was that like in in the building?
It just felt really unfortunate, like everybody really liked and continues to like Eddie. He was a really sweet guy. And it just seemed like, reading the article, it was like, why does this exist? You know what I mean? Like who gained something out of this? And that was kind of a feeling, I guess, in the building, is just like why?
But then the job falls on you and two other people. Was there then sort of inherent pressure at the start to OK, well, we're gonna book different people now, obviously, in response, we can't book the same kind of people?
We kind of mostly were grappling I think with the learning curve, more than like kind of changing the direction of the show or something like that. We wanted to see as many people as possible as quickly as possible in the beginning just to kind of get our feet wet in the world and meet as many people as we could and so we’d have showcase after showcase after showcase for just is when we found people to kind of put into the more executive producer showcase.
And then everything was kind of viewed through the lens of is, is this a type of comedy that will like tickle Dave’s fancy because wherever you're working, the first member of the audience is the host. If the host ain't happy, ain't nobody happy kind of a thing. That was the first lens, and then it was also about trying to prove that we could do it. So one of the first people I tried to book, I saw Todd Barry was going to be in town and called up his representation. I said, I know it's been you know, maybe a decade since Todd Barry's done stand up on a late-night talk show he usually does panel, but you know, if he would want to come on and do five minutes, we'd be thrilled to have him. That was also a part of it, of trying to kind of keep the level of talent as high as it was in terms of name value, but then also kind of branch out more in terms of not having the same people on again and again and again.
What made you then decide to join the the enemy ranks and go from Letterman to Fallon?
It was a really unique and interesting opportunity like that comes along so rarely in the late night world, where Dave announced he was going to be leaving the show, and Fallon’s Late Night was going to become the Tonight Show. And I had heard kind of just from other people coming and going with stand-ups on the show that they didn't really have a stand up booker for Tonight Show settled. So I thought you know if there's ever going to be an opportunity for me to step away from you know, booking people who can turn their chest into a cereal bowl and eat with a spoon to something a little bit more legit, this seems like it. I put together a cover letter and resume and send it in blindly and didn't hear anything back for a couple of months and then got a response. So the Letterman show was coming to an end and this other new thing was beginning so it seemed just like the logical choice, and everybody at Letterman was so excited for me when I left.
What did you notice in terms of directions from your bosses or directions from the network? Or even just the fact that you're, you're booking people for a different venue? In terms of the 30 Rock studio versus Ed Sullivan Theater? What did you notice in terms of the differences right away?
I think there was much more of an emphasis on name value on The Tonight Show and it had a deemphasis on the actual content of the set. And I think that was discouraging after a while and had a lot to do with why I eventually ended up leaving to move to Los Angeles. But it didn't feel like the stand-up that we were putting on TV few and far between was sort of the most creative choice. We had some sets on there that I'm still really very proud of but also had some sets on there that were just like, really, is this what we're going to put on TV tonight? Just because it's a star, you know what I mean?
So then you left Fallon for the start of the Corden era?
Yes. A supervisor of mine from the Letterman show who ran the whole talent department there, was one of the people they brought onboard to run the talent department at Corden, and I was very fortunate that she thought of me and knew I'd be capable of doing the jack of all trades kind of work that would be necessary in that spot. Who could book a stupid human trick, who could book a presidential candidate, who could book a stand-up comedian and can book a musical performance? Offered more than just a very narrow limited set of skills.
Also, I mean, working for Corden and dealing with a host and executive producer who are British, so they might have a different sensibility, but then you're also dealing with a later time slot so you can probably get away with more interesting choices, right?
Absolutely. I think that was one of the reasons that was encouraging. OK, like if there's ever going to be a place to kind of have these more creative people on this is going to be it.
Did you have more interaction with one of the hosts than the other two?
Dave was very isolated, as I'm sure anyone who's connected to the show would tell you. Jimmy was very personable with the staff. Corden by far was the most engaged and involved with everybody on the show, from the staff, to the crew to the guests in the dressing room, he by far spent the most time kind of face to face with the people who are coming through.
Booking for Corden was also a little different because it's the one show, it's kind of co-opting some British formats in terms of talking to the guests at the beginning. So it's the one show where the stand-up gets to do a little hello first.
I think that came from the Muppet Show, as far as I know, that they would have the celebrity guests in the opening skit every night or they'd go around and there'd be a knock at the dressing room door. I haven't watched enough of the show recently to know exactly where we lifted it from. But I remember hearing that that was one of the inspirations for that. And to be honest, when the show started, I was told that there was no interest in booking stand-ups really. This is a chat show. This is going to be people on the couch. As excited as we are that you did that in the past, we don't really think that there's going to be a need for that here. In the production of a daily talk show it becomes clear quickly that to have something that reliably and consistently and humorously fills an act of the show that's incredibly valuable. And I think also said that they weren't really that interested in stand-up but then they hired people like Ian Carmel, Nate Fernald, James Davis, Sean O'Connor, Jared Logan, Dylan Adler, like they hired really funny stand-ups and I think that those stand-ups advocated for stand-up very early on. They were like James, why don’t we haven't any stand-ups on the show? And then that kind of opened the door for me to kind of start booking them.
At a certain point they did put Ian in front of the camera as a de facto sidekick.
And I think that that was one of the original. That's what they wanted to do with the show from day one. Whereas they wanted to have kind of around the horn feel, where it's like, we're talking to Reggie, we're talking to Ian, and we're talking to the EP over here, but I think pre-pandemic that was very frowned on by the suits, like the people who very much wanted it to fit a more traditional format.
What did you think during the pandemic, basically, all the late night shows did their own different thing but what did you think like watching how the other shows adapted versus what you guys are doing?
I think challenge breeds incredible creativity. And I think these were a bunch of shows that felt very stale, and it was the same thing every night and had been that way for 20 years. And when the people had the rug pulled out from under them and still kind of had to go on with the show. You saw the best of all of them. And it was really reinvigorating, just as a staff member of the shows. It felt like we're all in the trenches together. We've got to figure this out. Some things aren't going to be like they normally are. You know, it kind of felt like trying to build a civilization after an alien invasion or something like that. Like we have to refigure out how we're gonna do everything. It was a really inspiring time in a lot of ways just to kind of see people go on with the show.
What did you think of The Tonight Show beaming in stand-ups who were pre-taped remotely?
It's really hard to fill an act of a show when you have to generate so much content. I think that that probably had as much to do with filling time as it did to like continuing to put consistent names on the show, but I might be wrong about that. That's complete speculation.
I mean pre-pandemic, Jimmy Kimmel opened up his own club in Vegas and was shifting it there.
I’m not sure. Kimmel for some reason never had a lot of stand-up on but the stand-ups that they did have on generally were pretty good. I remember being impressed when they had Martin Urbano on pretty early, I was like this is a really funny weird set.
What is the value of a stand-up comedy set to a late night show? And then what is the value to the stand up comedian?
I would say the value of a stand-up set to a late-night show is you have one act of the show, that's kind of already taken care of, a self contained performer that you can bring in not going to have as many logistical hurdles as bringing in a seven-piece band or something like that. So the costs are much lower and the time involved is much lower. Then you also get the cultural credentials of having this funny person on your show. Whether you're making someone's late night debut, and they go on to great things or something like that, there is a certain amount of pride that comes from the fact of like, Oh no, yeah, we had so and so and then they want to do this huge movie or something like that. Beyond that, on the show side of things, I'm not sure if there's any real value, because I don't think stand-up ever drove people to tune into a late-night talk show. You know what I mean? Even on Carson I don't think that the people were tuning in for the stand-up. They were tuning in for Johnny Carson. So I'm not sure that does much in terms of viewership stand-up on late-night. For the stand up themselves, I think that it's really great credential and I think that a credential of any kind is still really important in the stand-up world. Like anytime a stand up goes onstage you usually hear before they take the mic you hear the three or four TV spots they've gotten so obviously it matters to them for some reason. And I think it matters from a marketing standpoint as these people are trying to get college shows and things like that. If they can say you know, I was on Corden and here's my clip. I think that there's nothing better than that to prove that you're up for the challenge or that you're a responsible stand up comedian or that kind of you've been vetted in some way.
Jena Friedman has a new book out, and she talks about wanting to — I guess she would probably talking with you about this — about trying to get get a bit on Corden with her newborn.
Before we went off the air I really wanted to get a scandal in. And so I did my best I had a dream career up until that point. I am so glad I got one in under the wire.
Were there other examples of performers or ideas that you really wanted to try to get on and just for whatever reason couldn't?
1,000% Like there are super funny people out there who just for whatever reason, it doesn't kind of fit what people think of as the late-night talk-show form. And people who got very close and people who had a really strong three minutes but were still looking for another minute and a half. But in terms of promoting an exciting point of view. There are a couple like that like Benny Feldman, I think is someone who is hilarious. I would have loved to have him on the show. He's a comedian with Tourette's. He's super funny, and has got such a unique point of view. But yeah, I think we've done a pretty good job.
Were there other acts that just got outright rejected by any of the three shows you were at? like, I really wanted this person on and they really just said Nope?
There were things that were kind of non starters. I remember one time at Letterman, somebody referenced polio in their stand-up, it was like a toss off just a filler for any kind of disease. And someone higher up the chain was like, there is nothing funny about polio. And so it's just like, OK, let's find something else. For the most part, you want to avoid things that have a chance of making anybody in the audience uncomfortable. And you also want to avoid stuff that has the opportunity of not aging well. Or the one thing that I kind of always think of that's the silliest example of this is I considered like airplane stuff a non starter, or especially anything about like a bomb on an airplane or anything like that. Like if there was a chance that this person was going to be booked and then something would happen that morning. You know, like, that was a great fear for whatever reason.
At Corden, there were also a few times where the staff was able to mount parodies of stand-up. I know Nate did a couple of them. Reggie did one right near the end. What was the impetus for those?
In Nate's case, he just had a really funny idea and James liked it. So we did it. I don't think there was anything beyond it about that as like a commentary on stand-up. And then Reggie, just as we were ending, we wanted to go to him and he also performed music on the show. This is your last chance to sort of get your creative ya-ya’s out if you want to do anything, let's do it. And he kind of said I want to be Morvin Splaversby, and then it kind of went from there.
So I guess the question is twofold. What's next for you and what's next for stand-up on TV?
One of the reasons I reached out to you to do this is because up until this point, I have always had a job and I've always been in fear of losing my job and now it seems like this might be an opportunity of a way to possibly get a job. So if anybody listening to this likes what you have heard, I have a very specific set of skills that there is maybe no longer a market for. If you can imagine a way of fitting this puzzle piece into your organization, I would love to join it. But I am legitimately excited for this at midnight show. I have nothing to do with it. No knowledge of anything about it, other than Spartina and Stephen Colbert and the people that are in that atmosphere are very smart, funny people and that they'll do a great job. But I just hope it's not celebrities to be honest. Like that's the one thing that I think everybody is like, what if it's just you know, really funny celebrities? But I hope to get some new people on there. I hope it's not whoever's in town promoting the Marvel movie, which it very well might be. It could be a great opportunity because it was. So many people got onto television for the first time from that show, and have gone on to do great things.
If you could book your own show, what’s your dream show?
I think that's the whole thing. Nobody wants to do a whole show. That's like being President of the United States or something. You've got way too much responsibility on your hands.
You just want the human interest department?
Exactly. Gives me one little niche area that I can kind of squeeze the most out of that's sort of more of my style. If I could book any type of show I guess it would be like almost like a Chelsea Lately kind of panel show that would then almost kind of what David Spade was trying to do where he would do a panel thing and then also have a stand-up on. I think that that is a really fun way of doing it.
Yeah, I was surprised that Lights Out didn't go. Of course the pandemic threw a wrench into it too, but I really liked Lights Out. I thought that was a nice twist on it.
I watch a lot of stand-ups now on YouTube on podcasts. And it's still really funny and it's not a tight late-night stand-up set, but maybe a late-night stand-up set is a very specific thing. And it's maybe not it's time anymore.
My colleagues in the media are trying to write the obituary for late night TV. People are still gonna be up late and they want to watch something so what?
If it's the end of late night TV, then it's the end of TV. It's all streaming. Because late night TV is the people who've kept their TV on after watching it all day. And if there's nobody left to watch late night TV, that's because they didn't stay tuned through the local news. That's because they didn't care about what was on at 10pm. That's because they got all of their information that they consumed all day long from the screen that they have in their hand or the screen in front of them at work. That's the real thing that I think is going to hit late night television, is it used to be a digest at the end of the day where you can have all the day’s important news kind of relate to you in a funny way, you got to see the star that's going to be a movie at the box office that weekend. And you got to maybe see a little funny cat do a little funny trick. And hear a new bands that you hadn't heard before. And now every single one of those needs is served in a 45 second package on a TikTok or an Instagram Reel or some sort of online content provider. And if that itch doesn't need to be scratched anymore, maybe there's no need for a late-night talk show to exist.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. We're looking at this wrong. The way to save late-night TV is to save your late local news.
They are getting squeezed, like Roy Wood Jr. put a spotlight on that so amazingly at the White House Correspondents Dinner, I thought. They are getting squeezed. WhenI go home, and watch television in Western Maryland with my parents, it is prepackaged from some huge news conglomerate that exists somewhere. When I was growing up, it was you know, local yokuls kind of reporting on the street on their feet about what was happening, like local journalism. and it's only get worse.
Well, Ryan, thankfully you’ve joined me before things completely fell off.
I think that we are witnessing something very unique. And I think whenever that happens, it's an opportunity for great creativity. So I hope that's what comes out of it.