By Brian Boone

As they’re generally big money-makers for their respective networks with a reliable and sizeable audience, late night talk shows rarely get pulled off the air. CBS just did it with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but it’s only ever happened occasionally in TV history.

The Don Hornsby Show (1950)

What’s now known as The Tonight Show was originally the first ever late-night talk show, and it was called Broadway Open House, debuting in May 1950. That program started with such a generic title because it was a necessary last minute change. The time slot had been earmarked for The Don Hornsby Show, featuring 26-year-old nightclub comic and silly song singer Don “Creesh” Hornsby. It was cancelled before it even began, because Hornsby died of a rapid-onset form of polio the day his show was supposed to debut. 

The Las Vegas Show (1967) 

Daniel Overmyer owned so many TV stations around the country that in 1967 he decided to use link them into a fourth broadcast TV service called the United Network. The first show was the daily two-hour late-night variety program The Vegas Show, produced and aired live from the Hotel Hacienda in Las Vegas. Comic Bill Dana (best known for his now very dated ethnic humor, playing a Latin American stereotype named José Jimenez) presided over an orchestra and sketch performers, and hosted guests to the nightly party-like atmosphere. Because the United Network didn’t have as many stations as the competition, it had to air on those other network’s affiliates, and they didn’t work too hard to promote it. Low initial viewership meant The Vegas Show couldn’t secure advertising, and after 23 episodes it went off the air… along with the United Network as a whole.

Thicke of the Night (1984) 

The Alan Thicke Show, hosted by affable musician, producer, and TV personality Alan Thicke, was so popular on Canadian daytime TV that it ran in primetime as Prime Cuts, and that was so highly viewed that American company Metromedia enlisted Thicke to host a syndicated late night talk show to go head to head with Johnny Carson, whose The Tonight Show had dominated the daypart since 1962. The future star of Growing Pains was no match for Carson; it lasted just nine months, and in some areas, it registered a 0.0 rating, meaning nobody in several big American cities was watching Thicke of the Night. Metromedia so abruptly cancelled the series in June 1984 that it had to rush on a replacement show to appease affiliates, and that was the old-school showbiz fest The Jerry Lewis Show. Headlined by the once-popular movie comedian, it made it just a week.

The Chevy Chase Show (1993) 

After Johnny Carson retired from NBC’s The Tonight Show, late night was wide open. Jay Leno inherited Tonight, David Letterman started The Late Show on CBS, and Fox hired comedy movie star Chevy Chase. The Chevy Chase show premiered in September 1993, taped at a theater Fox paid $1 million to renovate. On the program, Chase shot hoops on staged, played the piano during breaks, and did a variation of the “Weekend Update” segment he did on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. It also earned some of the worst reviews ever for a TV show. By week two, the show was re-airing segments from the first week and had to bring in nearby retirement home residents to populate the studio audience. Even the fish in the onstage aquarium died. Five weeks in, Fox cancelled The Chevy Chase Show, and had to pay him around $9 million to buy out his contract. The network never programmed a late night show again. 

The Problem with Jon Stewart (2023) 

After Jon Stewart left The Daily Show in 2015 after 16 years, he re-emerged in 2021 as the host of the similar show, The Problem with Jon Stewart, available on the brand-new streaming service, Apple TV+. The series was abruptly ended in October 2023, with Apple citing creative differences with the show’s host and chief writer. Six months later, and back on The Daily Show, Stewart revealed in an interview with Federal Trade Commission head Lina Khan that he’d tried to book her on The Problem, but was prevented from doing so by Apple, in part because they feared they’d take a critical stance on Apple-backed artificial intelligence initiatives. After quarrelling over the matter, Apple solved its Problem.