Late-night newcomers hope to enliven the midnight shift

Patrick Ryan | USA TODAY

What do the founder of Nerdist and the voice of the E-Trade baby have in common? They're both heading to late-night TV.

Comedians Chris Hardwick and Pete Holmes are premiering their shows, @midnight and The Pete Holmes Show, on Monday and Oct. 28, respectively. Both half-hour programs air Mondays through Thursdays at midnight ET/PT, and are preceded by late-night veterans of the time slot (@midnight by The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central; Pete Holmes by Conan on TBS).

That is where the similarities end for these newcomers, who hope to pump fresh blood into a late-night circuit dominated by the new guard (Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel) and old guard (Jay Leno, David Letterman) of veteran hosts. With the help of popular lead-ins, network executives and programmers are hoping to tap into the demographic of young-adult males who characteristically are up until the wee hours, where they're catered to by the likes of Adult Swim, Fox (on Saturdays) and ESPN.

"I think that's where a lot of our audience is living and consuming content," says Kent Alterman, president of Comedy Central's content development and original programming. "Traditionally, prime-time is considered 8 to 11 (p.m.), but for the purposes of our own audience, it's probably more aptly described as 10 (p.m.) to 1 (a.m.)."

Comedy Central has long wanted a nightly post-Colbert show, and Conan hasn't had a late-night companion since LopezTonight was canceled in 2011. Both Colbert and Conan have much higher concentrations of younger men than broadcast-network talk shows.

Recruiting young fans is desirable for any network, says TBS President Michael Wright, who believes that Holmes' "contemporary, fresh" voice will be the perfect companion to the already young-skewing Conan. As a programmer, his job is to "give people what they want, but also give your audience what they don't know they want yet," he says, referring to Holmes. "It's a way to expand the brand, evolve, and grow."

So what could make or break these longtime stand-up comics as they settle into their new roles as late-night hosts? Opening monologues, for starters, which are "so important in defining who you are," but also in targeting a core audience, says Ron Simon, curator of television and radio at the Paley Center for Media in New York.

"Sometimes it's best to develop a loyal fan base and then try to broaden out, or you can try to reach a larger audience from the beginning," Simon says.

Despite the pressures of carrying an entire half-hour program, Holmes is trying not to sweat the ratings or narrow his appeal.

"I think just by being honest and true to myself, we are going to skew younger," Holmes says of his show. "I'm just trying to make the things that make me laugh, which — I don't know what that says about me and my maturity — happens to be the same things that young people might enjoy."



CHRIS HARDWICK, @MIDNIGHT

An outrageous hashtag on Twitter or a scathing review on Yelp: No social-media outlet will be shown mercy when Hardwick and his rotating panel of comedians poke fun at them on @midnight, from the folks at Funny or Die. The show is receiving an initial four-week commitment from the network.

Using a game-show format in which the comic with the funniest jokes is declared the "winner" every night, Hardwick and his team will scour the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Vine and Yahoo! Answers for comedic material. Think of it as Jeopardy! for social media, but instead of guessing the correct answer, you get points for hilariously captioning an image or dreaming up a ridiculous hashtag for a tweet.

"It's very British at heart," Hardwick, 41, says. "It's really just a structured reason to bring comics together to make fun of all the topical things they saw that day that came up in various social-media outlets."

If anyone is up for the task, it's Hardwick, who founded the multimedia empire Nerdist Industries. With its website, podcasts, YouTube channel and social-media components, Nerdist caters to those passionate about pop and nerd culture. Hardwick's Comedy Central stand-up special, Chris Hardwick: Mandroid, aired last year, and he also has hosted Talking Bad and the current Talking Dead, talk-show companions to AMC hits Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.

Add Hardwick's years as a stand-up comic to the mix, and his progression to late-night TV was only a matter of time. After the pilot for a more tech-minded show was not picked up by Comedy Central about a year ago, the network asked if he'd like to host a new show produced by Funny or Die, the comedy website co-founded by Will Ferrell. Hardwick agreed, and helped develop what is now @midnight over the course of several months.He describes the show as the best comedic representation of his personality.

"It's so much fun and so silly," Hardwick says. "It's all guilty-pleasure stuff that we're making fun of, so it should be a nice comedown from using your brain a lot on the Daily Show and Colbert. We want to hilariously glide people to sleep and into their beds at night."

And what does the man who lampoons social media for a living actually enjoy on various outlets? For starters, he follows such celebrities as Anna Kendrick, Seth Rogen and Dean Norris on Twitter, along with "nerdier" choices including Joss Whedon, Buzz Aldrin and the Doctor Who official Twitter page. Oh and there is his fondness for the "Socially Awkward Penguin" meme.

Hardwick also has his share of geeky obsessions, which include playing BioShock Infinite and participating in cosplay (or costume play) with his girlfriend at conventions such as Comic-Con.

"I actually have an insect collection that I'm really proud of it, but unfortunately, a lot of it's in a freezer," Hardwick says. "OK, that sounds creepy."

PETE HOLMES, THE PETE HOLMES SHOW

With his first foray into late-night comedy, Holmes is hoping to reimagine the usual talk-show format. And how exactly does he intend to do this? By delivering personal monologues that aren't pulled from the headlines, matched with more Saturday Night Live-style digital shorts and non-celebrity-driven interviews with his fellow comedians.

"No one booked so far is promoting anything," Holmes says. "I'm going to be sitting down with people that I'm actually excited to see and have a good chemistry and rapport with, and just let those moments play out."

Holmes' résumé is just as wide-ranging as his sense of humor. He has written for sitcoms such as Outsourced and I Hate My Teenage Daughter, performed stand-up on Conan and Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and had his cartoons appear in The New Yorker. You probably know him best as the voice of the E-Trade baby in the popular TV commercials, or as the harebrained "Badman" in CollegeHumor's series of Batman parodies online.

After appearing on Conan twice and meeting with O'Brien and producer Jeff Ross, Holmes was surprised to learn that they wanted to pitch a late-night show to TBS with him at the forefront. It's an experience that Holmes describes as "very surreal" and "a literal dream come true."

"Every time I see (Conan) he makes fun of me and talks about how he's going to crush me and revoke his endorsement," Holmes says. "But when it gets down to it, it's the most nurturing, mentor-mentee relationship that I've ever had. He's always available and here for me personally, whether it's over dinner or lunch, over the phone or e-mail."

The show, which has been given an initial seven-week commitment by TBS, moves at a brisk pace to accommodate its half-hour time slot, yet fans will be able to enjoy longer versions of sketches, interviews, and other in-studio segments online. As Holmes likes to put it, "The show will be as long as people like it to be, but the TV version is going to be a half-hour."

Holmes' first-week guests include comedians Kumail Nanjiani and Chelsea Peretti, but he'd also like to snag face time with celebrities such as Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Gosling (his self-professed "man crush") down the road.

"I have straight crushes as well," Holmes says. "I'd like to get Kate Upton on just so I could look at her."

Fans of his popular podcast You Made It Weird shouldn't fret: He plans to continue it and his various stand-up gigs. In the meantime, he'll focus on The Pete Holmes Show and — of course — Grand Theft Auto V.

"Right now, it's the show, go home, one cocktail, one mission of GTA, and then I go to bed," Holmes says. "It's not bad, man, it's a satisfying life."