Guess she didn’t pass the audition.
Ellen DeGeneres, who’d been mentioned as a possible replacement for retiring “Late Show” host David Letterman, tried her hand at late-night comedy in a sketch scheduled to air on Thursday’s episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
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“I am very flattered but I really love doing my daytime show. And nighttime is very different,” DeGeneres admits during the segment. “There’s a lot of political humor, which I don’t do. But I feel you don’t know if you’re good at something until you try it. So I’m gonna see what it would look like if I did do a late-night show. ”
The skit begins with DeGeneres struggling to emerge from behind a curtain before launching into her faux late-night monologue with the wisecrack, “I haven’t had that much trouble coming out since 1997.”
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DeGeneres goes on to deliver her Top 11 list — an homage to Letterman’s Top 10 routine.
The topic of the list? “Top 11 Favorite Pets of Mine.”
“Number 1 – Wolf. Number 2 – Mabel,” DeGeneres begins, before quickly derailing the list. “No that’s mean, I don’t wanna hurt Mabel’s feelings. I’m gonna say number one is Wolf and no, ya one is Mabel and two is Wolf.”
Of course, DeGeneres’ stab at late-night humor was all for naught, aside from maybe a chuckle or two — CBS announced Thursday that “The Colbert Report” host Stephen Colbert will be replacing Letterman when he retires next year.
Watch the video to catch a glimpse of what might have been: