Watching late-night hosts experiment with what they can do to keep their shows fresh and entertaining while self-producing them from home has been an interesting experience for all of us also stuck at home during the pandemic.
But maybe the most interesting experiment we’ve seen so far is Monday night’s attempt by Stephen Colbert of CBS’ “Late Show” and Conan O’Brien of TBS’ “Conan” to act as guests on each other’s shows while simultaneously hosting their own show.
As you might imagine, this led to the two hosts passive aggressively battling for dominance in the host role on both shows.
“So good to have you on my show, Stephen,” O’Brian said on his show.
“A lesser man would fight with you right now and say, ‘No, no, you’re on my show,” Colbert replied. “But I’ve been a host long enough to know that the host actually does most of the work. So you go right ahead, buddy. Go ahead and host me! All the weight’s on you now. Check mate. You fell into my trap.”
Things got (not actually) heated when Conan got jealous of the $70,000 Sony camera Stephen is working with from his home in New York.
“We record my show on a flip phone,” O’Brien joked. “When the show is over, I put it into a cardboard tube and I put in the U.S. mail and it goes to Turner headquarters in Atlanta. That’s how we’ve been doing it.”
Watch Colbert’s video above and O’Brien’s video below (we didn’t put them in that order to pick a favorite!) and decide who was really host and who was guest.