CBS Narrows Its Search For The Host Of The '@midnight' Revival

The new iteration of the Comedy Central game show will evict 'Comics Unleashed' from its post-'The Late Show' slot

Puck News has reported CBS President and CEO George Cheeks is testing three contenders for hosts for its upcoming revival of 2013-2017 Comedy Central game show @midnight: X Mayo, a former writer for The Daily Show who left to star in the NBC sitcom American Auto and also starred in the horror film The Blackening, stand-up comedian Ricky Velez, and comic/writer Taylor Tomlinson. 

In February, it was reported that CBS was going to let the The Late Late Show end with James Corden upon his departure in late April, as they were instead considering replacing it with this @midnight revival. It was immediately stated that original and since-troubled host Chris Hardwick would not return, which meant the search for a new host was on. 

Or at least, it was supposed to be. The April 27 end of The Late Late Show was just five days before the Writers Guild of America strike which lasted 148 days from May 2 to September 27. This clearly stalled the host search because the fall season started and forced CBS to pick up Comics Unleashed and somehow air decade+ old yet still unaired episodes of the series, as @midnight definitely wasn’t ready, and must wade through until it is.

Things have been pretty tightlipped on what this version of the game show, produced by The Late Show host Stephen Colbert and Funny or Die will look like. The original format had each episode feature a panel of comedians riffing on Internet culture and the headlines of the day. The third-place contestant would be eliminated ahead of the final round, called FTW, standing for For The Win, and the first-place finisher was named the winner of the Internet for the next 23 and a half hours, which was until the next episode.

Velez also comes from Comedy Central late night, having been a very frequent panelist on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, the immediate 11:30 timeslot successor of The Colbert Report following its December 2014 end. It was the cancellation of The Nightly Show that Comedy Central followed up by nonsensically moving @midnight to that 11:30 timeslot. The show aired its final 155 original episodes in that slot, 27 more than its successor, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper. The Daily Show extending to 45 minutes in the midst of the pandemic, only to relinquish the extra time to lighten the load on the guest hosts following Trevor Noah’s departure went from a great but merciful move to an unfortunate one. 

Tomlinson was a top 10 finisher in the 2015 season of Last Comic Standing and has since released two Netflix standup specials in March 2020 and 2022. X Mayo will next be seen in The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, starring Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy of Please Don’t Destroy. The film will be released on November 17, 2023 on Peacock.

Source: TVLine