The Late Late Show has nearly reached the end of its long walk toward a short drop off of the CBS nightly schedule as, earlier today, James Corden unveiled the plan for his parting gift to himself with the announcement that Will Ferrell and Harry Styles will be his last two guests on The Late Late Show’s series finale on April 27th. The late-late-night talk show once beloved for its incomparable host Craig Ferguson will disappear from the time slot entirely following Corden’s departure as CBS replaces it with a reboot of the internet culture game show @midnight, but beloved memories of Ferguson’s time on the program will live on online indefinitely.
However, one important piece of Late Late Show lore is currently missing from the online annals of late-night history — between Ferguson and Corden’s hosting stints, CBS gave a scant few comics the opportunity to prove their worth behind the desk, and the experiment went, well, about as well as Corden’s time as permanent host. In particular, comedians Adam Pally and Ben Schwartz were given 55 minutes on air to prove their worthiness as co-hosts, but, due to a debilitating blizzard, the episode was shot in a completely empty Charlie Rose Studio sans audience and celebrity guests. The resulting episode, in Schwartz’ words, was “just an absolute mess.”
Only bits and pieces of the full 55-minutes remain available online, but the small taste we could find on YouTube is well worth the watch in a rubbernecking kind of way.
“Any time someone puts it on the internet, someone’s like, ‘No no no, nobody can see this,’ and they take it off!” Schwartz told Seth Meyers of the awkward and hastily-shot episode that, somehow, actually aired in 2015. “It’s become a cult thing, because you have to dig for it,” Schwartz said, “but when you find it, for 55-minutes it’s just two little boys having fun.”
Apparently, CBS saw the admittedly childish and unstructured audition and decided that they would erase it from their archives the second after it aired — and then switch out Pally and Schwartz with an even bigger child for the next eight years.