Talk Shows

Barbara Walters, pioneering broadcast journalist, the first female anchorwoman, and creator of The View, will announce her retirement on the morning talk show Monday.

"It's time," the 83-year-old Walters is quoted in The New York Times.

Walters will take a little time to say goodbye. She won't leave ABC until 2014, spending moments in primetime and on The View to reminisce about her career and give time for her co-workers and fans to wave goodbye.

Speculation that Walters is retiring because of recent health battles is quickly quashed. In the same Times interview, Walters says, "I am not leaving because I am in ill health. ... I want to leave when I'm still very active and very viable. ... I want to go someplace and actually see it."

It's official. Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers will replace Jimmy Fallon as host of Late Night.

Most believe Meyers was always the odds on favorite to get the post. SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels is also the executive producer of Late Night. Michaels will soon produce The Tonight Show, as well. Fallon will take over as Tonight Show host in 2014. Meyers gets Late Night around the same time or soon after NBC's Winter Olympics coverage.

"I only have to work for Lorne for five more years before I pay him back for the time I totaled his car," Meyers said when announced. "Twelve-thirty on NBC has long been incredible real estate. I hope I can do it justice."

Talk show host Conan O'Brien presided over Washington's annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, during which members of the press get together for dinner and jokes. Even the president gets into the mix, delivering one-liners at a rapid fire pace. This was the second time O'Brien has hosted the event.

When O'Brien took his turn at the podium, he called the event a "nerd prom," saying the event wasn't much different than your typical high school cafeteria.

He even took the opportunity to take a shot at his own recent past, saying, "As you all know, the president is hard at work creating jobs. Since he was first elected, the number of popes has doubled. The number of Tonight Show hosts has tripled."

Talk show hosts are well known emcees of the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Past hosts include Jimmy Kimmel, Jay Leno (four times), Wanda Sykes, Craig Ferguson, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.

At About Talk Shows, we strive to give you the very best in top-level information about your favorite talk show - and as many other talk shows as we can imagine. We work hard to guide you through the shows, telling you about the show's history, giving you a biography of its host, telling you each week who the show's guest stars are and helping you wend your way through the ever so slightly confusing world of free talk show tickets.

But the one thing we haven't done is give you our opinion. (And really, by our, I mean my opinion.) With Talk Show Perspectives, this new monthly feature we're kicking off today, I hope to change that a bit. In Talk Show Perspectives, I'll give you my thoughts on recent talk show news. My hope is that I inspire you to talk as well, sharing your opinion with me.

With this first go around, we'll focus shifting world of NBC's late night programs, primarily The Tonight Show. True talk show tectonics, is what it all amounts to. And we start with the epicenter of it all Jay Leno.

Those of you who love our guest schedules might be surprised to learn that it's no longer April but - quite suddenly - January again. Faux pas on my part! I forgot to change the dates on my template - and so you'll see a slew of dates from mid-January.

But the guests are correct! So please ignore the dates - but pay attention to the days - and you'll get the info you're looking for.

Some reports are calling David Letterman's interview with actress Lindsay Lohan a "grilling," suggesting the late night talk show host put the often-troubled former teen star on the hot seat.

But for casual viewers, Letterman's interview with Lohan on the Late Show was less 60 Minutes and more a short peppering of honest questions.

Lohan will enter rehab in about three weeks, on May 2. Letterman, curious about her court-ordered treatment, asked a slew of questions.

"How many times have you been in rehab?" he asked.

"Several," Lohan answered.

Between the questions the two smiled and laughed. And while there may have been some unease on the part of Lohan, casual viewers got the better sense they were peering into a conversation between a young woman and her older, concerned uncle.

"How will this time be different?" Letterman asked. "What are they rehabbing, first of all? What is on their list? What are they going to work on when you walk through the door?"

Lohan called the three-month stint a blessing "and not a curse." She agreed with Letterman that rehab could be both a life saver and career saver.

Letterman even asked, "Do you drink too much?"

"We've discussed this in the past," Lohan said.

"Did we really?" Letterman said. ""Now I'm the one who's having the blackouts."

What do you do when everyone is transfixed by the news that Jay Leno is leaving The Tonight Show? Well, start a fight, of course. Better yet, argue naked in the shower.

Okay, maybe that's not what late night talk show hosts Chelsea Handler and Conan O'Brien where thinking specifically when they stripped well past their skivvies, jumped in a shower and started arguing about parking spaces and old studios. But something like that had to be on their mind.

The battle royale was no more than a well-blurred skit on Handler's show, Chelsea Lately, the second in what will likely become a series. Handler squared off against actress Sandra Bullock last October. That skit was much more clever, with Bullock lambasting Handler for her raunchy humor, telling her that she is a role model for women everywhere, while standing nude in the shower.

This turn saw a ticked off O'Brien confront Handler in the Chelsea Lately Staff Showers, complaining that Handler stole his studio and his shower - the one with all the good water pressure.

Catch the video here!

Jay Leno announced his retirement from The Tonight Show on Thursday, ending a month of rumors that the long-time host would depart when his 2014 contract was up.

Late Night host Jimmy Fallon will replace the departing star.

For now, it looks as though Leno will exit The Tonight Show in September 2014, when his contract with NBC comes to close. Fallon would likely debut in October.

Some reports suggest that NBC execs would prefer to launch Fallon in February, during Winter Olympics coverage, to give Fallon's debut the most traffic. Others say no feathers will be ruffled during this transition, alluding to the media debacles that surrounded the Letterman/Leno transition and the Leno/Conan transition.

Most likely Late Night replacement continues to be Seth Meyers, head writer on Saturday Night Live and current Weekend Update anchor. He would be the third SNL connected host of the late night talk show, following Conan and Fallon.

NBC late night talk show hosts Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon seized a golden opportunity to lampoon the rampant rumors about the future hosting gig on The Tonight Show in song Monday night. The duo sang a parody of the hit Broadway tune 'Tonight' from West Side Story.

The spot was lavishly produced and bridged the gap between Leno's Tonight Show and Fallon's Late Night. After Leno says goodnight and encourages his audience to watch "Jimmy Fallon, coming up next," he strolls backstage, passing a stagehand reading an article about the rumors, who mutters, "Jimmy Fallon's coming up next, all right."

The scene cuts to Fallon starring forlornly out his dressing room window at 30 Rock in New York. A smattering of news articles are strewn about his desk.

When Fallon's phone rings - the caller is identified as "Host of Tonight Show" - Fallon answers. "Hey, Jay."

"How ya holdin' up kid?"

"O.K.," says Fallon. "How about you?"

"I'll survive," Leno says. "I've been through this before, you know. Though I'll admit I'm getting a little sick of this."

"Jay, can I ask you something?" Fallon says.

"Of course you can," Leno returns.

"We're still friends, right?" Fallon says.

"Of course we're still friends," Leno answers.

And from there, Fallon launches into a version of 'Tonight.' With both lamenting, "Tonight, tonight ... who cares who hosts Tonight?"

Check out the whole video here. And see if it doesn't completely capture what these two hosts must be going through right now.

Based on a Deadline report, Vanity Fair's "Hollywood Blog" is reporting that NBC executives have reached out to talk show host Anderson Cooper about possibly replacing Matt Lauer on The Today Show.

It then points out that:

• Lauer was unhappy with NBC's decision, and reached out to Cooper to tell him as much, according to Deadline,
• Lauer thought the idea was mighty fine, and would be okay with Cooper replacing him, according to TMZ,
• Lauer doesn't know what anyone is talking about, since NBC never reached out to Cooper in the first place, reports The Hollywood Reporter

So what does this tell us? That NBC really needs to reign in the rumors before viewer sentiment completely falls apart. Whether these reports a true, half-true or utterly false.