I just got an email from Portland’s own Ian Karmel confirming some very big news: he’s been hired as a writer on the new Late Late Show on CBS! I asked how he feels about putting words in James Corden’s mouth. Says Karmel, via email: “I feel amazing! I get to work with fucking James Corden and Reggie Watts every day. I’m a total fucking knucklehead and I get to help create a TV show with two people who are so insanely talented that could probably sell a show where they just read the phonebook. Like, I know that’s a hack idea, but James and Reggie could literally sell that show. I think I might actually pitch that idea.”
Reggie Watts is joining the show as band leader.
Previously, Karmel just finished a stint opening for John Oliver on tour, and wrote for Chelsea Lately until the show ended in August. While Chelsea Lately had a reliable formula, Karmel says the new Late Late Show will be starting “from scratch.” “We’re building something from the ground up,” he says. “That’s super exciting, but it’s also intimidating. Eventually we’ll become more like an assembly-line, an amazing, creative, vibrant assembly line, but right now we’re a hunk of marble. Right now we’re just kind of throwing out any idea that comes to us and seeing if it sticks in our brains in any sort of meaningful way.”
In case you’re wondering what it’s like to write for TV, Karmel says it’s both better and worse than working in the food-service industry. “There’s so much pressure,” he says. “Your ideas are on you and when you fail you fail in front of everyone. When I was working at the Old Spaghetti Factory on Macadam, and I spilled an italian soda on someone, I spilled it on one person, not a million.”
The transition to the new Late Late Show happens in March, when Craig Ferguson will pass his mantle of chuckles to James Corden. Heady stuff! But Karmel isn’t totally satisfied. “Sadly, my dream of working on a late night show based in Portland continues to evade me,” he says. Aw. Congratulations, dude!
Congrats! Hope it pays a lotta kale!
Ian Karmel is funnier than James Corden. I mean, it’s not even close.
Now I have to Google James Corden. I already know who Ian is.