Here's the First Promo for Larry Wilmore's Nightly Show
The only thing softening the blow of losing The Colbert Report is the potential of the show that will take over its time slot starting next month. It's no coincidence that Larry Wilmore's Nightly Show—f.k.a. The Minority Report—released its first official promo this week.
The clip doesn't try to do too much—it's just Wilmore talking up the show at a late-night diner—but this will be many viewers' first time seeing Wilmore outside the context of the Daily Show desk. As a marketing move, it feels as broad as possible, showing Wilmore giving a multiracial gaggle of diners the pitch that his show is out to represent the underrepresented.
As Wilmore starts to say in the promo, "brothers been kept out of late night for..." (with a few exceptions) basically the entire history of late night, and that's definitely one part of what makes The Nightly Show so damn exciting, but Wilmore's quick to remind everyone it's not the only part.
After it changed from The Minority Report to the less forceful Nightly Show last month (because of possible intellectual property conflicts, not a shift in the show's philosophy) Wilmore clarified to the New York Times that "[i]t was never intended to be a show only about minorities. It's a show about underdogs, and that happens in a lot of different forms, whether it's race, gender, or whatever."
It will also, he would like you to remember, be hilarious.
If details seem pretty thin on the ground in this video, that's because there's a still a month to go, and the show is still taking shape. So far, we know it'll involve a desk, a cast of featured players (not "correspondents," as the Daily Show has it), and possible live interviews—but not with politicians and talking heads.
"If we are dealing with a labor issue. we may have somebody who is actually on the line" picketing, he told the Times.
The Nightly Show staff moves into Colbert's old offices this week, and the show premieres Jan. 19.