Stephen Colbert throws pizza parties for his staff every Tuesday in which "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" beats "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" in the ratings, and that has been happening a lot lately.
Colbert's show, which once trailed its NBC rival by more than a million viewers, has now bested "The Tonight Show" for more than two months, The New York Times reported. Interestingly, that streak correlates roughly to the time President Donald Trump has been in office.
The CBS show's sharply anti-Trump tone appears to have helped Colbert's renaissance after he replaced the iconic David Letterman as the show's host in September 2015.
"It's pizza day," Colbert told the Times last week as the staff celebrated its ninth weekly victory over "The Tonight Show." Employee chants of "Pizza! Pizza!" were heart as they converged in recognition of the ratings victory.
"Fallon's 'Tonight Show' received strong backlash in September when the host invited Trump on his show," The Huffington Post's Elyse Wanshel writes. "Rather than confronting the then–Republican nominee about his campaign, built on xenophobic promises, the awkward interview featured softball questions and Fallon tousling Trump's hair."
"In contrast, 'The Late Show' has been relentless in its lampooning of the president and his administration ― apparently satisfying audience demand for political talk," Wanshel continued.
Colbert told the Times, though, that he rejects the premise that Fallon lost viewership because of the incident.
"The theory that that hair tousle made a difference is based on the supposition that Jimmy's fans went to him for political acumen," Colbert told the newspaper. "I don't think so. They go there for fun. They go there for his nature, his spirit."
Refinery29.com noted that, while the pizza parties show there is still competitive spirit in the late night ratings duel, it is a far cry from when Letterman and former "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno used to duke it out.
"[The pizza party] is funny but small potatoes compared to the original Late Night Wars, which pitted Leno against Letterman in a battle that included a lot of subterfuge . . . Jay Leno, for example, hid in the closet to spy on a meeting between Letterman and network brass. Let's see Fallon do that. Seriously, please."
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