Two more late-night bits given series spin-offs by broadcast networks in 2020

We’re only two weeks into 2020, and already, the broadcast networks have OK’d more spin-offs for bits from their late-night talk shows.

First, NBC announced That’s My Jam, hosted by Jimmy Fallon and based off of the viral segments from Fallon’s Tonight Show in which he raps and/or dances with celebrities. It’ll premiere this summer during NBC’s broadcast of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

The spin-off series in primetime will have celebrities competing against each other in song-and-dance games.

Much like a previous spin-off from Fallon’s Tonight Show, Lip Sync Battle, where the celebrities are truly dancing but only mouthing the words to the songs — that series already has gone on for five seasons, from Spike TV to The Paramount Network.

Over on CBS, not content to have only one animated spin-off from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (that would be Showtime’s Our Cartoon President), they’ve announced a new variety series with both daily and weekly segments for CBS All Access, Tooning Out The News. Colbert will executive produce and provide his voice for the new series.

“The minute the imaginators at Tooning Out The News decked their bleeding edge ideation bizmeth, I knew that the news jackers were ripe for our freemium growth hack pivot,” said Colbert. “Let’s go Omnichannel for UTTR! I also couldn’t be prouder to be working with my old friend, James Smartwood. Go get ’em, Jimbo!”

These follow the successful launches of spin-offs from The Late Late Show with James Corden of his segments for Carpool Karaoke and Drop The Mic.

And to think, just a decade ago, NBC couldn’t get people watching Jay Leno’s gimmick-filled primetime segment series, and that’s what upended late-night all over again, and here we are now.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

View all posts by Sean L. McCarthy →