Desus and Mero to star in Showtime's first-ever late-night talk show

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https://www.thewrap.com/showtime-ord...esus-and-mero/

Showtime's announcement that Desus Nice and The Kid Mero are getting their own half-hour weekly series premiering in 2019 comes three days after they announced they are ending their popular nearly two-year-old Viceland talk show on June 28. “We have waited a long time to enter the talk-show space, and we were only going to do it if we felt like we had the next big thing," said Showtime CEO David Nevins. “Desus and Mero feel like exactly that: They have knockout comedic voices, they’re brilliant interviewers and they always have a unique take on culture both high and low,” Nevins added, citing their "loyal and devoted fan base that will only multiply." Desus Nice said of joining Showtime: “The brand is stronger than ever and we look forward to continuing to make amazing authentic television that will make your wiggington explode.” The Kid Mero added: "I’m excited to be joining a network with such a strong foundation and track record of producing fuegooooo and to break new ground with a late-night comedy show!”

Desus and Mero's late-night Showtime talk show aims to be a “mash-up of The Daily Show and the Chappelle's Show"
In a New York Times Magazine profile timed with this morning's Showtime announcement that Desus Nice (AKA Daniel Baker) and The Kid Mero (AKA Joel Martinez) are starting a weekly late-night show, Jazmine Hughes goes behind the scenes of the pair's Viceland series and reveals what they have in store at the pay cable network. "Unlike on Viceland, where their comedy was purely verbal, the move will give Baker and Martinez the ability to blow their jokes out visually," she writes. As Hughes explains, Viceland's Desus & Mero "has been the answer for anyone in search of a rundown of pop culture from young people who also regularly waste hours surfing the web while slightly stoned. But more important, in a landscape in which black people dominate the culture but have few recognized channels to respond to it, the show, which stars two American black men, provides a venue for black authority in the mainstream. Their rapport has proved so popular that more-established networks have taken notice. Unlike their late-night peers, the pair don’t have an impeccably plotted approach to the show: They just talk, a geyser of whip-smart running commentary, seamlessly building off each other’s jokes, able to anticipate and carry each other like dancers or jazz musicians. That night, they did a seven-minute segment on West’s appearance on TMZ, offering very little setup — if you knew, you knew. Instead, they just reacted to what they saw, talking in between snippets of footage, saying the same sort of thing we were all thinking, but funnier."

Desus & Mero stars reveal tension with Viceland: "We did not leave Vice, Vice ended our contract"
Desus Nice and The Kid Mero weren't happy to abruptly exit their Viceland show two weeks ago. “Can I just be messy off the rip right now?” Desus tells Bossip. “Vice has us for 2 more months….we did not leave Vice, Vice ended our contract. They were in their feelings because we were leaving" for Showtime. He added: "We could still be doing the show, and it bothers me because now people are tagging us like ‘do this, do this, what would your reactions be for this?’ and I’m like, ‘yo wow, what would my reaction be?’” Desus said they were grateful for Viceland "poppping the cherry" after other networks passed on them. But he added: “Viceland wanted 160 episodes a year. We have no writers, it’s literally me and Mero talking to one another every day. If you want us to do this for 160 episodes, pay us 160 million dollars—otherwise we would have killed each other.”