*Since launching on Martin Luther King weekend, Larry Wilmore’s “The Nightly Show” has tackled a number of topics relevant to the black community – such as “black fatherhood,” “black women in America,” and on Thursday, the racism found within the Ferguson police department. (An officer pulled him over in the middle of his broadcast.)
So it shouldn’t come as a shock that this spinoff of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” had a working title more befitting of its “keeping it 100” African American perspective.
“The original title that Jon had was ‘The Minority Report,’ Wilmore revealed during the recent TCA Press Tour. “But sometime during the summer FOX picked up the pilot “Minority Report” or decided they wanted to do it, based on the movie.”
The plan then shifted to calling the show, “The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore,” which came with its own set of problems.
“It became a bit of a mess because we learned that we had to call it that in every form if we were going to call it that. And as you know, we’re not just doing TV shows now,” said Wilmore. “Now we’re actually producing content that is going to…appear on platforms. So if you’re tweeting or you’re on Tumblr or you’re on Facebook and you always have to refer to “The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore” with that long title, and someone may sue you if you go out of that…I had to change my driver’s license to ‘The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore.’ It was a mess.
“I think it was in November or something where we said, ‘Look, guys…why don’t we just change it?’ We didn’t want to do that in March, once our show was on the air, to have to change it then.”
Below, Wilmore reveals what other names were considered before finally settling on “The Nightly Show.”
“The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” airs Mondays through Thursdays at 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.
Watch this week’s Ferguson police episode below:
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