James Corden presides over his late-night show’s “Carpool Karaoke” segment, but the series spin-off will have a succession of hosts.
Celebrity pairs including Alicia Keys and John Legend, Ariana Grande and Seth MacFarlane, and Blake Shelton and Chelsea Handler will be featured on the 16-episode series to be released weekly on Apple Music. A debut date has yet to be announced.
Corden, who will appear with Will Smith on one episode, said he was proud “The Late Late Show” has created a segment that works so well it will stand on its own. Make that two bits: A project based on his “Drop the Mic” rap battle segment is set for TBS this year.
“I’m incredibly proud we have a late-night talk show that 18 months ago a majority of the room were going, ‘Who the hell is this guy?'” Corden told a meeting Monday of the Television Critics Association.
The British Corden was a U.S. TV newcomer when he took over as host of CBS’ “Late Late Show” in 2015, but he’d already won a 2012 Tony Award for Broadway’s “One Man, Two Guvnors.”
His karaoke segments, in which Corden drives while a pop-star passenger joins him in song, has become a viral sensation. Does he have advice to those who will take the wheel for the new series?
“This is only a waste of time if you don’t enjoy it,” he said. “That enjoyment, that joy, that sort of unbridled freedom of singing in a car, is the glue that holds it all together.”
Driving and singing aren’t an issue, he said: The rule is head in a straight line.
“I’d rather do it here than in London. That’s much harder,” Corden said.