Larry Wilmore and his team at "The Nightly Show" are well aware of the correlation between their show's debut on Comedy Central in January and the rise of racial tension in America since that time.
"I am completely to blame. It was my master plan, honestly, and it worked out really well, didn't it?" Wilmore joked to Headlines & Global News exclusively at the "Keepin' It 100: An Evening with Larry Wilmore and the Creative Team of 'The Nightly Show'" at the Paley Center for Media on Nov. 14.
All kidding aside, Wilmore takes the responsibility of shining a light on race and other issues that plague American society quite seriously. He also takes a lot of heat for it, but after serving as Senior Black Correspondent for years on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," he's used to the criticism.
"I'll be honest with you, I remember thinking, I may as well be the one covering this sort of thing and be honest about it, be direct about it and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes I may not even agree with something at first," Wilmore said.
"Nightly Show" head writer Robin Thede credits Stewart, who serves as an executive producer on the show, for the development of the show and what it could accomplish with Wilmore leading the way.
"I tend to look at it as - Jon Stewart is a genius," Thede said. "He knew this show's time was now. He knew Larry was the host for the show because he saw the writing on the wall."
Since its premiere on Jan. 19, "The Nightly Show" has covered a host of hot button issues dealing not only with race but everything dealing with health, science, religion, politics, sports and more. The comedy show will take on one of its toughest conversations Monday night when they return for their first episode since the terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13.
Everyone from Wilmore to the writers and contributors agreed that laughter is a good thing to have in the face of such tragedy, but acknowledging what happened and grieving for those who lost their lives comes first.
"It's an international tragedy and one of the sadder things we're going to deal with. We will probably not spend an entire episode of our show trying to make light of it," said executive producer Rory Albanese, who worked for "The Daily Show" when the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 occurred. "Usually with events like these, there's not much comedy. It just makes you mad and it bothers me that we even have to live in a world where this stuff happens."
Just 24 hours after the attacks, contributor Jordan Carlos was already thinking about what, if anything, he could find comedic about such devastating events.
"How can you make a joke about this? The only thing I could come up with is, 'Man, I really miss the days of al Qaeda.' I would never want to ask for that back but, oh boy!" Carlos joked. "The importance of comedy is comedy is subversive. Comedy subverts zealotry and that's the reason why it's more important than ever to have shows like this."
He added, "It's always a brave new world but I think shows like ours, like 'The Daily Show,' they encourage what we must have is an honest relationship with what's happening in the world and find a way to laugh, despite it all."
"The Nightly Show" has found a way to find humor in the darkest corners of human behavior, not only from its host, writers and contributors, but also its special guests and panelists. The show has mixed journalists with comedians, politicians with rappers and scientists with religious leaders to create great debate and surprising insight. The different combinations have revealed the comedic sides of serious professionals as well as thoughtful observations from entertainers and musicians.
"The most surprising [for me] was Billy Gardell," Carlos said. "Billy Gardell is the star of the 'Mike & Molly,' but he had one of the most insightful points about Donald Trump and we weren't expecting it at all. He said that if Trump was elected if would be like Yosemite Sam and we were like, 'Gardell is deeper than we know.' Bravo to the talent department for booking him."
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Carlos also got a kick out of Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Correspondent for CNN, who he said was very funny back in the green room.
"A lot of dick jokes from Christiane Amanpour," he said, laughing. "Really inappropriate. I mean, she shocks you."
The guests most surprising to Wilmore are the rappers who come on the show like 50 Cent and Rick Ross. Without the demand of performing their new single or talking about their own careers, the show gives them a forum to discuss topics they care about and even be a little funny.
"The funniest thing is rappers who want to be comedians. Rappers are the most interesting people because they're like these demigods that walk the Earth. They all have these big entourages of people around them and you know they never heard the word, "No," Wilmore said. "We found out how much they love coming on our show. It's insane. I never thought my show would be a haven to have rappers come on and hang out. We're like, 'Are you sure you want to be on 'The Nightly Show'?"
So far, Wilmore has only sat down with presidential candidates Lincoln Chafee and Bernie Sanders for the Democrats and Rand Paul for the Republicans, but the show has contacted the other campaigns in hopes of having more candidates as guests.
"All politicians have their own ways of how they want to do press and what shows and all that stuff. There are still a lot of people I want to have on the show and talk to and maybe even sit down and do a live interview, because we're starting to do more of that now," the host said.
One of those sit down interviews made headlines last week when Wilmore spoke one-on-one with mega-producer Shonda Rhimes, creator of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal," and got her to admit that she had killed off a character because she didn't like the actor who portrayed him or her.
"We wanted to hear what she was going to say," Wilmore revealed. "I was waiting the whole interview for that question."
"The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" airs Mondays through Thursdays at 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.
