Earlier this year, CNN made good on its pledge to inject topical comedy into its Saturday lineup by re-airing “Real Time with Bill Maher” in that evening’s 8 p.m. timeslot, one night after its HBO premiere. Maher’s long-running show is a reliable buzz-generator, often for reasons that rankle progressives. But as the Los Angeles Times reported in May, Nielsen clocked the encore as CNN’s most-watched hour on Saturdays, averaging close to 700,000 viewers.
That should bode well for “Have I Got News For You,” a limited series adaptation of the BBC’s long-running news quiz show joining “Maher” on Saturdays. CNN’s version tapped former “Daily Show” correspondent Roy Wood Jr. as its host in August, naming Michael Ian Black and Amber Ruffin as team captains shortly after that.
As an unabashed Ruffin fan, I was both delighted by the announcement and somewhat worried, since the comedy writer and erstwhile host of Peacock’s “The Amber Ruffin Show” is the main reason I am a devoted “Late Night with Seth Meyers” viewer. But my anxiety was unnecessary, she assured me in our recent video conversation about her upcoming CNN gig.
“You can pry ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’ from my cold, dead hands,” Ruffin said with a bright smile and one of the many giggles she unleashed during our long conversation. “I will never leave that show! It’s the best!”
Besides, while she’s been a writer and featured personality on “Late Night,” she wrote the revised book for the acclaimed Broadway revival of “The Wiz” and co-wrote the book for the musical version of “Some Like It Hot,” which earned her a Tony nomination. She’s also written two books, five pilots and helmed her own TV show for three years while writing for two others, “and probably other things I’m forgetting,” she said. “I mean, every writer has four tabs open on their computer with four different projects going at once.”
The format of “Have I Got News For You” is a new challenge for Ruffin, she explained. “This is a special type of improv where you have to get out the news story so that we can all laugh at your silly take on it . . . so it’s neat to learn new rules of comedy,” she said. “Not that these are new rules. They’re new to me. A panel vibe is a different vibe. You have to know when to take over and when to acquiesce.”
CNN’s “Have I Got News For You” also operates under very different regulations than the BBC’s show, which has been running since 1990. Since the BBC is a public service broadcaster, it is beholden to impartiality guidelines which state in part that “Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC output the personal opinions of our journalists or news and current affairs presenters on matters of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or on ‘controversial subjects’ in any other area.” In May, this led to the last-minute host replacement of BBC’s news and politics presenter, Amol Rajan, who quickly stepped down after former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for a snap election on July 4.
Its American counterpart isn’t held to such specific political mandates other than recent statements from Warner Bros. Discovery leadership that the cable news network would strive to be more centrist. I asked Ruffin as to whether CNN expected her and her fellow “Have I Got News For You” comics to follow that guidance, along with getting other details about the 10-episode season’s vision in a wide-ranging conversation that at times made me hold back a few snort laughs.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The rules guiding the BBC’s broadcasts are different than ours, which I was reminded of when I saw a recent episode of the U.K. version of “Have I Got News For You.” The producers had to bring [comedian] Phil Wang on to host since the guy they’d originally planned to feature is a TV newscaster.
The BBC’s rules when it comes to political coverage are different, of course, than CNN’s. But there has been a lot of recent conversation about CNN striving to be centrist. Have there been conversations with Roy or anyone else about where you may have to maintain a type of balance in the broadcast?
No. Absolutely not. I mean, yes, in that there is none. I think that the creators of ‘Have I Got News for You’ and CNN are looking forward to us being exactly who we are at all costs. Like, sometimes we will have guests that aren’t, um . . . ‘crazy liberal leftists,’ which I think is what I qualify as, and they will have their points of view. But what we are doing is making jokes about the news, which is different than what CNN’s regular deal is. CNN may feel obligated to look at things from both sides, but we aren’t. We’re obligated to comedy. So I don’t know that they mind where the comedy comes from, but it will be far left of center when it’s coming out of my mouth. I guarantee you that.
Does that impact the guests that you can get on the show?
I think we’ll be getting all kinds of crazy people. I think sometimes it’ll be, you know, people who aren’t everyone’s favorites. I think they might be going wild with some motherf*****s in this b***h. But, you know, we’re out to have fun and we’re out to goof around. So, you know, whoever’s most conducive to that wins.
“The people who put us in danger make the worst television,” said Ruffin.
I want to press on that just a little bit. When you say, “It could get wild,” what does that mean? Would you bring like, Matt Walsh or Charlie Kirk, any of those guys on? Have there been any discussions about no-gos in terms of platforming folks on “Have I Got News For You”?
I’m not in charge of who gets to be on the show and who’s not. But I think what they’re going to do is they’re going to see who would make the most fun. Like, I don’t think Charlie Kirk is a fun guy, you know what I mean? They’re going to be looking for who is lively and silly and can have a good time with us. Because I can’t be having a good time with everybody. Some people, you bring in that mug, and I will guarantee we’ll all have a bad time. It might be great to watch, though.
But look at the partisan divide in comedy. There’s what people would call liberal comedy, which I just call comedy.
Girl.
And there’s whatever “Gutfeld!” is. Honestly, “Gutfeld!” fills its niche very well. It has matched “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in the ratings . . . But as you all are talking about a vision for the show moving forward, has there been any thought in seeing if anybody from the conservative side might be willing to come out and play?
I mean, that’s part of it, though, right? Because, like who’s willing to do that? Do you want to sit next to me and say that crazy s**t? I mean, you could do it. Give it a shot. Hell, I’m interested to find out who would agree to such a thing. But I’m 1,000% sure those just aren’t the people who make the best television. The people who put us in danger make the worst television.
You have a 10-episode run that’s going to take you past the election. How is that focusing the direction that the show will take?
That’s the great thing about this show: we are beholden to what has happened that week. The format of the show is so malleable. No matter what happens in the news, we can pivot to cover.
Also, we are friends. I’m friends with Roy. I’m friends with Michael. I want to know what they think about this stuff. So we are making jokes and we are doing bits, but we’re also talking about our actual perspectives. Because we are hungry to hear one another’s perspectives. I feel like that’s going to come out in the show. So we will be hungry to hear, when something happens, how Roy feels about it, you know. I mean, I specifically have this with Roy Wood Jr.: I’m scrolling through my news, and something happens, and I go, ‘What is Roy about to say?’
Our hope is that people will start to feel that way about Roy and Michael and I, and then tune in to find out. Because there is a world where, like, Kamala is murdering this man so bad that it becomes boring. (At this, Ruffin starts laughing hysterically.) I mean, it’s possible. Who would have thought? Oh my gosh. So the real answer is yes, because just now I got so thrilled at the thought of it.
What do you see are some of the things that can keep perspectives on this matchup fresh and maybe move beyond the horse race aspect that election coverage always degenerates into?
Well, the good and bad part about how fast these news cycles are and how things get exalted in social media, is the minutia.
. . . It’s going to be, ‘Oh, my god, she wore that pin.’ It’s going to be, ‘His hair blew back and I saw what I shouldn’t have.’ It’s going to be all kinds of silly stuff like that. And it’s also going to be a lot about the people surrounding the race.
My prediction is we’re going to get a little bored with these two and then other stars are going to start to rise. We’ll get our fill of JD Vance and [Tim] Walz, but then there’s going to be some other people also in their orbit that we’re going to become tangentially obsessed with. And I think that’s gonna be what happens when we’re deep in the horse race.
. . . We might see some rises and falls of those secondary people, which is, frankly, my jam. I love it.
In 2017 I spoke with [“Late Night with Seth Meyers” head writer] Alex Baze and folks at other late-night shows about how comedy changed that night. Do you guys have any kind of plan if that happens again? The show isn’t going to be airing on Election Night, although CNN might call you guys in. Are you prepared for that?
Yeah, I’m ready. First of all, in 2016, I mean, what a great day. Bananas! We had spent all night shooting a video about Hillary Clinton winning, and then when I woke up, Donald Trump had won. And then I went to work and wrote just the goofiest sketch that I think made it on that day that was like, ‘Join the fun! . . . We been through this s**t. Oh, are you so sad about your neighbor, that he’s a racist piece of turd? We already knew!’
But I feel like the show, and comedy in general, is focused more on people’s feelings and their perception of an event than the actual thing. So in that regard, I think we are the most prepared to deal with any big shifts, Because when something like that happens, what’s comforting is hearing how actual human beings feel. And that’s the superpower of comedians. We can say exactly how we feel without dressing it up or watering it down. And that’s going to come in handy no matter what the turnout of this election is.
I remember watching “The Amber Ruffin Show” and seeing your 2020 monologue where you said, “You matter.” That was one of the most moving things that I remember seeing at that time. I’m hoping that the show doesn’t lose those moments. Is it going to enable you to tap into that side?
It’s possible. I don’t know. I think because we are going to be so honest, it is entirely possible that moments from the show could end up in a more heartfelt space. But if you do the math of me plus Roy plus Michael, we’re going to be shouting and drinking and throwing s**t. I don’t know how heartfelt it’s going to be, but if that’s how we feel, it’ll certainly come out. But I think rowdy will be the vibe.
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A long time ago when “The Daily Show” was winning awards for news and information, and a Pew Research Center poll cited it as being the most trusted newscast among younger viewers, one of the things that Jon Stewart said was, “We’re comedians. Do not look to us for news. That’s not what we do.” And yet, many people do look at topical comedians, including yourself, to be the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. How do you feel about the public’s perception of topical comedy as a news source as one of the faces of topical comedy right now?
I guess I feel every possible way you could feel about it. I just realized that just now.
I feel like, ‘That is terrible. You should definitely not do that. Please, for the love of God, be informed.’
I also feel like it’s hard to not be informed nowadays. Like, my phone calls me to tell me what has happened. I’m like, ‘You’re a phone, know your place!’
Then you scroll on social media and find out what has happened there. And I feel like social media is the devil, but it will also deliver to you the news that is important to your community, because it’s got you down cold.
“There are things we literally can’t talk about without ruining our show. Because it’s constructed so that you can leave and have a nice day. It’s constructed so that you can leave uninformed.”
But also, when you get up and you check your email, then you might go to news websites. Clicking through a news website is the way I like to ingest news because I can’t just listen to someone talk about the same topic for an hour. I think that’s a criminal waste of my morning.
. . . I understand how people want to receive their news from comedians. I get that it feels good and it’s fun, but I’ve been there when we’re constructing a monologue. And you leave the really harsh news stories out. The stuff you need to know? The horrible stuff that I can’t say without chilling an audience? I’m not talking about that. You’re not gonna hear me talk about stuff I won’t even mention in this interview. No way. I’m going to be sticking to the fun, silly stuff. And that’s the problem with people getting their news from comedians. There are things we literally can’t talk about without ruining our show. Because it’s constructed so that you can leave and have a nice day. It’s constructed so that you can leave uninformed.
What are you hoping that “Have I Got News For You” will fulfill in the current comedy landscape?
I hope that when they watch . . . they leave with a little more calm. Like reading a scary headline can f**k you up. But if you read a scary headline and then an adult is like, ‘This is scary because of this, this and this,’ it feels better.
It feels better to have a person with feelings, who’s not reading from a teleprompter, talk to you about the way they’re feeling about ‘insert scary news item.’ That’s going to be the superpower of this show. Other topical comedy shows can only pop off a joke or two about a percentage of what has happened in the day. ‘Have I Got News For You’ is news from top to bottom, and it’s getting jokes from top to bottom. But, also we can step into these stories a little more and talk about how we feel about them, and that’s going to provide a lot of comfort, and a deeper understanding for a lot of these more difficult news stories to grasp. So I think it’ll be a really healthy way to ingest the news.
“Have I Got News For You” premieres at 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 on CNN.
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