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'Craig Kilborn' (born August 24, 1962) is an American comedian and former talk show host. He was the original host of ''The Daily Show'' and Tom Snyder's successor on CBS's ''The Late Late Show''.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Broadcast career highlights

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Kilborn was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but was raised in Hastings, Minnesota, located thirty minutes from Minneapolis-St. Paul. He played basketball at Hastings High School, earning All-State & All-Conference honors and a basketball scholarship to Montana State University.

Career

After working in several smaller jobs following college, Kilborn was an ESPN SportsCenter anchor from 1993 to 1996. Kilborn was primarily the anchor of the late broadcast of SportsCenter, gaining a large fan following. He made a return appearance to SportsCenter on August 8, 2004 when he co-hosted SportsCenter with Dan Patrick during ESPN's 25th Anniversary Celebration. The character of Casey McCall on ABC's Sports Night was said to be modeled on Kilborn's SportsCenter career.
In 1996 Kilborn became host of ''The Daily Show'' on Comedy Central. In a 1997 interview with ''Esquire'', Kilborn made sexually explicit comments about some of his female coworkers. He also described ''Daily Show'' creator and executive producer Lizz Winstead as "an emotional bitch who over-reacts to him."^[1] Kilborn was suspended for a week for his comments, and Winstead later quit the show.^[2]
Kilborn hosted ''The Daily Show'' for two seasons before leaving the show to host a new CBS talk show ''The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn'', produced by David Letterman's production company World Wide Pants, to run after ''The Late Show with David Letterman''. His last ''Daily Show'' episode aired on December 17, 1998. On January 11, 1999 Jon Stewart replaced Kilborn as host.
Kilborn hosted ''The Late Late Show'' for five years, changing the format to appeal to a younger audience. In August 2004 he elected not to extend his contract, stating "I simply want to try something new. I can now focus on writing and producing different television projects I haven't had time for."^[3] Kilborn made his motion picture acting debut with a small role in ''Old School''. In 2006, he appeared in three motion pictures: ''The Shaggy Dog'', ''The Benchwarmers'', ''Full of It'', and "Cursed".

Broadcast career highlights

★ 1986 - 1988: Play-by-play commentator for the Savannah, Georgia, ''Spirits'' of the Continental Basketball Association.

★ 1990 - 1993: Sports Director at KCBA television in the Salinas/Monterey/Santa Cruz market of California.

★ 1993 - 1996: Anchor of ''SportsCenter'' for ESPN

★ 1996 - 1998: Host of ''The Daily Show'' on Comedy Central

★ 1999 - 2004: Host of ''The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn''
Some of Craig's more popular segments on the Late Late Show included Five Questions, To Blank with Love, Recreation of a Press photo and Yambo the brain teasing game of skill and intelligence.
One of his most popular recurring characters include Sebastian the Asexual Icon, an androgynous character loosely based on Morrissey, the former lead singer of The Smiths.
He also provided the voice of Captain Kirk for various commercials on G4TV.

References

External links

★

★ Craig Kilborn at NNDB