James Corden Risks Over-Exposure to Carpool Karaoke - His Best Segment

by Julian Spivey
James Corden and his ‘Late, Late Show’ have skyrocketed to popularity and stardom on the back of his supremely popular segment Carpool Karaoke and now that segment has led to an hour-long primetime special that will air Tuesday, March 29 at 9 p.m.
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While this is great news for Corden as it will no doubt lead to a bigger audience and is a great way to celebrate his one-year anniversary on CBS it’s also a sign that the segment that made him a viral sensation is going to burn out much earlier than it should have.

Corden has been doing Carpool Karaoke on the ‘Late, Late Show’ almost since his late night variety series debuted last Spring, but it really took off in mid-January when his segment with Adele broke YouTube records for a late night television variety series as it garnered 42 million views in just five days online.

Since it took off Corden has milked the segment, where he is joined by a musical star for karaoke of their hits while driving to work so he can take advantage of the carpool lane, for all it’s worth.

The question I’ve been asking for a while now has been: Is the boost in popularity, YouTube views and press really worth killing off your greatest and funniest segment through overexposure?

I worry about this, because I’ve essentially seen it happen to Jimmy Fallon and the Lip Sync Battle segments that originated on his ‘Late Night’ and moved with him to ‘The Tonight Show’ and led to a series on Spike, which was popular at first, but has waned in both interest and excitement since, where two celebrities compete against each other to see who can lip sync the best. The Spike series has seen its ratings drop from over two million viewers per episode to just barely above one million per episode in just two seasons and Fallon hasn’t used the segment on his late night show in quite a while.

I enjoyed the Lip Sync Battle segment on ‘The Tonight Show’ as much as I do the Carpool Karaoke segment on the ‘Late, Late Show’ and would hate to see ‘Karaoke’ suffer the same fate through overexposure. I wish Corden would put the bit away for a while to breathe a little fresh air into the segment, as well as show the American viewing public that he’s much more than just the “Carpool Karaoke Guy.” After all, it’s his lovable persona that attracted me to his show in the first place and not the fact that he’s good at palling around and singing with celebrities.

The show could be better served by continuing to build and think up other segments that prove that Corden isn’t just a one-hit wonder (because he isn’t).

However, Corden seems like he will continue to milk the popular segment and his show will be airing a new Carpool Karaoke on the March 29th special featuring Jennifer Lopez.

I just hope all this love for the segment doesn’t fade as quickly as it arrived. But, if it does Corden and the ‘Late, Late Show’ will have nobody to blame but themselves.

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