The Wilton North Report - Aftermath

Aftermath

After The Wilton North Report left the air, reruns of The Late Show were immediately inserted in Fox's late night time slot, with the network scrambling to revive the show. Original Late Show broadcasts would later commence with a variety of guest hosts, with Fox eventually settling on Ross Shafer as permanent host. The Late Show would leave the air again in October 1988, with Fox giving the late night slot back to its affiliates. Fox's only other attempt at a weeknight late night show would be The Chevy Chase Show, which had its own brief run in September and October of 1993.

After cancellation, The Wilton North Report staff would move on to other projects, among them:

• Executive producer Barry Sand would produce another short-lived daily series, a 1990 syndicated revival of House Party hosted by Steve Doocy.
• Hosts Phil Cowan and Paul Robins went on to appear as "The Answer Guys" alongside host Richard Hart on the television series The Next Step (aka NextStep), a magazine show about new technology on KRON-TV/San Francisco which eventually went national on the Discovery Channel; Cowan and Robins would later become the show's hosts, for which they won two regional Emmys and were nominated for a national Cable Ace award.
• Writer and commentator Paul Krassner would continue work as an author, commentator, and stand-up comic, with noted works including the 1994 book Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counter-Culture.
• Two other Wilton North writers, Greg Daniels and Conan O'Brien, would go on to greater renown: After the cancellation of Wilton North (the second Hollywood writing jobs for both men, after Not Necessarily the News), Daniels and O'Brien would move on to write for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons; Daniels would later serve as creator/producer of such shows as King of the Hill and The Office, while O'Brien would later head back to late-night TV as host of Late Night, The Tonight Show, and Conan. O'Brien, in a 2006 interview with The A.V. Club, recalled his time at Wilton North (where he not only wrote but appeared in on-air skits and served as an audience warm-up) as "being a part of a horrible shipwreck that makes you a better sailor, provided you stay in the business."