What in the name of Buddy Hackett has happened to late-night television?

We had it so good in the 1980s, when NBC’s late-night offerings were appointment TV — particularly Johnny Carson and David Letterman. Carson’s monologues and skits and Letterman’s stupid pet (and human) tricks were comedy gold. I couldn’t wait to see the next weird thing Dave would drop off a roof.

“The Tonight Show” and “Late Night” back-to-back was the perfect combination of Carson’s old-school comedy and talk and Letterman’s new and zany antics. Carnac the Magnificent was my favorite Carson bit and I still remember Letterman donning a Velcro suit and leaping onto a Velcro-emblazoned wall. Dave also had great guests with whom he seemed to have chemistry, including actress Teri Garr, Cleveland’s own comic book writer Harvey Pekar and rock star Warren Zevon.

Sadly, all three are gone now — just like the glory days of late-night TV — but I still remember their various appearances on “Late Night” and those clips are only a few clicks away on YouTube.

If this sounds like one of those “things were better in my day” columns, you’re right. It is and they were. Late-night TV today is a far cry from what the TV networks once provided.

Speaking of Warren Zevon, it is an absolute travesty that he has not been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But that’s a column for another day. As Chuck Perazich, the late and legendary sports editor of The Vindicator wrote, there’s always a Youngstown connection and Zevon was no exception. His song “Boom Boom Mancini,” from the 1987 album Sentimental Hygiene, tells the story of the Youngstown boxer’s rise to fame.

How close were Zevon and Letterman? The TV host appears on one of Zevon’s most popular singles, “Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song).”

Again, a column for another day. This one — before I got off track — was about how much fun late-night TV used to be before Carson, Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and Arsenio Hall all stepped away and were eventually replaced by people like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.

Colbert, of course, is in the news because Paramount — which owns CBS — just announced it will cancel “The Late Show,” which Colbert inherited when Letterman retired to work on his beard. In a decade, Colbert ran the flagship of late-night TV off the road and rolled it several times.

Colbert was being paid $20 million annually and the show — with 200 employees — cost $100 million per year to make and lost $40 million per year. Paramount called the cancellation a financial move, but Colbert’s fans — both of them! — and his late-night cronies like Kimmel are convinced that President Donald Trump is to blame.

Even Jon Stewart, who once seemed to be a voice of reason among the current crop of politically driven TV hosts, blasted Paramount in a profanity-laced song-and-dance routine — and that’s being charitable — backed by a gospel choir. Stay classy, Jon.

Letterman pretty much waited until he had left the job before turning into a liberal curmudgeon, although he was clearly becoming cranky as retirement neared. Carson spent three decades on “The Tonight Show” not just because he was funny, personable and had great comic timing, but because he understood that people didn’t stay up late to watch him because they wanted to be lectured.

Mike Wallace, of “60 Minutes,” asked Carson in a late 1970s interview about some observers who wondered why he didn’t tackle serious subjects on his show. Carson’s response was revealing.

“Tell me the last time Jack Benny, Red Skelton, any comedian used his show to do serious issues,” he said. “That’s not what I’m there for. Can’t they see that? Why do they think since you have a Tonight Show, you will deal with serious issues? That’s a real danger. Once you start that, you start to get that self important feeling … and you could use that show to sway people. And I don’t think you should as an entertainer.”

It was a different time, but while politics could be a tough and dirty game even then, people weren’t really choosing sides and allowing how they happened to vote to become who they were in every aspect of life the way they do today. Carson knew that people didn’t stay up late to be scolded or told how wrong they were about everything.

We can get all we want of that and more today, even without being lectured by late-night hosts. Pick a cable news channel and depending on your political preferences, you’ll get the echo chamber of your choice.

That’s what too many of today’s late-night hosts and their producers and writers don’t understand. The job is to be funny and make people laugh. Presidents and other political figures are certainly fair game. They always have been. But somewhere along the line, these shows morphed into propaganda arms for a certain political agenda and began taking aim at the other side — and with it roughly half of the country.

The night Colbert announced his future cancellation, his top guest was California Sen. Adam Schiff, who looked into the camera and told Trump, “Donald, piss off!”

Are you not entertained? Neither was I.

Between that and the dancing COVID vaccine needles Colbert pranced around with a few years ago, it’s no wonder Paramount pulled the plug.

But losing $40 million every year because people figured out “The Late Show” is no longer funny probably had more to do with it.

Ed Puskas is editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator. Reach him at epuskas@tribtoday.com or 330-841-1786.