In The Driver's Seat

When he took over The Late Late Show in 2015 , James Corden was a largely unknown bloke — a UK import with a part - dad , part - lad vibe . Two years later , he's become the new King of the Night , creating comedy sketches that ricochet around the globe . Along the way, he discovered one simple truth : We love to watch famous people sing karaoke in a car.

- A.O. Scott

James Corden was barreling toward an editing room to checkout a rough cut of the latest Carpool Karaoke ( the one with Bruno Mars,resplendent in brightly colored silk ) when something caught his eye.

Two things, really: a bowl of candy and a twenty-five-foot tape measure haphazardly deposited on a credenza in an office full of members of the Late Late Show staff. The candy was Whoppers, small chocolate-covered malted-milk spheroids nestled three to a sleeve for easy snacking; the tape was a coiled ribbon of yellow metal encased in a chunk of aluminum, the kind that clips onto your belt and retracts with a satisfying whoosh.

“Hang on a minute,” Corden said, to everyone in the office and no one in particular. “This could be a bit, don’t you think?” It was an hour before lunch on a two-episode taping day in early December. Chris Pratt, Olivia Munn, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Stephen Fry were expected in a few hours. The writers were in the writers’ room polishing monologue jokes until their poke bowls arrived. Corden, fashion-forward and show-business casual in black jeans, a black cowl-necked cardigan, and black slip-on Gucci sneakers stamped with tiny gold bees and flowers, grabbed the props and explained what he had in mind to the people in the room with the least investment in looking busy. He popped open the Whoppers and indicated through brisk dumb-show gestures that his first volunteer—a guy in a faded T-shirt and glasses with a receding frizz of light-brown hair—should open wide and place the blunt hook at the end of the tape against his bottom lip. Corden extended the length to seventy-seven inches, raised it to a 30 degree angle from the man’s mouth, and placed the candy atop the resulting ramp.

Collective breath was held. It was a moment fraught with potential. A Rube Goldberg variation. A test of the laws of physics.