Is Chelsea Handler really a feasible David Letterman replacement?

We’re going to be monitoring the David Letterman – “Late Show” retirement story pretty extensively for as long as there is news about it, but even though we are only slightly more than 24 hours into this story, it is already fair to say that things have started to get a little bit insane.

Yesterday, the reports we heard were that Stephen Colbert was the only current late-night host CBS was eyeing (pun intended) to be the replacement for Letterman, which was somewhat surprising given that the network already has Craig Ferguson. Today, there is a little bit of a different story. According to The Wrap, the network has talked with Chelsea Handler about joining heir lineup in some capacity. Originally, their vision was to hire her to be their new host at 12:35 p.m. for “The Late Late Show,” but Chelsea is more interested in the prime spot currently occupied by Dave.

This is where things get a little bit interesting. This report says that Ferguson has the first right of refusal for “The Late Show,” but even with this, CBS may have a hard time giving it to him, given that his recent ratings have been far behind “Late Night.” (We love Craig, so we see this as a pretty huge bummer.)

So could Chelsea really do the job on CBS? We’d be hesitant to hand her the keys, given that her ratings for “Chelsea Lately” on E! are not what the network is looking for. She is funny, but probably a little too edgy for this crowd. If we were CBS, our list would probably be Chris Rock, Tina Fey, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman (who may also be too edgy), and then even Jimmy Kimmel, Colbert, and Chris Hardwick.

Just for fun, we’ve included a few new videos about Letterman. Seth Meyers called the news “heartbreaking” on “Late Night,” and Dave joked today that the reason he’s stepping down is because his makeup artist can’t make him look good anymore.

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Photo: CBS