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“The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”

Several things went through my mind as I watched this hour of television on Tuesday night. OK, I admit it, I watched it Wednesday afternoon (apologies, but I have a day job).

I almost wept, because I know that this experiment won’t lead to anything long-term for this show in particular or CBS in general. I also almost wept because it is so nice to see a guy give a nod and a wink to those who came before him. It is something Jay Leno has never done and never will do. To hear Craig talk about watching the pictures as they fly through the air, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if — just once — Jay would end his monologue with a practice golf swing.

It would have been nice had they gone with the David Sanborn “Late Late Show” theme from Snyder’s days. Certainly, since the production companies are the same, rights clearances shouldn’t have been an issue. Oh well.

I would challenge one comment made in the introduction. Craig described Tom Snyder as “a cranky man, by all accounts… cranky and difficult and brilliant.” It cannot be argued that Snyder was pissed when NBC forced a studio audience upon his “Tomorrow” show. And it cannot be argued that he wished things upon Rona Barrett that Jews didn’t wish upon Hitler. But I had the pleasure of working around Tom Snyder for an entire summer, and in the mid 1990s, the last word anyone would have used to describe him would have been “cranky.” He was honest and direct, to be sure. When he disliked something, he made it known. But I’ll never forget a brief exchange I had with Tom towards the end of my internship on his show. We were walking down the halls of the Catalina Building at NBC. He was smiling his wide Cheshire grin and whistling quite loudly. I said something unoriginal along the lines of, “You seem in a good mood, judging from the smile and the whistling.” His reply, which I’ll take to my grave, was, “Kid, if you made as much as I do to do as little as I do, you’d be smiling and whistling too.” Cranky? Not hardly.

Last night’s “Late Late Show” was what I want a talk show to be. The host was interested in what the guest had to say. The guest had things to say. While I think there is a place on Craig’s show for an audience and puppets and Aquaman the advice columnist, there is also a place for conversations like Tuesday night’s show.

Though the show is consistently good, every few months Craig Ferguson knocks one out of the ballpark. His interview with Bishop Desmond Tutu a while back was outstanding, and it included a monologue and a live audience. But there is a freeness to Craig’s show that the 11:35 shows lack. He jokes about it, but the lack of promotion and the lack of a large viewing audience affords him a certain luxury. The fact Craig and his staff realize it is what sets the show apart from the competition, and likens it to the show his boss used to do at 12:35 on NBC. Conan O’Brien had no choice but to follow the established format of “The Tonight Show,” just as Jay Leno followed Johnny Carson’s format, and just as Johnny Carson followed much of Jack Parr’s style. Parr was able to tweak the format of Steve Allen’s show because the series was still in its infancy. Craig can still play around with his nightly one hour stewardship of the CBS television network.

As stated above, I don’t think this experiment will lead to anything drastic. CBS would never consent to dropping the studio audience entirely, nor would they realistically consider a Late Late Late show to compete with Carson Daly and the Sham-Wow guy. But, from time to time, television can be reduced to its simplest form, if only to remind us that the more we stray from the basic, the more complicated (unnecessarily) things become.

Thanks to Craig Ferguson, Stephen Fry, and the crew of “The Late Late Show” for the reminder.

Sleep tight North America.

“Match Game” for 2/23/10

There’s one extra celebrity in today’s installment of the game: The lovely young Kirstie Alley. Long before she would boss around Sam Malone on “Cheers,” and even before she glued pointy ears to her head on “Star Trek II,” Kirstie tried to match wits with the stars of “Match Game.”

“Harriet said, ‘I’m worried about my husband. He keeps bringing home leftovers from work. The only trouble is, he works in a __________.’”

Kirstie went with “Hospital.” Care to guess how many celebrities she matched? If you guessed one, you were off by about one.

Robert Pink from “ChiPs” guessed “Bordello,” Brett went with “Shoe Factory,”* and Charles opted for “Fertilizer Plant.”

Jamie Lee Curtis sort of matched with Robert with “House of ill repute,” Dick Martin went with “Steel Mill,” and Betty White went dark with her response of “Mortuary”

For the record, Kirstie made it to the big money match, but didn’t win. The question was “__________ starter,” and Kirstie replied “Fire” but Robert Pine, the celeb she needed to match went with “Car.” The audience choice was “Self.”

Also for the record, in my review of the series these past couple of months, Jamie Lee Curtis is the first celebrity panelist I’ve actually met. I didn’t know when I met her that she’d appeared on “Match Game,” and, even if I had known, she was busy accidentally almost getting me fired from the show I was working on for me to even ask her about it. But she’s still cute as a button.

* Charles Nelson Reilly gave Brett Somers “The pathetic attempt award to try and find an answer” for her answer, a well earned award, to be sure.

Hollywood Tw*ts for the week of 2/21/10

Looking at the tweets of celebrity bubbleheads — so you don’t have to.

(for all you know, the * in the title of this feature stands for the letter “i” and, thus, the title is only offensive if you choose to believe it is — much like the rest of the English language)

Preface: This will seem excessively cruel to many, and I don’t particularly care. To paraphrase a line from Aaron Sorkin, there is difference between being a fan of someone and having a fetish. There is also a difference between having fans and enabling a fetish. The culture of celebrites tweeting while pee-ons follow along is only one symptom of a sickness overtaking a large percentage of the population. And it is on this point where I choose to draw a line in the sand. I’ll be posting tweets on a weekly basis by some of Hollywood’s most vapid women. And, perusing their Twitter accounts, I won’t have to scroll down too deeply to find the absurd — their collective idiocy bubbles right to the surface in virtually every instance. I’ll only be using verified accounts, and I’ll gladly retract any tweets posted, should it turn out an account has been hacked. I’ll also keep a running tally of the number of followers, hoping the number goes down, but not expecting it to. Sometimes I’ll let the tweets stand on their own, and other times I may comment on the outlandish stupidity. I’ve chosen popular females from the world of acting, singing, and other related crimes against humanity. I could have just as easily chosen men as the targets of my disaffection (Larry King and Ryan Seacrest leap to mind), but I’m limiting this to the fairer sex because they tend not to be fair towards me. And I do this because these drama queens are being worshipped by many, revered by some, and the rest seem content to let it all happen.

Note: The absurdity/stupidity level seems to increase with the number of followers, and I cannot believe that is a coincidence.

Jenna Jameson (http://twitter.com/jennajameson) 91,973 followers
“cuddled in bed wearing a shirt that says heart breaker… and nothing else :)

Eva Longoria (http://twitter.com/EvaLongoria) 133,947 followers
“Good afternoon everyone! I am in NY to film my episode of the Marraige Ref with Jerry Seinfeld and Tina Fey today! Can’t wait!”

Oh, Eva, why, baby? Why?

Kathy Griffin (http://twitter.com/kathygriffin) 254,466 followers
“WARNING!!! Gush moment. Taped a D List scene w Kristin Chenoweth. Wow! She knocked my sox off AND she’s a Christian who thinks I’M funny!”

Ivanka Trump (http://twitter.com/IvankaTrump) 709,371 followers
“Oops…almost set fire to the kitchen. Everything is under control now! Phew”

Yoko Ono (http://twitter.com/yokoono) 782,320 followers
“When you burn the chair, you suddenly realize that the chair in your mind did not burn or disappear”

Hard to tell if Yoko is being deep or if she is deeply baked.

Lauren Conrad (http://twitter.com/LaurenConrad) 902,794 followers
“Here’s a first… A pregnant woman in line at my book signing started having contractions… And stayed in line!!”

She wrote a book? And someone published it? The search for civilization continues.

Nicole Richie (http://twitter.com/nicolerichie) 926,749 followers
“I’m bringing back the curtsey”

Best of luck with that, sweety.

Khloe Kardashian (http://twitter.com/KhloeKardashian) 991,758 followers
“A lot of peps say bangs? Hummmmm”

Demetria Lovato (http://twitter.com/ddlovato) 1,427,767 followers
“Had a beautiful morning in beverly hills… what next?!”

Paris Hilton (http://twitter.com/ParisHilton) 1,537,974 followers
“What a fun night! My mom and Doug were so cute dancing together! I love how my parents love my love! We all had a blast! Great night! :)

Can a video of Mrs. Hilton and Paris’ boyfriend be in the internet’s future? Guessing yes.

Paula Abdul (http://twitter.com/PaulaAbdul) 1,625,079 followers
“Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.
 xoxo”

Paula would appear to be paraphrasing the catch phrase from “Fame.”

Katy Perry (http://twitter.com/katyperry) 1,870,439 followers
“On second thought I think I just witnessed a hummingbird rape… She wasn’t havin none of that.”

Thank the dear Lord she took time out of her day to type that gem for all the world to see.

Ashlee Simpson (http://twitter.com/ashsimpsonwentz) 2,115,036 followers
“Girl time makes me so happy”

Lady Gaga (http://twitter.com/ladygaga) 2,835,164 followers
“Yeaaah!!!! Motherf*ckers!!!!”

Taylor Swift (http://twitter.com/taylorswift13) 2,672,723 followers
“I just used a Sharpie as eye liner in the airplane bathroom.”

Kim Kardashian (http://twitter.com/KimKardashian) 3,043,356 followers
“Thanks guys! I had no idea a pickle was really a cucumber! U guys totally confirmed it!”

More than three million people read tweets by a dopey broad who didn’t know this!

Oprah Winfrey (http://twitter.com/Oprah) 3,186,151 followers
“If you have a child.know someone who has a child.or you were molested as a child.I pray you’ll watch Monday’s show & Tweet me your thoughts”

I’ve got to hand it to Oprah, it takes brass ones to publicly pimp molested kids for ratings.

“Match Game” for 2/20/10

Several inside references in today’s installment:

This edition of “Match Game” featured an appearance by Mark Goodson temporarily occupying a contestant’s chair. One of the two producers behind the show (and several other game shows), Goodson wanted to get something for host Gene Rayburn to thank him for his role in making the series number one in daytime. His gift to Gene was a bag for Gene’s needlepoint.

As Gene told the audience, it might seem like an odd gift, but since he frequently flies from LA to his home in Cape Cod, he was fond of doing needlepoint on the airplane to pass the time. Clearly a product of an earlier generation, today’s weary traveler would not be allowed to board an airplane with needles.

Anyway, onto the question, which was decidedly risque for 1974:

“Harry said to Bill, ‘What’s green and scaly and ten feet tall,’ and Bill said, ‘I don’t know,’ and Harry said, ‘I don’t know either, but it’s __________ing your wife!’”

Brett didn’t get a match with her answer, “staying with,” but she explained that Bill and his wife were separated, so for Bill to find out his wife was staying with someone else made sense to her. Whether this was in reference to her divorce from actor Jack Klugman at that time is anybody’s guess, but she was adamant the response was a good one.