Saturday, June 13, 2009

Craig Ferguson: 'I Am King' rantings...

So, this is what put a bug up Craig's ass for Friday's episode of the Late Late Show, starting the 'I am King cuz I say so' rant. We all know the truth, Craig is the King of late night because his viewers and fans named him such, not because CBS announced it.

Clearly NBC is desperate for Conan and Jimmy to do well and this press release is surely a cry for help. They are trying to plant the seed and alter the outcome of the crop...playing "God" if you will. Like a child who pretends to do something great in order to manipulate a parental praise outcome... I believe Conan is not doing as well as they had hoped but then again, he's only been on a couple of weeks. And Jimmy Fallon's critics are not softening their blows. Odd how this press release came out on the heels of the previous ratings release where Craig is beating Jimmy. Hey NBC, everyone is turned off by the smell of desperation...

Craig, you keep on doing what you do baby, keeping that Late Late Show train chugging, cuz we're always at the next stop waiting to go for a ride...and YOU ARE the very King of Late night, so get used to it biatch.

The infamous release...
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – June 11, 2009 – Conan is the new King of Late Night. "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" was the dominant winner in its first week on the air, delivering huge margins of victory in every ratings category. "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" won the week of June 1-5 with a 2.3 rating in the key measure of adults 18-49, the highest rated week for "The Tonight Show" in more than four years, and a towering 156 percent margin over CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" in adults 18-49. Even excluding the highly rated premiere show on June 1, Conan won the week with a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49 and by 111 percent over the CBS program (0.9).

source
special thanks to Knighter86 for their contribution

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Hey Malinky - Saw a taping of the LLS last week

Hey Malinky -

Sorry to hear about the power going out and hope Craig reads one of your emails sometime soon!

So last week I was down in LA for a trade show, and made a point to get tickets for myself and some friends to see a taping of the Late Late Show while we were in town. It was a great experience (of course!) and something that you as the YouTube LLS superhero would definitely enjoy.

We saw the 'second taping' on Thursday June 4th, for the "friday" show which aired on June 5th.

A few observations I thought I'd share...

0) the LLS studio is a lot smaller than it looks on TV - no wonder Craig complains... (the studio holds just over a hundred people in the audience, and there's only one 'stage area' (the desk is slid over to the side until after the monologue)

1.) When Craig first comes out he taped the monologue first, then the intro

2.) The intro seemed to be entirely ad-lib, as we heard Craig wondering out loud what he was going to do next, and then after saying he wasn't going to do puppets, he spotted a telephone on a table, grabbed it, and stuck it under the camera and did the whole 'call from Dave' thing on the fly... awesome!

3.) We didn't actually see the segment with comedian Henry Cho get taped - we did get shown an 'aquaman' clip on video (which wasn't part of the broadcast show) but the entire stand up and interview segment with Henry Cho didn't happen during our taping (maybe they did it during the first show taping that day?). The downside to this, was that our taping session did seem a bit 'short' (minus a whole ten minute segment!)

4.) The Chris Kattan interview wasn't edited. You mentioned in your comments that it seemed like a weird edit, but what aired was the entire segment as it was taped. I do agree that interview took a turn for the worse (calling Craig a racist! yikes!) and wonder if it had anything to do with perhaps the last minute guest booking of Kattan. You see, when I ordered the tickets, the CBS site said that the guest was going to be Sean William Scott, and Chris Kattan showed up instead.

5.) The CBS candies are very tasty! (and the warm up guy who tosses them out is pretty funny and is the same guy who plays the london guard during the prince charles segments)

6.) If you are going to go -
GET TICKETS HERE: http://www.cbs.com/late_late_show/tickets/

6A.) get in line early! We arrived an hour before the taping at 5pm, and there were already a good 20+ people in line ahead of us. We still got good seats, but if you want a shot at being in the part of the audience that sometimes gets seen before they go to commercial break, you need to be there early!

6B.) Bring some canned food for the homeless shelter that's mentioned on the ticketing site. There's a Cost Plus market just down the block from the CBS studios for the 'last minute' canned good purchase (tix to the show taping is free, so you can put that cash you would've spent into helping out a neighborhood charity!)

6C.) Watch out for security if you try to take a picture. After the taping, we went back to our car and tried to take a photo of ourselves outside the CBS studios... before we could say 'cheese' there was a CBS security guard in a golf cart saying they could take the camera away as there's no photography allowed on CBS property - yeesh!

6D.) Bring some money if you want some LLS swag. There's a small stand in front of the waiting area - They don't have a huge range, but there's a so-so T-shirt, a mousepad, a shot glass I think, and a couple of mugs (not the cool snake mug though!) - of course if you're in NYC, I bet you could go to the CBS store next to the Dave Letterman Late Show and find the same stuff.

6E.) and keep your fingers crossed and he may just do a puppet segment during the show that you attend (like the funny Dinosaur eats the Penguin bit as the Friday night ending, which of course I've since added to the "Puppet Power playlist" that I put together for all things puppets on the LLS.

LLS Puppet Power Playlist link -
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=ADE95078F07DAF61

Anyways, just thought I'd share the experience - thanks again as always for being the best source of LLS's online! Your efforts help me and my friends laugh all week!

- Pest169

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Email to Craig Ferguson

from Malinky Stoatir
to craigferguson@cbs.com
date Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 9:54 AM
subject Crack that whip!

Dearest Craig,

Please solve the almost year-long mystery as to why you no longer use the sound effects machine. I miss the whip crack.
Baby, can you please find a new way to whip me?

Love you and the show is great too!

-Malinky
New York, NY (Manhattan)

Notes From Nerdvana: The True King of Late Night

Notes From Nerdvana: The True King of Late Night

Tower of Hope Gala

"The Late Late Show's" Craig Ferguson will host the 2009 Tower of Hope Gala dinner on Sunday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Presented by the Tower Cancer Research Foundation, the evening will honor Nancy Mishkin, Dr. Philomena McAndrew and Steve Smith for their contributions to cancer care, research, awareness and humanitarian efforts.

The Hollywood Reporter

A Digital Deflowering...

I'm Craig Ferguson. This is my first twittery moment. I was a virgin until you read this and you took that from me you heartless wretch.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Joel McHale?

Looks like Joel McHale may also be a guest on tonight's show, with Dame Edna.
As per The Soup Blog...

fyi...

Worldwide Pants also owns the show that follows Mr. Letterman’s at 12:35 a.m., “The Late Late Show.” The current star of that show, Craig Ferguson, is under contract through 2010. The company definitely wants Mr. Ferguson, whose reputation has grown in recent years, to continue. His salary and the budget for “Late Late Show” are negotiated separately by Worldwide Pants and CBS.

source

tick-tock, tick-tock...

YouTube currently has the opening introduction file.
Craig was totally on tonight.
Kevin Bacon was funny, seeming more relaxed this time around.
In my book, Michael Irvin is a classy guy.
Missing the sketches tho.
Missing oooOOOooooo...
Oh and since I'm on a missing binge, I'm missing that damn whip crack too!

In case some of you are wondering...
After the show is over, I start processing the footage.
I post the intro & monologue clips and then head to bed.
I wake up some 4 hours later and continue to post the rest of the show.
In my mind, the first 2 parts of the show are the most important parts. The meaty sections, if you will.

Enjoy, kids!

Monday, June 8, 2009

This week's guest list...



Monday, June 8: Kevin Bacon & Michael Irvin

Tuesday, June 9: Dame Edna

Wednesday, June 10: Chris Matthews & Theresa Andersson

Thursday, June 11: Larry King & Anna Friel

Friday, June 12: Dane Cook & Peter Travers

Planned future guests...

Actors: Holly Hunter, Julia Ormond, Sandra Bullock, Bryan Cranston, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Marion Cotillard

Performance: Metric, Gain DeGraw, Camera Obscura,

Comics: Jeff Foxworthy, David Feldman

Science: Derrick Pitts

Writers: Michael Musto

Source: CBS Press Release

Updated: 8:29pm

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Give a 'shout out'


Hey!

So, either you've come across this blog on your own or were asked for help in testing. Either way, please be kind and leave a message. And more importantly, shout out your country. I'm keeping track of what countries are making it in. We don't want anyone left out...

Your help is much appreciated!