This past Friday The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson aired its 1,500th show. It’s been on the air, with the Scottish born comic/actor Ferguson as host, for eight years. CBS just renewed Ferguson’s contract through the 2014 season. The show won a Peabody award in 2009 and Ferguson was nominated for an Emmy in 2006.
Nevertheless, chances are pretty good you’ve never seen it; it starts at 12:37 am for heaven’s sake, when most normal people are well asleep. The ratings, naturally, bear that up. The Late Late Show averaged about 1.6 million viewers this season (compared to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’s 1.8). But still, that’s 1.6 million people who, I promise, are laughing their asses off.
Nina Tassler, President of CBS Entertainment said of Ferguson’s new contract, “Craig Ferguson continues to evolve the genre in exciting and innovative ways.” That is a glorious piece of newspeak that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what the heck is going on at The Late Late Show every night; led by Ferguson’s decidedly off-kilter sense of humor, the show is loopy as shit. While every other late night show follows basically the same routine—one-liner filled monologue, comedy bit, guest, guest, comedy bit, maybe musical guest—Ferguson manages to tweak the formula just this much and his very specific, very peculiar wit informs everything. The show is both familiar and utterly surprising and pound for pound may be funnier than anything going on after 11pm.
To convince you to stay up late one night, or work through some wicked insomnia or—imagine!—just DVR the damn thing, herewith ten reasons you might find The Late Late Show to be just about the weirdest, most hilarious thing on television.
1. The monologue. Cut into two sections (at the behest of the network apparently; the first short, cold open bleeding straight from The Late Show with David Letterman) Ferguson is rumored to create much of this himself—and much of it extemporaneously–based on whatever’s on his mind. Instead of the litany of current events one-liners that other hosts deliver, for the bulk of it Ferguson often picks one topic that’s tickled his fancy—or irritated the heck out of him–and just goes with it, injecting his own particular brand of wicked wit and often, extreme humanity. Famously, in 2007, he did a 12-minute monologue taking himself to task for making fun of people like Britney Spears. Achingly authentic and confessional (but also, a times, incredibly funny) Ferguson spoke of his own alcoholism (he’s now 20 years sober) and vowed to keep his comedy joyful and to “attack…the powerful…we shouldn’t be attacking the vulnerable.” For proof of that, you can look at his 2009 monologue devoted entirely about Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst at the State of the Union. Naturally, his skewering of Wilson (“His emotions got the better of him? Sometimes I want to have sex with a hooker, but I don’t.”) was also larded with Ferguson’s own wacky worldview. (“Disagreement is what it’s all about. That’s why we have Republicans and Democrats, boxers and briefs, Rosie and Trump, Hall and Oates, Linens and Things…”) He’s also spent his entire monologue on Keith Olbermann, Mark Sanford and Mozart. This thing can go anywhere–and it often does. The cold open “pre-monologue monologue” can be even more delightfully bizarre. Ferguson will pull people from the audience to interview them. Or, he’ll just start the show as…
2. Wavy Rancheros, a vaguely Cajun alligator puppet. Yeah, you read that right. Sometimes, Ferguson starts the show as a hand puppet. Wavy is a slick, sexy Southern bastard who flirts shamelessly and tells tales about getting high. Sort of like Matthew McConaughey, if he was green, plush, and had Craig Ferguson’s hand up his butt (and quick wit). (Not to mention a sort of shameless self-awareness, which Ferguson clearly has, while some movie stars–not so much: see below.) There’s also Sid, a potty-mouthed rabbit from London, and Brian, the sweet shark (among others). And sometimes in the middle of the show, Ferguson cues a ringing doorbell, which means Secretariat—two interns dressed in a floppy horse costume—comes dancing through the studio for absolutely no reason whatsoever. There’s a weird fun-house vibe to The Late Late Show–and a childlike whimsy–which makes perfect sense at 1am.
3. Ferguson spent a week shooting the show in Paris. Le Late Late Show avec Craig Ferguson à Paris was both hilarious and informative. He’s also taking the show to Scotland in May. Craig Ferguson: single-handedly bringing the world to America.
4. Ferguson has the best late night sidekick on TV. No offense to Andy Richter, who I’m sure is a lovely man (and does his job well), no one and nothing on TV is quite as bizarre and fantastic as Geoff Peterson, who anchors one side of Ferguson’s stage and engages in hilarious, free-form banter with Ferguson that’s a consistent highlight of the show. Who the heck is Geoff Peterson, you might ask? Well, here’s the thing: Geoff’s a robot. A skeleton robot with a metal Mohawk and glowing blue eyes. And he’s one of the funniest, driest wits on TV. Originally created (by Grant Imahara of Mythbusters fame) as a joke about how the show is too low budget for a band or a sidekick, Geoff started out with only a handful of pre-programmed lines. Since 2010, however, he’s been brought to life by comedian Josh Robert Thompson, who describes the voice as “one part Snagglepuss, one part Vincent Price, two parts George Takei”. The back and forth between Geoff and Craig is like two great comics just going at it and their verbal jousting is, improbably, all parts hilarious.
5. Ferguson wrote his own theme song. The credits sequence in which he performs it–all over a L.A.–is a delightfully irreverent start to the show. And it’s ridiculously catchy–not to mention strangely thought provoking. (It ends with the lyrics “Tomorrow’s just your future’s yesterday.”)
6. Ferguson’s brand of interviewing is—just like his monologue—completely different from any other talk show host. As soon as his guests sit down, Ferguson rips up the prepped note cards he’s holding and throws the fragments in the air. He then just asks whatever he wants, rarely if ever effectively “plugging”the movie/show/book his guest is ostensibly there to discuss. The conversations have none of the pre-packaged, pre-interviewed feel that they do on most talk shows. Instead, it seems like Craig is just shooting the shit with someone. And because he’s so loose, his guests tend to loosen up too–there’s a distinct feeling that the conversation can go anywhere. Watching Ferguson and his guests often feels like eavesdropping on two fantastically witty and interesting cocktail party guests.
7. When Rick Santorum dropped out of the Presidential race last week, Ferguson referred to him, twinkle in his eye, as, “That gay guy, right?”.
8. Ferguson’s delightfully naughty. For one, he curses like a sailor, seemingly unwilling to curb his language, despite network standards and practices. (Eight years in, he’ll still look at the director with shock that a certain phrase isn’t kosher.) The offending words are blocked out with little flags-of-the-world graphics and a voice screaming “Zut alors!” or “Tutti Frutti!”. But it’s not just Ferguson’s language that’s on the dirty side. He brings a hilarious, grown-up, but utterly silly smuttiness to the show that’s virtually missing from other late night hosts. (Ironic, isn’t it, considering everyone’s watching this shit in bed? Get saucy folks!) Ferguson prances for the camera, he jokes about his sexual proclivities, he fondles his own nipples. Resolutely uninterested in surrendering to our particular, American prudishness, Ferguson lets his freak flag fly. It’s practically—wonderfully–European.
9. Though he’s as self-taught as they come (he admits to having spent his twenties drunk rather than in college) Ferguson’s a real smarty-pants. He’s not only written films, including cult faves Saving Grace and The Big Tease, he’s also directed one and even authored—gasp!—actual books. Ferguson’s truly wonderful novel, Between the Bridge and The River earned a starred review from Publishers’ Weekly, who called, it “a tour de force of cynical humor and poignant reverie, a caustic yet ebullient picaresque that approaches the sacred by way of the profane”. He also authored a memoir, American on Purpose (Ferguson quite publicly became a U.S. citizen a few years ago). Ferguson has a decidely curious mind–and it shows. Where other late night shows might make you feel as if you just lost an IQ point or two, (Jimmy Kimmel, God love you, but I’m looking at you) as silly as it is, an episode of The Late Late Show might just make you want to…Google something.
10. Everyone’s favorite sloth-loving cutie, Kristen Bell, is a frequent, beloved Ferguson guest. Enough so that she and Geoff are in an on-again, off-again “feud”, ostensibly borne of her anger that she didn’t get the sidekick job. Need I say more? All the cool kids like it. Watch this show.
