The Late, Late Show with Craig Kilborn....

He had more interesting guests, it seems like. Random NBA players (Nash, the TWolves trio) instead of people pushing a movie or book, presumably because his ratings were weak.

i never much liked craig kilborn, prolly because that smug persona of hisalways seemed a bit too genuine.

THE LOGICK IS HURDTING MY BRANE!!!!!!111

I wonder who will take this lame duck of a talk show over for him, if anyone.

is it just me or is ferguson funnier than conan?

i haven't watched conan much lately but that seems otm. at some point conan got way too set in his "isn't it funny that i'm not really funny" shtick.

didn't realize conan had a "isn't it funny that i'm not really funny" shtick. unless you count him making fun of the failed monologue jokes or skits on the show, which you really shouldn't. dude can still be really funny.

i kind of just feel embarrassed for ferguson. i mean, he's not terrible or anything, but he's got this corny, "LIKE ME!" quality to him that puts me off. eh.

I've only seen Ferguson a couple times, but when he is on - he is funnier than shit. Awhile back I saw him do a bit during his monologue about a middle-aged man he saw with a fauxhawk wearing an expensive shirt that said "Punk is Not Dead" in shimmering jewels and it was the funniest thing I'd heard on late night TV in a long time. I don't remember all of the bit, but my favorite line was when he said, "I can't say what he was on national television, but it rhymes with 'schmoucheschmag'.

he's got this corny, "LIKE ME!" quality to him that puts me off

^^this

I've only seen Ferguson a couple times, but when he is on - he is funnier than shit.

it's not that hard to be funnier than an inanimate biological waste product

Shit can be pretty funny, at times.

The thing I like about Ferguson's show is that the interviews are often the funniest part -- with the right person, they're better than any of the bits or monologues -- which seems like kind of a great achievement. I don't think that's been true of any late-night show since, well ... I think you'd have to run a little way back into Carson to get that.

he's got this corny, "LIKE ME!" quality to him that puts me off

Unlike Conan who says "unlike me, who..." or "that sounds like something I'd do!" or "had that been me..." or 200 other variations at least twice in every interview he does.

(I'm still not sold on Ferguson either.)

I really really love craig ferguson. He is the funniest man on late night tv, by far. Last year, when we were staying up later, my gf and I would watch him every night. good times.

What's so funny about him? I'm genuinely asking. I haven't watched any more than 5 minutes of his show at a time, but his humor seems to be based on this "oo-ee aren't I cheeky?" demeanor that kind of annoys me.

Can you rephrase that in a way that's answerable?

OK, what's his humor like? Maybe I'm misreading it. One of the things I like about Conan, for instance, is his penchant for silliness and his lack of smugness (even though, as Pleasant Plains suggests, he often uses self-deprecation as a crutch).

Craig Ferguson seems totally at ease with the talk show format in a way almost totally unlike anyone else on television at the moment. Everyone else seems to either be to smarmy (Leno), too nervous (Conan), too detached (Letterman) or too totally unsuited for the job (Kimmel) to really put you at ease. (In some cases, this is intentional.)

I don't know, the more I think about it, craig ferguson really shouldn't be funny. He makes a lot of stupid jokes, and he repeats them over and over again. I guess it's that he's extremely likable and seems to be making everything up as he goes along. He seems to exist in his own crazy ferguson world and that creates some kind of weird rapport with his audience.

Or maybe it's just that he's scottish.

I think, in order to get a handle on exactly how good Ferguson is at being a talk show host, you have to imagine his show done verbatim by Billy Connelly.

xpost - HI DERE is right, which is part of what I'm saying below:

I dunno if that version's any easier to answer without going into essay form, but ... I don't think his brand of humor is any obscure or subtle variety -- he just strikes me as someone who chats fairly comfortably and makes typical jokes via understatement, deadpan, innuendo, or any of the other staples of conversational jokes. And his phrasing and timing and delivery with them always seems top-notch and funny to me.

(I'm trying to remember anything I chuckled at the last time I watched this, and all that's coming to mind is someone saying something to him about how he wasn't developing an American accent, to which he said something like ... "Well, I figured there were already 300 million Americans walking around talking in their accent, and they're all really good at it." -- This isn't any offbeat brand of humor, right? Just a good funny response.)

The thing I like about him interview-wise is that instead of setting up pre-prepared stories like the other late-night shows, he actually follows people's statements with questions and draws them off in different directions -- he asks actual amusing questions in response to what people say, and then has an actual amusing conversation about it. This is the only late-night show where I've ever seen, say, some random low-level dramatic actress on it, and come away thinking "she's really hilarious! That was a funny conversation between two funny people!"

Oh, that's cool. Maybe I'll give him another chance.

Nabisco is otm, his interviews really are more like conversations (like the best Letterman/Leno interviews, where they talk to their friends about goofy things or when Dave talks to some random young actress he really, really, really wants to fuck)

the greatest thing is when he has a scottish guest on and they just talk on and on for like a half an hour about things that nobody watching can possibly care about.

I wonder if his "oh yes I used to be a serious alcoholic" jokes will ever wear thin -- for the time being I still find it hilarious when a guest comes on and says "oh right, I met you back in 199X" and he's like "you did? I hope I didn't throw up on you, or anything"

he's more affable than funny, but it goes a long way.

but his humor seems to be based on this "oo-ee aren't I cheeky?" demeanor

not really. he is somewhat creative and spins off his own jokes pretty well so it's not as all about HIM as it appears at first glance. don't want to overstate it, putting him up there with letterman, 2009 or otherwise is kinda wtf. i've never ever been torn between catching the rest of ferguson and going to sleep

I will basically DVR Ferguson if there's a guest on I actually want to know something about, and it tends not to fail me in that regard -- I do feel like I'm learning way more about what that person's actually like than I would on any other show of this sort.

then again night after night is still my goat late night show

ferguson's show made me think of it cause you get the vibe that no one else is watching (true in havey's case), that lack of showbiz tension helps you wind down better and that's worth something. cf. tom snyder of course

I hate Russell Brand, but the Brand/Ferguson interview was the funniest 10 minutes of late night television I have ever seen in my life.

Like I came away thinking Brand needs to be his cohost

And then I remembered Russell Brand is a schmouchschmag.

i really came to appreciate ferguson during the writer's strike ... if he was really just improvising everything he was saying during each of those shows, then he's pretty amazing at ad libbing. he can be a over-the-top and too in-your-face, but on the other hand, he's really loose in a way that conan could never be, to the point where even the scripted stuff has an improvised feel. he doesn't seem as constricted by the structure of the talk show, where you come out and do shitty monologue jokes with like 20 seconds of applause and laughter between each one.

otm

haha, ok this thread's convinced me to give ferguson another chance. i suppose it's not really much of a choice once Fallon gets Conan's spot anyway.

really good interview w/ tom selleck, maybe i've underestimated his interviewing