Gulity Pleasure: The Late Late Show with Craig Fergusan
The Late Late Show with Craig Fergusan is a guilty pleasure.
by Mike Liebner
 |
I must confess that The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn was not one of my favorite shows to watch. |
In fact that guy Kilborn annoyed me with his arrogant demeanor and I just didn’t think he was funny. The only reason I ever watched that show with Kilborn was when there was a guest that I was interested in.
That said, it wasn’t exactly bad news when I heard that Kilborn was leaving the show. There was kind of a stir in Hollywood about who would be able to fill his shoes and if CBS whould even keep the Late Late show running. Who cared? Not me…
Time had passed and I lost interest in following what was happening and who would be hosting. I believe they did a stint of guest hosts waiting to see if someone stood out. I do remember a while back tuning in and finding a loud boisterous obnoxious Scottish guy hosting the show and I was perplexed how CBS could have settled on this Scott named Craig Fergusan, when surely half of Hollywood was trying to be considered for the gig.
I gave the show a shot and despite my initial dislike of Craig Fergusan, it didn’t take long before I warmed up to him. I had no idea he was on the Drew Crey show for 9 years prior to this gig (didn’t care for that show) so it took some getting used to the accent and his style.
But suddenly I found myself watching The Late Late Show with Craig Fergusan more and more often (they had good guests) and I must say I found myself laughing out loud more and more as I watched him. In fact it wasn’t long and I added The Late Late Show with Craig Fergusan to my list of shows that Tivo recorded for me, even when he didn’t have good guests.
I must say that I was also a huge fan of Craig’s late night talk show competitor Late Night with Conan O’Brien, who was known to make me laugh out loud with regularity.
Conan is brilliant, but ya know what… I found myself liking Craig Fergusan more and more and now I record all his shows and watch pretty much every one of them.
As much as I like Conan I can’t say the same for his show. I will watch it when there is a good guest but I watch The Late Late Show with Craig Fergusan much more often.
Craig Fergusan has this fiery spirit and gung ho attitude that once you get used to his personality, his performance rises above the rest and puts this man right up there in brilliance aside great comedic minds and the other great comedians I admire. Brilliant people like Bill Maher, George Carlin, Ali G (Sascha Cohen) ,Conan, Billy Crystal, Dana Carvey and Jim Carrey.
Now, what I think are Craig’s weaknesses I suspect are also contributors to his overall strength as a comedian. He relies greatly on repetition and familiarity to the point where a mere mention of a trademark pun or joke gets ya smiling. If you’ve seen his show more than a couple of times you know what I mean. For instance the way he introduces himself as “tv’s Craig Fergusan”, or how he nightly asks if he can do emails and says I’ll do them anyway.
Once you open up and take in this Scottish lad and accept his style, you open up the possibilities of being entertained on a grand scale.
The Late Late Show with Craig Fergusan is fresh and fun. It considtently makes me laugh and smile and that is a good thing. I believe it will be a launching pad to many other achievements by this talented and funny guy. For one I see a possible Emmy for his role as Fisherman #1 in the CBS Bats movie. As Craig woulkd say “You go girl!”
1 Comment »
Bravo for this review, Mr. Liebner! Craig Ferguson (with an o)is a brilliant comedian and interviewer. He has also written, produced, and starred in 2 movies, and written, directed, and starred in another. He’s acted in other movies as well. He has written an amazing first novel, “Between the Bridge and the River”, which was released in April, 2006. He was also nominated for an Emmy in 2006 for ‘Best Individual Performance in a Comedy or Musical Series’- that weird category that left Craig and Stephen Colbert ‘angry’ when Barry Manilow won. “Damn you, Manilow!” was Craig’s joking response (repeated often, of course).
Forget “Fisherman #1″. I expect that Craig Ferguson will win an Emmy for his own show, once more people recognize his brilliance, as you have.
Cher
Comment by cher31 — January 21, 2007 @ 4:39 pm