Have you seen Craig Ferguson’s new set? I had an opportunity to check it out in person last month in Los Angeles at a taping of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson (weeknights at 12:35 on CBS and CH; Malcolm In The Middle’s Jane Kaczmarek guests tonight).
In case you haven’t been up all night lately, Ferguson’s old set — a leftover from Late Late Show’s Craig Kilborn days — was smashed to bits in July. Ferguson invited ageless TV host Bob Barker (who works down the hall at CBS’s Television City Studios) to deliver the first karate chop to the desk. The 82-year-old TV icon attacked it like it was Adam Sandler’s jaw. A bevy of “Barker’s Beauties” (hostesses from The Price Is Right) finished it off with baseball bats.
The new set, from the same designer who spiffed up Jay Leno’s Tonight Show digs several years ago, features a wrap-a-round vista of Los Angeles in the background framed by a dark-panelled old Hollywood loft-like facade. (During a wicked opening week heat wave, a crummy old apartment air conditioner was wedged into one of the loft windows).
Ferguson’s warm up dude, “Chunky B,” tossed candies and jokes at the audience. “I’ve been married eight years but it seems like five minutes,” he deadpanned. “Underwater.”
The well-trained crowd cheered and applauded on cue as lanky Ferguson strode on set to the strains of the cheery Late Late Show theme song (“It’s hard to stay up/It’s been a long, long day/And you’ve got the Sandman at the door...”)
The next 11-and-a-half-minutes (counted down on a digital clock on the floor director’s desk) is Ferguson in flight. Instead of the usual eight-to-12 jokes of the day as heard on Conan O’Brien or Jimmy Kimmel, the charismatic Scot just engages in a bit of bar talk, bantering with viewers on a one-on-one basis.
While it looks all chummy and casual, Ferguson’s opener is actually the equivalent of an entirely new standup comedy routine every night. (No wonder he just picked up an Emmy nomination.) Ferguson’s legendary executive producer, Peter Lasally, who has worked with both Johnny Carson and David Letterman, just shakes his head after the show. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says.
On the night I attended, Ferguson’s main target was ’NSYNC singer Lance Bass, who had just come out on the cover of People magazine. “Wasn’t he the guy who wanted to go up on the space shuttle?” Ferguson asks. “No wonder he wanted a closer look at Uranus.”
That joke probably came from one of the staff writers Ferguson huddles with each afternoon as he works out his rant. But most of the opening is pure Ferguson, bits of business and dialogue the former Drew Carey Show player hones and rehearses in his dressing room prior to the taping.
I looked everywhere for cue cards or TelePrompTers inside tight little soundstage 58 (where both Kilborn and Tom Snyder once taped). There are none, producer Michael Naidus later confirms. Ferguson just roars along, looks for two or three pre-planned “exit ramps” in his monologue and throws to a commercial exactly as the countdown clock hits zero.
The taping is a good time, with Ferguson playing to the 100 fans in the bleachers between segments. The guest that night, Cuba Gooding Jr., killed, despite (or because) he ditched the usual talk show briefing. Ferguson went into the spot knowing just three things about his guest (including the fact Gooding has a ball hockey court in his back yard) yet the two hit it off like pirates.
All this, plus great munchies in the Green Room (where you’ll also find the Ferguson tartan and crest). Time for a Scottish toast: Long may the new set stand and the smoke go up Ferguson’s chimney.
