It’s a Wednesday night. You have
just finished a 9-5 shift at your job and are looking forward to a relaxing
evening. After dinner has been cooked and other chores finished, you grab the
tv remote, get comfy on the couch, and look to find something to watch. As you
skip through the channels, you look for one of the many late-night shows
starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Conan O’Brien. However, what grabs
your attention is not any of these, but one starring a host that doesn’t seem
to really care what happens during the show. This surprisingly doesn’t turn you
off from watching, but instead, you find his jabs at his own show hilarious. He’s
witty, interacts with the audience, calls out his producer for the low budget
production, and every time he cusses, a different country’s flag appears on his
mouth with a phrase from that country spoken in a cheesy accent. This odd
detour from late-night continues with his robot side-kick at one end of the
stage, and on the other end, a very demented looking horse named Secretariat
who dances on command. So, what does a Scottish man, a talking robot, and two
guys dressed in a horse suit have to do with a late-night talk show? Nothing,
and at the same time, everything when it comes to explaining The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
 |
| from left to right Geoff Peterson, Craig Ferguson, Secretariat |
Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1962,
Craig Ferguson became a rising star in Britain performing comedy, music, and
theater until he moved to America where he co-starred on The Drew Carrey Show as Nigel Wick. Even while starring on the
show, he continued to write for movies and television shows such as Saving Grace and Doc Martin as well as doing voice over work (all of the How to Train Your Dragon fans will know
him as the voice of Gobber). Not until 2004 did Ferguson get his start by
taking over The Late Late Show from previous host Craig Kilborn and to say he
was an unexpected pick is certainly an understatement. Not just anyone can get
the television spot that comes after David Letterman, and I am confident in
saying that late-night audiences were not expecting his unique take on the
medium.
From the start of the show, and I
mean literally, Ferguson mixes up what the standard monologue is. Take
something as simple as where he stands in relation to the camera. Instead of him
standing in the same spot with the camera getting a shot of him from the torso
up, he moves around as if he’s performing a stand-up comedy routine, and depending
on his delivery of a joke, he will inch closer and closer to the camera to the
point that his face is almost touching the camera lens while he whispers the
punchline. His monologue also consists of banter with the audience. As he comes
out and the crowd claps and cheers, he will exclaim something along the lines
of, “Thank you ladies and gentlemen, for your very genuine and totally not forced
cheers and claps. They fakery is almost too much.” The audience ends up
laughing at their own expense, but the monologue sets a trend for what Ferguson
does best for the rest of the show, which is to twist what the standard
late-night show is.
Finishing the monologue, the show
transitions to the tweets and email section with Craig, his robot side-kick
Geoff Peterson (voiced Josh Robert Thompson), and Craig’s horse Secretariat
answering fan questions. The banter between Craig and Geoff Peterson sometimes
spawns an improv joke that will go throughout the entire show. In a Christmas
eves eves eves episode (link below) with the stage decked out in holiday décor,
and Secretariat wearing a silver Christmas star hat, Craig and Geoff received a
tweet from a German fan named Hans who asked them for a good cartoon to watch
while making home-made cigarettes? They began to answer the fan with “pervy German
accents” saying instead that they enjoy “the simple pleasures of Daffy Dook.” This
serious German version of the character becomes a gag for the rest of the
segment with them adding that they both enjoy swapping logs at Christmas while
enjoying the simple pleasures of this Daffy Dook character. This involves them
continually going off script, which creates this sincerity to share with the audience
that they don’t even know where the show will go.
In contrast with all of this wackiness
the show accomplishes, Ferguson does not shy away from difficulty or sadness.
Probably my favorite monologue he has done on the show was not filled with gags
or talking robots but instead a eulogy for his father Robert Ferguson (link
below). His eulogy or “wake” was filled with background on his father, funny
stories, and a sincere honesty and trust to show the audience the real him. That
sincerity to not try to pretend that he was not in pain over his father’s
passing exhibits Ferguson’s character and how he interjected that character. He
was not apprehensive to show the audience who he really was. He was not in the
business of appeasing every late-night fan. Ferguson took the flashy
production, scripted jokes, celebrity interviews, of late-night and showed the
reality of it and how funny that reality can be. To quote his catch phrase when
starting every show, “It’s a great day for America everyone!” I can’t speak for
everyone, but it was a great day for me anytime I got to unwind after a long
day and watch The Late Late Show with
Craig Ferguson.
Do
you have a favorite late-night talk show? Let me know in the comments!
Compilation vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH2gUPTFCfo&t=81s
Eulogy to his Father: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8DHP6GoN7c&t=261s
No comments:
Post a Comment