What Craig Ferguson Brought to Late Night

            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!

 Daffy Duke Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTJdmmSTvw8

Compilation vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH2gUPTFCfo&t=81s

Eulogy to his Father: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8DHP6GoN7c&t=261s       

           

Ramblin Man: Why Steve Martin's Stand-Up Period Was Ground Breaking

            The act of stand-up comedy is quite bizarre. Think about it. A person trying to be funny stands in front of a crowd and talks for an hour or so without any back and forth dialogue from the audience besides laughs or dead silence. The entire time this person is trying to appease a sea of people hidden in darkness while he or she tells jokes with a blinding stage light creating a seemingly impenetrable wall between the comedian and the audience. It’s a raw art form. Some comedians have taken a more traditional route with no special stage set ups or other materials to accompany them. Some crutch their act on the naked joke to get a laugh. Jerry Seinfeld, Joan Rivers, and Don Rickles come to mind as masters of this style. The other end of the comedy-performance spectrum includes performers who use music, elaborate set-design, and video during their shows. In a modern context, Bo Burnham is a great example with his marrying of music, spoken word, and traditional stand-up, but who influenced this millennial comedian? In a letter written to fans in 2010, Burnham mentioned Steve Martin as one of his major influences. Martin (i.e. the Ramblin Guy) known for films such as The Jerk and Cheaper By The Dozen had a successful stand-up career filled with goofy antics. With his wacky nature, Martin’s short career in the late 1970’s redefined what a comedian could be and inspired contemporary performers.

            After recently finishing Steve Martin’s autobiography, Born Standing Up, I immediately searched for one of his performances online. I found a 1979 show where he was at the peak of his career. What surprised me at first was how his performance is all over the place; however, his image was focused with a tailored white tuxedo. The suit seeming to act as a grounding mechanism for the future sporadic performance to come. He approached the stage in these clothes exhibiting a suave yet clueless nature like a baby trying to do taxes. He began by singing a song accompanied by banjo about the importance of being courteous while also being “pompous, obese, and eating cactus.” Only minutes later he jumped to making balloon animals that would curse when they would pop from his aggressive balloon handling. From there, during a bit with him discussing the importance of learning French, he suddenly danced around the stage exclaiming, “Oh no, I’ve got happy feet! Woahhhhhhh!” With all of these random bits being thrown in, I did not get it at all. In fact, I disliked it. The rapid transitions, slap-stick humor, and banjo playing confused me. I immediately turned off the video and decided to show a friend the performance later that day. After we watched the entire show, I realized that Martin’s comedy synthesizes different sources accumulating into this Frankenstein type of comedy. This gave his performances a unique quality, surprise.

            Steve Martin is not just a comedian; he is a performer who utilizes physical antics to generate laughs. The gags, dancing, banjo playing, and other oddities are channeling the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and others who used comedy and performance to create their own unique style. The stellar reaction from the audience he gets from even using his two microphones in the performance by spilling water on the ground then shocking himself repeatedly, only pretend, shows his dedication. The same goes when he scrapes the strings of his banjo on one of the microphones while giving a serious dialogue on the dangers of cat juggling in Mexico (looked it up, luckily not real) showing off his creative use of the simplest of performance tools. This ability to use the unexpected aids him when he decides to go for simply taking minutes out of the show to play an instrumental song on banjo. Whether this is to inject his love for the instrument or to make his audience feel as if they’re at a country jamboree is not the point. It continues to keep his audience on the edge, and that is what makes his comedy so special; the audience has no idea what he will do next. The flare, surprise, and chaos of his shows must have been memorable for anyone in attendance; it certainly was for me while sitting in my room at 2am laughing. 

Sources: http://thecomicscomic.com/2010/10/29/bo-burnham-lists-my-favorite-comedians-and-releases-a-confessional-video-art-is-dead/
1979 Performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRocmX0pF9U&t=1813s

Who’s your favorite comedian? Let me know in the comments.