Posts Tagged Tom Snyder

Missed It: Stephen Fry on Craig Ferguson

Posted by admin in late night TV, talk show on March 14, 2010

The week I was on vacation, away from CBS TV, Craig Ferguson pulled off an experimental episode of his Late Late Show. On the February 23 episode (which unfortunately is no longer archived on the CBS website), after the opening monologue he interviewed the British actor and writer Stephen Fry for the length of the whole show without a studio audience. That element of the show hearkened back to the format done by original Late Late Show host, Tom Snyder, who always had done the show without a studio audience.

The opening monologue, which I linked to above, reveals the transparency in which Ferguson consistently conducts the show. He conceded that he was slightly bothered by the dust-up on NBC involving Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. Coming out of that, it got Ferguson thinking about the dynamics of his television show and itching to try a show without a studio audience (an aspect of his normal show that he fully concedes he appreciates and feeds off of on a regular basis).

If anyone doubted his being inspired by Snyder’s old format, Ferguson eliminated that possibility with the closing line of the monlogue, quoting Snyder’s traditional line to his audience: “Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air.”

CBS did not post the entire episode, but I’m sure if you look through You Tube, you might find snippets here or there. But for now, I provide you the five-minute snippet CBS was kind enough to post. Should I find out they will be replaying the episode, I will try to post a note here or on my Twitter account (TalkingwithTim).

One last thought on this experiment, to echo Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker, who wrote a great analysis of this episode: “I vote for one edition a month of The Late Late Show in this format.”

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NBC, Hulu and Letterman: How Long Before…

Posted by admin in late night TV on May 22, 2008

So I swung by Hulu.com the other evening and on a lark, I did a search for Letterman to see if they had anything. Much to my surprise they had a documentary (my term, not theirs, and I use this term quite loosely) called Early Dave: The Letterman Tapes (1978-1993). It’s a mixture of Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley, Tom Snyder and other NBC interviews with Dave, not really a documentary.

They are tightly edited, sometimes annoying so. For example, one Snyder interview they do has Dave along with Merrill Markoe and other folks–whom you never see. Letterman refers to Markoe at one point in the interview, that’s the only way I know, because they edit her bits completely out. Markoe, I dare say, is as funny as Letterman at times and I’m annoyed she was edited out of the piece.

It’s vintage Dave, shown driving his old pick-up truck to his gigs to substitute for Carson. Dave doing a stand-up routine. A tour of his new home, where you can see his beloved dog, Bob, is another interesting bit. A 1970s era Johnny Carson associate Fred de Cordova (with baseball cap no less)  talking to Letterman before a taping of the Tonight Show. Later we see a clip of Letterman talking to Mariette Hartley about his morning show for NBC (I forgot he got a whole 90 minutes with that show…) and an upcoming feature on the show called Stupid Pet Tricks (still in its infancy, I believe). It’s a fun romp leading up to Brokaw’s interview with Letterman on the night of his last NBC show.

I was surprised to find this on Hulu, given that as a Universal property in some ways it is very much an NBC product. And more importantly, while I know Carson had the rights to his Tonight Show (meaning unless the estate/company makes a deal, it will not be showing up on Hulu), was this an effort by NBC to test the waters and ultimately start offering Letterman’s old NBC shows on Hulu?

Part of me would love to see that, but I’m sure it would irk Dave to no end. Maybe I’m wrong on both counts. We’ll have to wait and see. Either way, be sure to check out the documentary for vintage and I do mean vintage Letterman. I would love to know what producer thought it a good idea to have Today show host Jane Pauley interview Letterman while the both sat on an inactive merry go-round…

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