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Craig Ferguson

BY ALEX ISRAEL

In print | Published October 29, 2009

The late-night talk show landscape has been very busy for the past few months. From the announcement that Conan O’Brien would be taking over that most hallowed of post-local news institutions “The Tonight Show”, and would no longer play second fiddle to Jay Leno, to the news that Jay would remain at NBC to suck up precious hours of prime-time to host an hour-long talk show that would force Conan to continue playing second fiddle, to David Letterman’s revelation that he was being blackmailed after having affairs with various women on his staff, it has been a busy and scandal-ridden time for late night. The change that may well be the most significant for the future of late-night comedy, however, has gone virtually unnoticed; nobody is really talking about the fact that over at CBS’s “Late Late Show,” Craig Ferguson has been quietly reinventing the late-night talk show.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, and who are turning to Google to prove to me that the post-Letterman slot is still occupied by Craig Kilborn, Ferguson is a Scottish (although now a naturalized American citizen, a fact of which he is very proud) stand-up comic who took over “The Late Late Show” in 2005. Prior to hosting the late-night talk show he was best known as Mr. Wick, the imperious British boss on “The Drew Carey Show.” He also wrote and appeared in the very funny and criminally underseen film “Saving Grace,” the story of an elderly widow in massive amounts of debt who turns to marijuana to solve her financial problems. Basically, it’s “Weeds” with old people and better dialogue, and the added distinction of coming out in 2000, five years before the latter show aired.

Ferguson has a gift for writing, as evidenced by the screenplay for “Saving Grace” and the two books he’s published: the breathtakingly funny novel “Between the Bridge and the River” and the heartbreaking, darkly comic memoir “American on Purpose.” While the writing on his show is quick and clever (for evidence of this, compare Ferguson’s recent sketch called “A Party at Elton John’s House” with any of the canned, smug humor offered by “The Jay Leno Show”) Ferguson’s real accomplishment has been the complete reinvention of the late-night monologue.

Ferguson has taken the compartmentalized current affairs and celebrity-driven monologue and turned it into a loopy, interconnected, fifteen-minute-long story that will make you laugh so hard you stop breathing and turn blue. Unlike his competitors, who keep a safe distance from the camera and direct many of their jokes at bandleaders or Andy Richter, Ferguson positions himself almost uncomfortably close to the screen so that all his admonitions, complaints and observations are delivered directly to the viewer in a thick Scottish burr.

His persona has been honed by many years of doing stand-up, and not the kind where the comic is on a stage, separated from the audience by a twenty feet and a vertical drop; this is the stand-up comedy that takes place in dark, smoky clubs full of loud, drunken Scotsmen, where comedy becomes a direct confrontation, sometimes literally escalating into blood sport. In “American on Purpose,” Ferguson — who is himself a fifteen-years-sober recovering alcoholic — details an incident in which, while performing at a Scottish comedy club, he punched a heckler in the face. The fact that Ferguson manages to maintain that kind of kinetic connection to an audience he can’t even see, many of whom are watching from hundreds of miles away, shows the kind of skill as a performer that he brings to the late-night table.

The history of vice that Ferguson brings to the show — primarily alcoholism, but also drug abuse, infidelity and two divorces — is, ironically enough, a way for the audience to get close to Ferguson. On “The Late Late Show” there is no veneer of Midwestern innocence disguising a penchant for sleeping with employees, and we know far more about Ferguson than the names of his children or that he collects classic cars. Instead, he is honest about the years he spent stinking drunk, snorting cocaine, getting into fights and falling into bed with woman after woman.

This bare, almost painful honesty often works to his advantage; a year and a half ago, when Britney Spears went on her head-shaving spree, the other late-night hosts were all making jokes at her expense (as was just about everyone else in the English-speaking world). Ferguson, however, refused to go there. Brit’s wild weekend was also Craig’s fifteen-year anniversary of being sober, and that Monday the normally irrepressible Scot offered a subdued, heartfelt, twelve-minute monologue in which he bared his soul to his audience, talking about his alcoholism and the moment, many Christmases before, when he woke up so miserable that he nearly killed himself.

That kind of honesty is what makes Ferguson more than just a wildly funny comic; it makes the audience feel that he is our friend. Which means that his loyal followers would never stop watching just because Conan moved to a new time, or because the 12:30 time slot seems too late. It’s that closeness that is the­ real key to the success o­f “The Late Late Show.” Well, that, and a killer Michael Caine impression.

Alex is a junior. You can reach her at aisrael1@swarthmore.edu

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