Goodbye to Stephen Colbert and Craig Ferguson

Geoff Peterson Voice
Josh Robert Thompson and Craig Ferguson

It has been a bad week for innovative television, with Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report ending Thursday and The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson ending Friday. Of course, we have not seen the last of these men. Although Colbert will leave behind his Colbert Report persona, he will be taking over for David Letterman. And we can only hope that we will be seeing more of Craig Ferguson, who for now continues to host the weekly syndicated game show, Celebrity Name Game, and to do a stand-up tour.

I have felt a special pop-culture bond with Colbert for some time. About a year before he began his run on The Colbert Report, I went with a friend to a taping of The Daily Show. At first, the audience was disappointed to learn that Jon Stewart was taking a rare night off, but Stephen Colbert filled in for Stewart well, foreshadowing that he would one day have his own show. At one point during a commercial break, Colbert was goofing around and leaned against his desk with his arms in the air playing to the studio audience, “I’m Ultraman!” Nobody laughed but me, and he nodded at me saying, “We’re the only ones who know who Ultraman is?” as I nodded back. As a kid, inspired by the Japanese television series on my Midwestern black and white TV, I used to pretend I was Ultraman as I played in my backyard. In the New York City studio, though, I found joy in discovering a connection so far away from my childhood home.

This week, Colbert ended The Colbert Report with an over-the-top final episode. It was funny and illustrated his numerous big-name connections. Check out the farewell of “We’ll Meet Again” with numerous celebrity cameos, starting at around the 1:10 mark in the video below (although Colbert actually ended the show with another song, “Holland, 1945” by Neutral Milk Hotel, playing over the final credits, apparently in a nod to his family). [2019 Update: Unfortunately, the video is no longer available.]

Craig Ferguson’s final week on his show, which also began in 2005, has been relatively relaxed, hip, and low-key, consistent with his approach in the late-night spot. Still, he gave us several treats this week, such as an introduction to Josh Robert Thompson, the man behind the remotely controlled skeleton Geoff Peterson (see video at end of post).

Whereas The Colbert Report seemed so much a product of our time with its satire of cable TV politics, Ferguson’s show has always been simultaneously cutting toward the future and the past. Kids liked him, but so did my mom. Ferguson’s rejection of late-night norms has been innovative, even as his show with a talking skeleton sidekick and other outrageous antics nodded to a past of Ernie Kovacs, Sid Caesar, and Imogene Coca. [2019 Update: Unfortunately, the video is no longer available for embedding.]

Ferguson was refreshing for the way he seemed less connected to our modern celebrity-driven media, even while interviewing celebrities. Like Colbert, his final episode also featured a song with celebrity cameos, using the quirky choice of “Bang Your Drum,” a song about carving your own path by Scottish band Dead Man Fall (see video above, which begins as a music video and ends with Ferguson performing with a band and choir).

Like a real late-night conversation in your home or dorm, Ferguson’s interviews with a guest could easily slip into an insightful discussion of famous painters or philosophers while still being funny. His monologues could touch on honest personal experiences as his did when he famously discussed his own alcoholism. In one of his great interviews, Dr. Cornel West told Ferguson, “You have a spirituality in your honesty.” So, it does not surprise me to hear that Ferguson recently explained how a conversation with Desmond Tutu affected the way he is leaving The Late Late Show.

We live in a crazy time where computer hackers can undermine a movie and where a former vice president gets air time to defend the practice of torture, so we desperately need the satirists like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. I will miss The Colbert Report, even as I play my DVD of the show’s Christmas special.

But I will miss Ferguson’s nightly show even more. Most nights, I could not stay up late enough to watch The Late Late Show, so I actually saw Ferguson less often than the earlier Colbert Report. But on nights when I could not sleep, because of a thunderstorm, loneliness, anger, despair, overwork, or too much caffeine, I found comfort in Ferguson’s honesty and goofiness, providing us something real and direct while our troubles kept us awake.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Lost Bill Murray Film: “Nothing Lasts Forever”

    bill murray nothing lasts forever
    The year 1984 was a busy one for actor Bill Murray. Columbia Pictures released the major hit Ghostbusters in June and the less-successful but interesting Razor’s Edge in October. That same year, MGM planned in September to release another movie in which Bill Murray appeared in a much smaller role, Nothing Lasts Forever. But MGM postponed the release of the film, ultimately deciding not to release it. But you may watch it below.

    Saturday Night Live writer Tom Schiller wrote and directed the unusual movie, which stars Lauren Tom and Zach Galligan, the latter who like Murray starred in another 1984 blockbuster, Gremlins. In addition to Murray, the film also features Sam Jaffe, Imogene Coca, and Dan Aykroyd.

    You will notice right away that the film features the classic look of early black and white Hollywood movies from the 1940s and 1950s (although some scenes are in color). The film begins with Galligan performing as a concert pianist, and the movie follows his return to a New York City under the control of the Port Authority.

    The film then takes some odd turns into futuristic science fiction territory. Murray appears later in the film as a conductor on a bus to the moon. Eddie Fisher shows up on the bus to the moon to sing his 1954 hit “Oh My Papa.” On the moon, you also will see Calvert DeForest, i.e., David Letterman’s Larry “Bud” Melman. It’s that kind of a movie.

    So check out the lost film Nothing Lasts Forever here (available here through YouTube for now at least). The video is not movie-theater quality, but it is watchable and I made it through. The movie itself is interesting as it seems to aim for some kind of Wizard of Oz magic. But you also might understand why the unusual film was never released. See what you think. [September 2014 Update: The whole movie is no longer on YouTube, but you can check out the trailer below.]

    The making of Nothing Lasts Forever is recounted in the book, Nothing Lost Forever: The Films of Tom Schiller.

    What do you think of Nothing Lasts Forever? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Sid Caesar RIP

    Comic legend Sid Caesar has passed away at the age of 91. After growing up in Yonkers, New York, Caesar went on to be one of the early pioneers of the new medium of television with his shows Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour in the 1950s. To a younger generation who do not get to see black and white shows repeated on television, those variety shows may seem to be from another world. But one can still see the genius and the way Caesar helped pave with way for shows we enjoy today. And much of his work is still funny, such as this clip with Caesar and Imogene Coca going to a health food restaurant (with waiter Carl Reiner). RIP.

    What is your favorite memory of Sid Caesar? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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