After having contemplated the look of late night television recently and just posting about it, it is weird and with sadness that I find Ed McMahon has passed away. If you’ve never heard of Ed McMahon, you’re too young for late night. The man was a television icon, 30 years with The Tonight Show, 35 years working with Johnny Carson alone and friends for longer than that.
I can honestly say that one of the things I like about the new Tonight Show is the relationship between Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter. I can’t help but think it will be a similar relationship, one I hope with as long a run as Ed McMahon had with Johnny Carson, a pair of entertainers who knew how to work a crowd.
I know somewhere up in heaven there is music playing and God heard someone say “Here’s Johnny!”
The face of late night has changed over the past month. I wonder if Colbert regrets mentioning The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien coming on at midnight. Sorry Stephen I did change the channel when you said that. Oh yes, I’m a Conan O’Brien fan. Watched him occasionally before his new stint on The Tonight Show and now that I’ve seen The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, I watch it often.
And Kudos to Jimmy Fallon. Initially I wasn’t sure if I’d like his show but he came into his own pretty quick. I think there is a period of time, not really a learning curve, but a time for a late night host to come into his own and Jimmy Fallon did it quicker than expected. Craig Ferguson took a little longer. I’ve seen him a few times recently and he’s been alright having come into his own as well.
We didn’t have to worry about Conan coming into his own, he’s like the fine wine of late night now, or maybe he’d prefer to be called the fine aged-cheese of late night. We’ll let him decide. At least he has made watching late night worthwhile.
I never really enjoyed The Tonight Show with Leno; I don’t hate him, just could take him or leave him. Did like some of his bits he did for the show. And Letterman, quite frankly I’m surprised he has the audience he does anymore. I wonder if it is more a type of voyeurism to see what missteps Letterman will take on his show while inserting foot into mouth. I’ve less and less respect for him and I think that hurts his humor for me.
So thank NBC for Conan and Jimmy and on a good night if you are still up, Late Call with Carson Daly will brief you on the day and there will be some good music to end the night with.
Want the scoop on late night TV? TV Scape has all the links for your convenience so you don’t miss the highlights.
Well NASA will announce the winning name to the new module, Node 3 of The International Space Station Tuesday evening on The Colbert Report. Yes, I’m one of The Colbert Nation who dutifully heard the call of my leader Stephen Colbert to vote for his name on the Help Name Node 3 online poll that NASA ran at NASA.gov. This is mostly due to sleep deprivation and Stephen’s hypnotizing perfect hair. Trust me though, he does have bad hair days which I notice and share my disappointment with my husband, my balding husband.
Fine print has suggested that anything outside of their NASA’s proposed suggestions (Earthrise, Legacy, Serenity and Venture), may not be considered…fine print may have become available after the start of the contest though so I’m interested to see what will happen along with Philadelphian Congressman, Chaka Fattah and others.
I don’t know about you, I’m tuning in for this long anticipated announcement. I might even make popcorn, although the results probably will result in one of NASA’s four suggested names being chosen, sorry can’t remember who was in the lead, and then they will throw the Stephen Colbert name someone else within the module currently known as Node 3.
Let’s cross our fingers and hope they have some creative way to credit the man who gave NASA some publicity.
I know you were all probably thinking TVScape was turning into a U2 site, what can I say? From all the commercials and hype you would think it was the biggest thing on TV this week…okay, let’s face it, it is. They are really working the David Letterman late show. Wonder how great the Good Morning America show will be tomorrow. These guys rock and give 110 percent. I remember when they did Saturday Night Live one year they played an extra set before the SNL cameras shut off.
Okay, I’m ready for some Primetime. Don’t tell anybody but I saw Life on Mars for the first time last night. I know! And I’m sorry I’ve been missing it…and I’m sorry to tell you they just announced it will be canceled. Maybe they should have called it Life on Pluto.
This is the story of my life. But have no fear fans they get to finish out their 17 episodes which will afford them enough time to finish the story line. This simplifies things for me because if I want to collect the series in the future on DVD I only have to purchase one season. How cool is that. That being said, perhaps we will be lucky enough that on that note, they can put together a compilation of the music from the show.
Too bad it is canceled; too bad we can’t get SciFi to pick it up because of the nature of the story. Cop gets hit by car and time travels to 1973…i.e. we have a bunch of cool writers that can only write about cool cops in the 70’s and the music was better back then than it is now and this will only fly if we turn it into science fiction…I tell you if SciFi picked it up it would be easier on the brain than Charlie Jade. You think I’m kidding, why do you think they play it at 3/2 am Central time?
Well, if you still care about Life on Mars visit them at ABC to watch full episodes or listen to the Life on Mars radio (they played Go Now by the Moody Blues and Rocket Man by Elton John last night).
What do you think Michael Imperioli will do next? Will it include more or less hair? Will it matter? Well have to go, U2 is on again.
More fun with U2 on The Late Show With David Letterman last night. They got to read the Top 10 List with Dave last night. Topic, “Things U2 has learned over the years…”
Well, The Edge may have got something started with Sting when he made a Freudian slip in the answer to #5 “Cool name: The Edge. Uncool name: The Itch” – The Edge supplied the answer of Sting for Uncool name. Certainly all in good fun, I mean he could have said any number of things, including Prince or how about Meatloaf.
Read the list here or view the list reading here. Find other highlights at CBS’ Late Show site including the performances of both Magnificant and Breathe from performances on Monday and Tuesday. Tonight they will be singing I’ll Go Crazy and the guest is Jon Stewart, definitely worth a look see if Dr. Phil wasn’t your cup of tea last night. Good thing U2 was on or I would have avoided the show completely.
And of course don’t forget that tomorrow at 7 a.m. on Good Morning America (GMA) they’ll wake up America.
It must be said that there are some things that are on TV that we shouldn’t watch, let alone that they shouldn’t be on TV. Hands down as worst show I saw so far this week…and thank the powers that be if there was something worse on that I missed it…of course this is so bad I couldn’t wait a week to look for something worse, was My Big Red Neck Wedding on CMT (Country Music Television for the uninitiated).
I caught an excellent movie, one of my favorites…more about that later, on CMT this evening and as it was late and I was busy writing I left it on CMT to keep me company until I finished my work…the remote was only a foot away from me so I don’t know why I didn’t change the channel.
My Big Red Neck Wedding is more sad than funny. Even sadder was Tom Arnold’s monologue throughout. Somebody quick, call his agent and put him in an awful sitcom and take this show off the air, it will do humanity some good. It’s my duty not to share air times with you to protect you from the pain I suffered this evening. All I can say is enter at your own risk, if you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
U2 is spending the week with Dave Letterman leading up to the big Friday morning concert at Good Morning America. All for the release of No Line On The Horizon which was released today. Of course there are numerous YouTube videos from U2’s first Letterman appearance this week but they are being disabled left and right so I’ll post a link to a new song from No Line On The Horizon, Breathe.
We’ll keep you up to date on the Letterman U2 front. Meanwhile at BigShoes we’ve posted links from our U2 archives to celebrate U2 at BigShoes. It includes a CBS clip from YouTube of the four Irishmen helping Dave out during the Nor’easter.
If you’re a U2 fan and you had to pick your favorite concert tour, do you think you could? I’d have to put some thought into it. I know my personal favorite may be Rattle and Hum, love the guitars, so I might be leaning that way…even though Vertigo had it going on.
It must be said that there are some things that are on TV that we shouldn’t watch, let alone that they shouldn’t be on TV. Hands down as worst show I saw so far this week…and thank the powers that be if there was something worse on that I missed it…of course this is so bad I couldn’t wait a week to look for something worse, was My Big Red Neck Wedding on CMT (Country Music Television for the uninitiated).
