03-08-2009, 11:41 AM
Man I wish I'd gone to this show. Anyone else go?
Craig Ferguson 'pretty enough' for Waukegan
March 8, 2009
BY DAN MORAN <!-- e --><a href="mailto:dmoran@scn1.com">dmoran@scn1.com</a><!-- e -->
Jimmy Fallon made his share of nationwide headlines this week as he unleashed his brand of comedy on late night television. Meanwhile, the man who quietly ran neck-and-neck with Conan O'Brien over the last year spent his Friday night nowhere near his Hollywood base.
"Waukegan! Finally, finally I made it!" shouted Craig Ferguson, grabbing the microphone and throwing its stand across the stage at the Genesee Theatre -- much as he might have done in his days as a punk-rock drummer in Glasgow.
» Click to enlarge image
Talk show host Craig Ferguson demonstrated at the Genesee Theatre Friday the gleefully frenetic, bluntly confessional style that has drawn some 2 million regular viewers to his "Late Late Show" on CBS.
"You know, back in the old country, I used to tell everyone, 'I'm going into show business ... I'm going to go to Waukegan!" he said, adding that his home folks told him "you'll never make it in Waukegan -- you're not pretty enough."
Sharpening the knife even more on the local skewering, Ferguson threw in a jibe at favorite son Jack Benny: "They told me, 'You'll see a guy standing like this,'" he said, striking Benny's famous and apparently effeminate hand-on-cheek pose, "'and you'll walk into the wrong bar.'"
Stalking the stage from left to right and back again (at least once, to his comic consternation, outpacing the Genesee spotlight crew), Ferguson demonstrated the gleefully frenetic, bluntly confessional style that has drawn some 2 million regular viewers to his "Late Late Show" on CBS, numbers that equaled O'Brien's "Late Night" on NBC dating to April 2008.
Now 46, remarried for at least the second time and raising a school-age son, Ferguson connects with his audience with tales of youthful failure and comic redemption, most notably regarding his lost years before going sober ("it was the '80s -- before cocaine was addictive").
His working-class, across-the pond roots allow him to view just about everything as a stranger in a strange land -- and it never hurts that all of this is done in a thick but accessible Scottish accent that, to the pop-American ear, somehow makes everything sound that much more off the wall.
Whether Ferguson or Fallon will rule the night-owl culture in 2009 and beyond remains to be seen. But judging from the full house (word was the final 10 tickets were sold two hours before showtime) and its roaring approval to even his more dated jokes (describing Dick Cheney as "like a Bond villain," petting a cat that doesn't exist), Ferguson has established himself as the seasoned favorite.
Among his more memorable observations during a 90-minute set that ruminated on everything from his mother being "just a tiny bit what the doctors call clinically insane" to his shock at the arrival of gray body hair to Oprah Winfrey being "the world's last superpower":
-- On his native Glasgow: "Imagine Detroit in the 1970s -- and the movie 'Braveheart' is taking place."
-- On becoming an American citizen last year: "Sometimes I have to take showers, because I'm legally American ... Don't ---- with me. I can legally shoot you now."
-- On Sean Connery: "Sean Connery is a god in Scotland, (though) only one person on Earth talks like that, and it's Sean (deleted) Connery ... He played a Spaniard in 'Highlander' with a Scottish accent, (and) the guy who played the Highlander, Christopher Lambert, was from Belgium! Belgium -- the Canada of France!"
-- On going into rehab 15 years ago for alcoholism: "You can always tell when you're getting better in rehab because you start to beat the junkies at Jenga."
-- On affecting an exaggerated English accent on "The Drew Carey Show": "In my defense, that was my revenge for 'Star Trek' ... We didn't know Scotty was supposed to be Scottish."
-- On Tom Cruise's criticism of people who use antidepressants: "He's 12 feet of crazy in a 4-foot man."
Toward the end of the night, riffing on Southern California's obsession with physical appearance, he said "plastic surgery is an epidemic in L.A. -- not so much here in Waukegan, I've seen." :lol:
Once again, the audience ate up the moment of connection with the man who would be late-night king.
Craig Ferguson 'pretty enough' for Waukegan
March 8, 2009
BY DAN MORAN <!-- e --><a href="mailto:dmoran@scn1.com">dmoran@scn1.com</a><!-- e -->
Jimmy Fallon made his share of nationwide headlines this week as he unleashed his brand of comedy on late night television. Meanwhile, the man who quietly ran neck-and-neck with Conan O'Brien over the last year spent his Friday night nowhere near his Hollywood base.
"Waukegan! Finally, finally I made it!" shouted Craig Ferguson, grabbing the microphone and throwing its stand across the stage at the Genesee Theatre -- much as he might have done in his days as a punk-rock drummer in Glasgow.
» Click to enlarge image
Talk show host Craig Ferguson demonstrated at the Genesee Theatre Friday the gleefully frenetic, bluntly confessional style that has drawn some 2 million regular viewers to his "Late Late Show" on CBS.
"You know, back in the old country, I used to tell everyone, 'I'm going into show business ... I'm going to go to Waukegan!" he said, adding that his home folks told him "you'll never make it in Waukegan -- you're not pretty enough."
Sharpening the knife even more on the local skewering, Ferguson threw in a jibe at favorite son Jack Benny: "They told me, 'You'll see a guy standing like this,'" he said, striking Benny's famous and apparently effeminate hand-on-cheek pose, "'and you'll walk into the wrong bar.'"
Stalking the stage from left to right and back again (at least once, to his comic consternation, outpacing the Genesee spotlight crew), Ferguson demonstrated the gleefully frenetic, bluntly confessional style that has drawn some 2 million regular viewers to his "Late Late Show" on CBS, numbers that equaled O'Brien's "Late Night" on NBC dating to April 2008.
Now 46, remarried for at least the second time and raising a school-age son, Ferguson connects with his audience with tales of youthful failure and comic redemption, most notably regarding his lost years before going sober ("it was the '80s -- before cocaine was addictive").
His working-class, across-the pond roots allow him to view just about everything as a stranger in a strange land -- and it never hurts that all of this is done in a thick but accessible Scottish accent that, to the pop-American ear, somehow makes everything sound that much more off the wall.
Whether Ferguson or Fallon will rule the night-owl culture in 2009 and beyond remains to be seen. But judging from the full house (word was the final 10 tickets were sold two hours before showtime) and its roaring approval to even his more dated jokes (describing Dick Cheney as "like a Bond villain," petting a cat that doesn't exist), Ferguson has established himself as the seasoned favorite.
Among his more memorable observations during a 90-minute set that ruminated on everything from his mother being "just a tiny bit what the doctors call clinically insane" to his shock at the arrival of gray body hair to Oprah Winfrey being "the world's last superpower":
-- On his native Glasgow: "Imagine Detroit in the 1970s -- and the movie 'Braveheart' is taking place."
-- On becoming an American citizen last year: "Sometimes I have to take showers, because I'm legally American ... Don't ---- with me. I can legally shoot you now."
-- On Sean Connery: "Sean Connery is a god in Scotland, (though) only one person on Earth talks like that, and it's Sean (deleted) Connery ... He played a Spaniard in 'Highlander' with a Scottish accent, (and) the guy who played the Highlander, Christopher Lambert, was from Belgium! Belgium -- the Canada of France!"
-- On going into rehab 15 years ago for alcoholism: "You can always tell when you're getting better in rehab because you start to beat the junkies at Jenga."
-- On affecting an exaggerated English accent on "The Drew Carey Show": "In my defense, that was my revenge for 'Star Trek' ... We didn't know Scotty was supposed to be Scottish."
-- On Tom Cruise's criticism of people who use antidepressants: "He's 12 feet of crazy in a 4-foot man."
Toward the end of the night, riffing on Southern California's obsession with physical appearance, he said "plastic surgery is an epidemic in L.A. -- not so much here in Waukegan, I've seen." :lol:
Once again, the audience ate up the moment of connection with the man who would be late-night king.