The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson - Notable Episodes

Notable Episodes

• On January 30, 2006, Ferguson eulogized his father, who had died the day before. He was nominated for his first Emmy Award for the episode.
• From 2006–present, he has remembered the 9/11 anniversary, stating: "It will never again be a great day for America." In 2009, he said, "Even people that do not like the United States of America will see this show...So if you are watching, first of all, !" and went on to describe the USA as "more than a country" and finished by saying, "We are the United States of America. And we're not going anywhere!"
• On February 19, 2007, Ferguson announced he would do "no Britney Spears jokes", saying "comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it" and that it shouldn't include "attacking the vulnerable." He referenced his 15 years of sobriety and the struggle he had with addiction, almost ending in suicide.
• On February 4, 2008, Ferguson celebrated his first show following his swearing in as a U.S citizen. The show featured video footage of the ceremony, his unofficial announcement of being chosen to perform at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, an interview with Kristen Bell, and a special performance by the Scottish drum band The Wicked Tinkers, who also performed on the tribute to his father two years earlier.
• On September 10, 2008, he described his excitement about voting in his first U.S. Presidential election and ranted against American voter fatigue, stating, "If you don't vote, you're a moron!"
• On December 8, 2008, Ferguson remembered his mother who died December 1, while his show was on break. He told stories about his mother and how he felt after he had returned from his mother's funeral in Scotland. During the monologue, as he recounted his father's death nearly three years previously and spoke of his parents being back together in death, he became emotional to the verge of tears and cut to commercial. Prior to the break, he mentioned that his mother wanted the hymn called "Jesus Loves Me" sung at her funeral because that was the only hymn to which everyone knew the words. After the break, he showed a clip from a 2005 interview with his mother and a second clip with his mother and RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. Finally, he played his mother's favorite song to end the show, which was "Rivers of Babylon" by Boney M.
• On March 4, 2009, he dedicated the entire show to his guest, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The cold open and monologue featured a brief history of South Africa and apartheid. The show was during a week of change in late night, with the premiere of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a show competing with The Late Late Show, occurring two days earlier. The interview received critical praise from NPR's TV critic, David Bianculli, who called the episode's monologue "nothing less than an entertaining, understandable, shockingly thorough history of South African politics and colonization" and its interview "inspirational ... almost beyond measure." This show was given a Peabody Award March 31, 2010 for broadcasting excellence in news and entertainment.
• On April 28, 2009, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Federal Communications Commission rules imposing fines for indecent language, Ferguson said in his monologue that he "agree with the Supreme Court ruling today", but then commented in the monologue and throughout the show about swearing on TV, CBS pixelating his mouth and hands, permissible and impermissible language describing sex, and whether he would be personally responsible for the FCC fines.
• On October 5, 2009, he addressed David Letterman's extortion scandal in the cold open and made a few jokes about how it was difficult for him to make fun of his own boss, even though "my job is to take the number one news story of the day and have a little fun with it." He called Letterman "the king of late night", and expressed humorous concern over getting fired were he to say the wrong thing. He commented, "I don't think I kept a secret from you that I've had a few incidents in my past. But I made the smart move. I wrote them down in a book", which led to a comical plug for his then-recently published book American on Purpose.
• On October 27, 2009 during an interview with Alicia Silverstone, CBS lost power due to abnormally high gusts of wind in the area, with Ferguson joking that "We've gone to radio, everybody!" before going to a commercial break. The power "returned" before the interview with Salman Rushdie (the interview was pretaped), only to "go out" again during the "What did we learn on the show tonight, Craig?" segment. The next night, he commented in the cold opening that Wolf Blitzer reported on CNN that the lights went out on the show, "but how can that be news?"
• The December 15, 2009 episode was the 1,000th of Ferguson's tenure as host, and to mark the occasion, the entire show was done with puppets. "Wavy Ranchero" "filled in" as host, delivering a brief monologue and interviewing the celebrity guests, the shark puppet was used for the "Dear Aquaman" skits, and "Connery the Bull" appeared in the "A Sean Connery Holiday Memory" skits. The only time Ferguson himself appeared on camera (aside from the opening title sequence and the "Dear Aquaman" intro) was during the closing segment in which he was on stage in his Prince Charles costume, along with many of his puppets and crew members, while Wavy "performed" James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend". Ferguson was also seen during the closing credits which showed various captioned shots of behind-the-scenes action that took place during the episode's production.
• On January 14, 2010, Ferguson said in the cold open that he would not talk about "the trouble at late night" at NBC, because there was an actual news story about the earthquake in Haiti. Commenting on Rush Limbaugh's statement "We already donated to Haiti, it's called U.S. Income Tax", he said "Rush Limbaugh has to fill a lot of air time with saying things and occasionally saying garbage, and God knows I do that every night here." He told Limbaugh that the way to take the sting out of his statement was to donate a million dollars of his money to the Red Cross "and we'll say no more about it."
• On February 23, 2010, Ferguson did a show with a single guest and without a studio audience, a format in part inspired by Tom Snyder, who had hosted Tomorrow and the first five years of The Late Late Show in such a format. According to Ferguson, the Tonight Show host and time slot conflict got him to reflect on the "late-night traditions started by Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and 'lovingly deconstructed' by David Letterman" and prompted him to try such an experiment. Ferguson's guest for the hour was Stephen Fry.
• On November 16, 2010, Ferguson dedicated an entire episode to the British science fiction program Doctor Who, complete with Dalek and guest Matt Smith. The cold open was marred when a rehearsed dance number was forced to be scrapped due to CBS not receiving legal clearance to play the Doctor Who theme song five minutes before air, much to the anger of Ferguson. The dance number later leaked on Youtube on December 1. Ferguson announced on January 3, 2011 that the dance number had finally been cleared to be shown and that it would air on the upcoming show which Alex Kingston (who plays "River Song" on Doctor Who) would guest on.
• On January 11, 2011, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson was broadcast on Australian free-to-air digital channel Eleven, which launched on that day, albeit on a time delay. Ferguson made reference to this, sarcastically saying that 11 was 'his favorite channel' and doing the majority of the pre-show monologue in a broad Australian accent. One of the running gags of the night involved a set of kangaroo testicles that Ferguson had received from Carrie Fisher, who had purchased them during her tour of Australia. Another running gag was the use of the misquote 'A dingo ate my baby', and various people including guest Mila Kunis saying it in a broad Australian accent. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson was in fact the first show on Eleven at its 11:00am launch.
• On February 1, 2011, the show was dedicated to an examination of African-American history and culture in honor of February being Black History Month in the United States. Ferguson stated at the top of the show that as a recent immigrant to the country he was not very knowledgeable about the topic and would use that night's episode to educate himself. He also declared at the top of the show that there would be "no skeleton" and "no horse" during that night's taping (in reference to Geoff Petersen and Secretariat). His guests that night were Cornel West and George Clinton, who also performed "One Nation Under A Groove" with his band Parliament-Funkadelic.
• In June 2011 Ferguson filmed an entire week of shows in Paris, France, featuring Kristen Bell as co-host. The episodes aired during the week of August 1. Ferguson joked, "It's the first time in the history of this show that we've been allowed outside." For this week of shows, the program was temporarily re-titled Le Late Late Show avec Craig Ferguson à Paris, and Ferguson sang the show's theme song on-camera with help from two Parisian musicians: one playing a piano, the other a double bass. One YouTube video shows Ferguson recording the theme at a faster pace than what was aired.
• On August 23, 2011, Ferguson received a white substance in the mail that was feared to be anthrax. Many people were held in isolation after being exposed to the substance, but they were released after the police discovered that the powdery substance was benign. Ferguson joked about the incident on his show, explaining, "Today someone sent an envelope packed with white powder to the show. I offered to taste it, but they said 'no'".
• On February 18, 2012, Ferguson celebrated 20 years of sobriety, which he mentioned and stated on his Twitter "You're welcome Law Enforcement Agencies".
• On the 2 April 2012 episode, Ferguson announced in the monologue that a week of shows had been taped the previous week in Scotland, mentioning that he had visited his old school. On April 26, a 2-minute, 17-second video to promote the Scotland shows was released on CBS's YouTube page and aired during the cold open the same night. The short promotional video was set to the song "Imagineer" by the Glasgow-based band The Imagineers. In the video, clips from the week of Scotland shows were shown, including one in which Ferguson steps out of the Tardis prop from Doctor Who, and other clips featured Ferguson, and some of his guests, lip-synching to the song. The shows in Scotland began airing on May 14, 2012. Joining Ferguson were Mila Kunis, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rashida Jones, David Sedaris, and Ariel Tweto.
• On July 20, 2012, the show following the Aurora shooting began with Ferguson in a serious cold open, recorded shortly before the episode was to air. Ferguson offered his condolences to those affected by the tragedy, also noting the lack of a monologue on the night's show (the show for July 20 was recorded on July 19, before the shooting had occurred). The monologue that was scheduled to be aired was centered around The Dark Knight Rises, the movie that was being shown when the shooting occurred in the cinema. Because of this, Ferguson opted to not air the monologue but to air the remainder of the show, since he said that scrapping the entire show would be unfair to the guests and that the topic of the shooting couldn't be ignored, but that it also couldn't be discussed in front of an audience in a normal show.
• On August 8, 2012, the final episode in Studio 58 was recorded. The guests in the episode were Chris Hardwick and Carla Gugino. The end of the episode saw the entire production crew of the show standing behind Ferguson as he delivered his send off, thanking them for their work in Studio 58. The show moved to Studio 56 and began airing on August 27, 2012.
• On September 4, 2012, Ferguson opened the show with a short eulogy for his friend Michael Clarke Duncan, who died the day prior. Ferguson showed unaired footage of their trip to Scotland in April, in which he attempts to have Duncan "shoot his finger guns" at the camera for the title sequence.