Awesome / The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

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• Bill Maher was a guest and made a rather flippant joke about the children supposedly molested by Michael Jackson, saying "there are worse things than being jacked off by a rich pop star." Craig, a father himself (Maher has no children), coldly replied "I don't know about you, but if anyone did that to my kid, I'd kill them." Before Maher could respond, Craig cut to commercial. Maher was conspicuously absent when they returned.
• February 20, 2007: This monologue where Craig talks about his discomfort at making jokes about the personal problems of celebrities like Britney Spears, and goes on to share his own history of substance abuse and near-suicide.
• September 10, 2008: "If you don't vote, you're a moron!"
• 2009: Winning a Peabody Award for the interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
• July 21, 2009: Craig figures out why everything sucks.
• September 15, 2010: Geoff Peterson takes on Don Rickles...and wins. (Also an MOA for Geoff's programmer, who predicted exactly what word Rickles would call the skeleton and set a specific retort for it.)
• January 7, 2011: The Secretariat In New York segment. It's a skit where Secretariat simply went to New York to find Craig's old apartment, and then showed up out of nowhere on various other talk shows (Live with Regis and Kelly, The View, the CBS Evening News, The Late Show with David Letterman) to just do what Secretariat always does for Craig: bounce into the studio and back out again. Most of the hosts ranged from flummoxed to completely nonplussed (the latter obviously being Dave) by such a seemingly random interruption. Except Katie Couric from the CBS Evening News, a then-recent guest of Craig's, who immediately jumped out of her chair with a big, goofy grin on her face to do the trademark Happy Dance! The audience back in the studio just erupts at this. Also may qualify as Heartwarming, too.
• February 28, 2011: Craig proclaims he won't be mocking Charlie Sheen ever again, having felt discomfort at all the late-night jokes.
• In 2011, a woman named Wendy Booker made two appearances on the show. That name might not sound too familiar to you, but she is a speaker, author, mountain climber and self-described adventurer, and has travelled to both the North and South Pole as well as the summit of many major mountains on Earth including Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. McKinley. An impressive record of achievements becomes astonishing when you know Wendy Booker has achieved all these feats with multiple sclerosis. Probably up there with Archbishop Desmond Tutu among the most awesome guests Craig ever had.
  • In a cute little touch, Craig gives her a souvenir of kangaroo testicles (which he got from Carrie Fisher) and Booker returns for her second appearance with a photo album of the testicles at the North Pole. What other show can give you moments like this?
• In the episode with from July 14, 2011 with guests Zooey Deschanel and Jim Cummings Craig devoted his whole show to promoting Winnie the Pooh with his co-stars. It could be seen as an ego trip to some but his enthusiasm for the film and how proud he was of it certainly shined through that night.
• October 31, 2011: The cold-open rendition of "There's A Light", accompanied by zombies, go-go dancers, and Sid.
• The War Horse starring Secretariat. Our favorite pantomime horse dual wielding machine guns and blasting away with a rocket launcher? Yes please.
• The opening number from the first day of the Scotland shows. He's actually singing it.
• July 20, 2012: Following the "Dark Knight Rises" tragedy in Aurora, Colorado earlier that day, Craig and the show decided to pull that night's monologue out of respect for the victims. Instead, of a usual opening, Craig opened that night's show by addressing the tragedy.
• Metallica's week-long residency in November 2014. Ostensibly, they had the 10th anniversary edition of the Some Kind Of Monster documentary to promote, but the band made it clear in the press leading up to their appearances that it wasn't about promotion. They were just fans of Craig's, and wanted to give him a send-off in style leading up to Craig's departure at the end of the year. The result is a fun interview where James Hetfield looks absolutely stoked to be there, and then five straight nights of classics allegedly handpicked by Craig himself — "Hit The Lights," "Fuel," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "Enter Sandman," and "Sad But True."
• Virtually every time a guest can actually play the mouth organ, and thus wins the Golden Mouth Organ, a tradition ushered in by the legendary Billy Connolly. If you've got three-quarters of an hour to spare, here are all the recipients.
• December 19, 2014: The Grand Finale.
  • The opening musical number. It kicks off with the studio recording of Dead Man Fall's "Bang Your Drum" featuring a celebrity-filled roster of people (and puppets) singing along before cutting to the studio midway through for a live rendition of the rest of song, with two drummers, Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, oh a gospel choir for good measure, and Craig standing on his desk rocking out. It's both a CMoA and a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. Even better? Dead Man Fall was a relatively unknown Scottish band. The next day, they were a top-selling act on iTunes.
  • The reveal! My god... the reveal! In a brilliant take on not one, but THREE classic series finales, we learn that the whole show was just a dream that Nigel Wick had one night. He wakes up next to a fat Drew Carey and tells him that not only was he a talk show host, but Drew was a game show host... and skinny. As Mr. Wick goes back to bed, we see a snowglobe with a figure of Craig, Geoff, and Secretariat on the set while Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" plays the show out before being abruptly cut. Oh, and Secretariat was Bob Newhart the whole time.

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