When Craig Ferguson said what's on his mind (which is frequently), it tended to go here.
- Seann William Scott failed to show up for an interview due to ridiculous Los Angeles traffic. So instead Craig drags out Lisa Ammerman,
the producer who manages the guests, and asks her the questions he was going to ask Sean William Scott. - Any of the "Craig writes a letter" segments, but the one he wrote to Kanye West (November 2006) deserves to be quoted in full.Craig: [in a very posh/"fussy" voice] Dear Kanye West,
[pause for laughter]
I was reading in the newspaper that you got very upset during the MTV Europe Video Awards when you didn't get the award you wanted. You got up on stage and ranted and raved like a madman! Kanye, you mustn't do this. You're going to give rappers at awards ceremonies a bad name. Also— [pause for laughter] it's best to wait. For example, I had an Emmy stolen from me by Barry Manilow—
Audience: [loses it]
Craig: [normal voice] Excuse me, I'm trying to write a letter!
[posh voice] —stolen from me by Barry Manilow, but I waited for my revenge, and tonight I have it, for I have forced him to appear on my show! Ha ha ha ha ha!
[Beat, starts writing again]
Ha, ha, ha, ha... ha. Yours, TV's Craig Ferguson. - Most of the monologue where he discusses his own alcoholism and near-suicide is not a barrel of laughs...except for his account of sharing a room in rehab with a (former) Anglican vicar twice his age."Yes, well, the thing is, Craig, the parishioners were complaining that all the Communion wine was going missing. And also, an old lady said that there was a hobo sleeping in the church graveyard. I had to pretend to go and look for him, but it was me!"
- He admits that "I'm not an expert on alcoholism or anything else, but I am an expert on my own story. I was there when it happened... Well, I was present. The tape recorder wasn't running."
- Finally, his discussion of how easy it could be to relapse.Last week, right, I find out that Guinness has 125 calories a pint, and I'm—without a word of a lie—I'm thinking, "Maybe I should go on a diet." THAT'S CLEARLY INSANE! What Guinness did to me, and I'm thinking "Well, it's only 125 calories? What can possibly go wrong?!"
- December 7th, 2009: Craig finds out how highly he rates in a Canadian magazine's poll for "which late night talk show host would you sleep with" (he leads with a whopping 74%). Now normally, this would go in the Awesome section, but then Craig does this at the end of the show.
- Also from March of that year, Craig seduces the viewer.
- Also from March of that year, Craig seduces the viewer.
- July 31, 2009: This sketch, which is basically a storm of Sean Connery jokes but manages to get impossibly funny. "I'm STANDING on water and I got a HAT on top of my HAT!"
- September 4, 2009: This email from "Joe Bob" in Hicksville, Kentucky...and Craig's response to it.
- Early 2010: "Look, you try doing my job and not talking about all the crap that's going on at NBC!"
- Also in early 2010: You know how they'll have a clip from the show the guest is on to promote just before they bring out the guest? Well, this is the best clip Craig's ever seen.
- April 14, 2010: Somebody screws up the Angela Lansbury Running Gag.
- June 15, 2010: The Stan Lee interview.
- July 19, 2010: This Mary Lynn Rajskub interview, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the secondary chair. If ever there was a foursome fit to do a great show together, this grouping of Craig, Jeffrey, Mary Lynn, and Geoff might just be it.
- August 3, 2010: Somebody screws up the Angela Lansbury gag again.
- Fall 2010: During a Tweetmail segment, Secretariat comes out and the costume starts falling off the guys who are inside the thing. So what does Craig do? He brings the thing out three more times!
- October 15, 2010: Craig and a Dalek.
- December 3, 2010: Kristen Bell comes onstage riding Secretariat.
- January 6, 2011: The interview with Alex Kingston. Rabbits. Just...rabbits. Wow.
- May 19, 2011: Craig asking Geoff if he's ever been to the places people are sending e-mails from. Geoff's response that he does and they throw beads at each other and swim naked breaks Craig by the end of the segment, and results in a running gag that would continue for years.
- July 19, 2011: Geoff's response when asked if he ever smoked."Actually I did smoke once...then I died. See? See? CBS cares."
- September 5, 2011: Geoff comes back from the Labor Day weekend a bit tipsy.Geoff (slurred): Did you see that horse, man? That was crazy!
- A recent episode featured a monologue discussing Dick Cheney's new book. Geoff claims that he's a big follower of politics, so Craig asks him if he's Republican or Democrat."I'm a gay robot skeleton."
- November 10, 2011: Larry King (of all people) fills in as Geoff's temporary personality and voice. The entire Letters segment was a riot, and even Craig had a hard time keeping it together.Larry King Geoff: I walked the streets of Manchester when I was a human, when I was a normal Jew, just walking the streets. I was not a robot.
Craig: This is either the worst or best idea I've ever had in my [¡AY CARAMBA!] life. - Any Craig Ferguson interview with Melina Kanakaredes.
- February 9, 2012: Craig finally gets to interview "Weird Al" Yankovic. Craig expresses how much he's wanted to have him on, and Al replies "I wouldn't have known! Nobody called!" Upon hearing this, Craig turns to his producer and says "You sack of [TOOTSI FROOTSI]!!" Honestly, the whole interview belongs here.
- February 25, 2012: "I JUST SAW MYSELF ON THE MONITOR."
- May 16, 2012: Craig visits his old school and comments on some graffiti. (See Sound-Effect Bleep on the main page.)Craig: And it seems like the children enjoy the same style of artwork that we enjoyed when we were little, too. You see, this is a (haggis!), these are (whiskey!), this is (breenge!) flying (shortbread!) *Beat* (Shut yer face!), this individual's (Dumbledore!)
- June 27, 2012: Geoff and Craig do impressions of each other during the monologue.
- August 29, 2012: It's the third episode on Craig's new set at Studio 56 and in the Tweets and E-Mails segment, a person asks why Secretariat's barn area is shown with daylight and the city behind Craig's desk is nighttime.
- Whenever the audience seems to be getting a bit emotional over some of the remarks he makes towards his sidekicks, Craig will assert that they're merely conventions of the show to make everything funnier. Eventually reaches it's peak after a variant of the "What Did We Learn on the Show Tonight, Craig" intro didn't do well with a lot of people. It went roughly like this;"We had to change that one. Because a lot of people didn't like the fact that the cat ascended to Heaven. It's not a real cat. It's a drawing of a cat. [Geoff] is an appliance, [Secretariat's] not a real [¡AY CARAMBA!] horse! I DON'T EXIST!"
- January 30, 2013: Craig is asked about his salsa preferences, and finds Secretariat's baffling.
- March 15, 2013: Before the show the producer, Michael, made a joke to the effect of "You know how yesterday was Pi Day, well today's Friday", so Craig spends a third of monologue just shitting all over Michael for trying to be helpful.
- April 8, 2013: Craig has an epic corpsing episode when he tries to tell a cat joke during the monologue.
- May 25th, 2013: The entirety of his interview with Vera Farmiga. Highlights include Vera producing a carrot from under her skirt for Secretariat, and Vera explaining to Craig what exactly you have to do in order to get goats to produce milk...Vera: ....you see, that's how mammaries work.
- September 9th, 2013: "The Price Is Right and my penis are very different of course! One's been around for over 50 years but Drew Carey made it bigger than ever....." Craig doesn't even finish that joke.
- Followed up by a pseudo-Imagine Spot where Craig shows what The Late Late Show would look like if Secretariat hosted. Secretariat simply comes out from the entrance and makes a mockery of Craig's mannerisms. Should be seen to be fully appreciated.
- Followed up by a pseudo-Imagine Spot where Craig shows what The Late Late Show would look like if Secretariat hosted. Secretariat simply comes out from the entrance and makes a mockery of Craig's mannerisms. Should be seen to be fully appreciated.
- November 2, 2012: A cold open gets derailed when SECRETARIAT starts corpsing!Craig: (laughing) I can hear the horse laughing!
- November 11th, 2013: Craig pokes the fire.
- Anytime Cool Old Legends like Betty White, Julie Andrews, Don Rickles, or Robin Williams visit the show. Every. Single. Time.
- Betty's appearance on Craig's third-to-last show, especially the climax: she dances with a someone in a pink baby hippo suit while a choir sings "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas".
- March 6, 2014: Josh Robert Thompson cracks Craig and himself up with his bizarre voice for Philly Cheesesteak shop owner Serge.
- When Drew Carey hosted on April Fools Day 2014, one of the tweets asked where Drew first met Craig. Drew deadpanned "ChristianMingle".
- Anytime Craig makes a comment about the high quality production and content of his show..... and immediately cracks up laughing.
- Craig gets irritated when the producer tries to flag him down for saying "vagina." Craig says words similar to slang terms for "penis" in the interview at least twice, then taunting the producer by saying, "It's a real word!" [1].
- June 6, 2014: Geoff Peterson owns Ricky Gervais.Ricky: I can see he's a skeleton, he's a robot, his name's Geoff, but... what have you done that's gay?
Geoff: Why don't you come over here and I'll show ya? [Ricky collapses into flustered laughter, Craig can only shrug] - The final segment of Craig's tenure on The Late Late Show goes straight towards the Gainax Ending route. It squeezes references to three other shows' finales into about three minutes, including St. Elsewhere, Newhart (featuring a Bob Newhart cameo!), and The Sopranos. According to this skit, the whole show was just a terrible dream by The Drew Carey Show's Mr. Wick, who wakes up in hysterics next to Drew (in another cameo!). They finally get back to sleep as Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" plays, while the camera does a slow zoom into a snow globe, featuring a tiny Craig, Geoff and Secretariat - before the abrupt cut to black. It's a strange but oddly befitting way to finish up Craig's tenure with the show.
- The Colbert Report had a remarkably similar ending, revealing itself to be a 9-year-long Daily Show segment. This happened the day before Craig's final show. Whether this was an intentional shout-out or a total coincidence, it makes both endings funnier.
- The very last Tweetmail ever read: "Craig, I just started watching your show on Monday!"
- Supermodel Irina Shayk appeared on the July 22, 2014 edition to promote her film debut in Hercules (2014). Craig could barely speak at the start of the interview, as he was clearly Distracted by the Sexy. Craig and Geoff Peterson's comments deteriorated into Gibberish of Love.
- After making a joke involving Black Comedy Animal Cruelty, Craig repeatedly assures the audience that he does not shoot cats, then gives the camera a look that says "or do I?" every single time.
