Who is Michael.

I don't think he really wanted Letterman's spot to be honest. I saw an interview with him where he was asked a question something along the lines of on a scale of 1 to 10 how upset were you that CBS didn't pick you as host of The Late Show and his answer was 0.5.

He may want to be on earlier but I think he realized that if he took Letterman's spot (if it would have been offered to him in the first place) he would have to cater to the mainstream audience a bit more and the network wouldn't let him get away with as much as he does at the later time frame. That's why I'm thinking he maybe wants to end up on cable because then he'd be able to still get away with a lot but can also do so at an earlier time where the audience potential is bigger.

He's one of the show's main producers. He stands in front of the audience and he's the guy that Craig would joke is a racist.

There's another issue with the 11:30 slot: being the more mainstream show means having more prolific guests who are, in turn, more micromanaged by handlers - i.e., the one thing he complained about the most during the finale interview with Leno. I'm sure he'd like to be the "A" show and get the "A" show treatment (and money), but I really don't think it would suit him.

This too. I always wondered how many agents, studio executives, and network executives would get pissed when one of their clients went on Craig's show, because let's be honest the typical talk show/late night show model is basically designed for promotional purposes. Craig barely did that and mostly just had his guests on to shoot the breeze about anything and everything. Sure he made some mention of what the guests were there to promote occasionally but that really wasn't the point of his interviews. That's something I always liked about his style of interviewing too was that approach he took being different from the typical come on, show a clip, and the host has to fein interest whether they give a rat's ass or not.

That was the most appealing part of his tenure of The Late Late Show. It's why, when you look at the list of most frequent guests, you see folks like Kristen Bell and Tim Meadows who aren't known for their prestigious, glamorous star lives, but for their respective bodies of work. They're thoughtful people who can and actually will hold an interesting, entertaining conversation rather than shill for ten minutes.

At 11:30, Bell and Meadows are going to be seen by a network more as favors to the host rather than the always-welcomed friends that they were at 12:30. A network would pressure him into either using them in a sketch, or as the last guest of the show (see: Conan and Mr. T, et al), but would discourage him from whiling away the core of an episode with them instead of letting the handler-micromanaged stars of new movies and ratings darlings urge audiences to watch whatever the hell they're doing.

I liked that during Rashida Jones last appearance a couple of weeks ago she actually asked him if she could plug a struggling show that she's an EP on.

Even when he would plug the projects, he would often make fun of them. I wonder if anyone ever thought that Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell, and Ben Schwartz had something to do with House of Pies.

He always half jokes that only old people watch CBS & the only reason he got away w so much is 'the censors are asleep'

http://deadline.com/2014/08/craig-fe...ribune-820185/

Damn, Fall of 2016 is a long ways off if that is in fact when the show will start. My guess is that he'll tour with his stand-up throughout 2015 and would probably start preparing for the new show sometime in 2016. Still hopefully it starts sooner than that.

Yeh I think he told Leno he is going back to standup.

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I have no problem openly admitting I am going to miss the hell out of this show. Hope we get to see Craig and his band of misfits again, not too far down the road. And thanks to everyone who's participated in this thread and kept it going over the years!

I've set up a Pollstar.com alert for Craig, in hopes he brings his standup show to Louisville in 2015!

That's not how you say it.

You just don't know how gratifying it was for me that he made a big deal out of how we slur the syllables in that name, even if he did take it too far into unintelligible gibberish.

I pass that sign just about every time I go to visit friends of mine who live a few blocks from it. One of these is correct. The rest are all traps that expose outsiders. Like many others around here, I got quite a kick out of this when the tourism department launched it all those years ago.

I always thought the top choice was correct. Or at least "LOOAVULL" is how it always sounds when a few of my friends there say it.

That is, indeed, the correct pronunciation. The rest are all traps meant to expose outsiders.

I tried watching the re-launch of The Late Late Show tonight but ugh. I know its not how the show will be permanently and I like Drew Carey but the magic of the Craig Ferguson era is totally gone. Totally lame generic opening theme song, mainstream news monologue that tries to be "edgy" but is just lame, an awful sidekick. The set is basically the same but the show is just a shell of itself. Everything that Craig did to make his show unique and special is clearly just gone to try and appeal more to the masses. Craig, you and your wacky crew are missed.

You think you can judge what the show will be with the new host based on what the show is like for one night with a guest host?

Well like I said, I realize not everything is permanent, but I'm sorry to say that if this is any reflection of the direction the show is taking (which I'm guessing it at least partly is) then yes. The tone is completely different. I'll see what the new host is like when he starts but I doubt I'll stick with the show long. I haven't been terribly impressed with James Corden from what I've seen of him thus far either.

Well, it's not like Drew will have much time to grow and be its own. It gets the shift change in another week or so and then we start again. It's really counter to any productivity in having the show organically grow on its own when you do musical chairs like this.

The last 10 years was not the Late Late Show, it was the Craig Ferguson Show and that is now over.

I understand that, but just going off of the general tone of last night's show it just feels like CBS is trying to go in a completely different direction (aka make it pretty much the same as every other late night show) and aim the show way more at a mainstream audience. Maybe James Corden will be different when he starts but for some reason I just feel like its going to turn into another generic late night show and everything that made Ferguson's era unique is just going to die off. I somewhat expected this to happen in all honesty but it was just a bummer seeing it unfold last night.