http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbaRyDLMvA
Craig Ferguson makes me laugh, even when he is admitting to being a recovering alcoholic and refusing to take pot shots at Brittney Spears. I was not familiar with this guy until I ran across this clip. I rarely stay up to watch late night TV anymore, but I would watch this guy.
With the benefit of the central time zone, Ferguson comes on before midnight. I have now completely stopped watching Conan. Ferguson’s long, rambling, funny, and organic monolougues are worth staying up for.
I also really liked his (fiction) book, “Between the Bridge and the River.”
That was great. Never really watched his show, except for clips here and there…might have to try to catch it.
Bing Hitler’s a very funny guy.
He was great on the Drew Carey show. His monologues are good enough that I’ll watch them if I happen to be flipping around, but not good enough to justify a special effort. His delivery is good but the writing on his show is pretty weak.
I remember catching him when he did his guest stint after Kilborn left and thinking “This guy’s going to get the gig.”
I wish I remembered to watch the open more often.
Yup, love his standup.
Seen the show a few times and would love to have it avaliable all the time… but it’s not great anough to torrent (if anybody is recording).
But this was classy.
Great sentiment. I will show this to everyone I know in the 12 step programs. Gonna be some old time hard line AAers who get angry about this, though. Oh well, screw em, I say.
How come?
From what I gathered reading the YouTube comments, if you even mention you’re in AA, it gets the hardcore-AAers all pissed off because you’re no longer anonymous.
Now, I always thought it was you kept your fellow AAers anonymous, but you could out yourself if you wanted.
I could be wrong, though.
The hard core AAers must spend a lot of time all pissed off, because I see this sort of thing a lot, especially in memoir or on TV. I always thought you weren’t supposed to speak for AA. I am also seeing AA meetings appear in a lot of TV and movies, although obviously acting is different. It just shows how much this has moved into the mainstream. It’s not like it’s some secret society, like the Masons or the Mormons or something.
I liked that clip. Then I watched some his other clips. Man, just…not very good at all. His delivery is good but he needs some new writers.
Yeah, the best parts of the monologue are usually when he just adlibs something on his way to the punchline, not the punchline itself.
At no point does he mention AA. He mentions rehab. He doesn’t mention steps, a higher power, or anything in that vein. I’m not sure why AA people (old school or otherwise) would be angry. Given that some (or at least one) of the steps involve talking to other, non-AA people, I’m not sure how they could think telling someone you’re an alcoholic is a problem.
The other thing I found interesting was that he repeatedly emphasizes that he’s talking about himself, and what worked for him. It’s been my experience that AA tends to believe that it’s 12 step program is THE way.
Anyway, good clip. He makes almost all the jokes about himself (Haggard, one of the “blowhards in power” gets jabbed), but even in trying to say he’s not going to make jokes about Spears and then explains why, the audience still laughs at her and her situation. Odd.
Wasn’t his line - Easy to find, the beginning of the alphabet?
Maybe he meant the american automobile association!
I hated him on the Drew Carey show 'cause… I hated the Drew Carey show. But he’s okay.
Beginning of the phone book.
It takes them a bit to understand that he’s not joking, but by the end, they’re really not laughing at her anymore.
I thought he was brilliant in turning something that could have been painfully earnest into something that was serious and entertaining at the same time.
I must have missed the phone book mention. I was listening for an AA reference, but my daughter was a little distracting.
Anyway, he does seem a little stunned that he got a laugh just setting the stage about Spears, and manages to steer it away from her back to him. It was just odd to know going in what it was and to hear the audience laugh. Obviously, they don’t know what I/we did watching the clip.