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wageman10
Reviews
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Episode #2.95 (2006)
I was in the studio audience for this show!
My wife surprised me with tickets for Craig's show, knowing I have been a regular viewer and fan. Since this show was taped on a U.S. holiday (President's Day), we were able to make it a long weekend, driving down on a Sunday for the Monday afternoon taping. We visited the famous Farmer's Market, which is right next door to CBS Television City (where the show is taped).
The show is taped beginning around 5 PM Pacific time, although the audience prep for the show starts at least an hour earlier. During the audience prep, we were told how the show isn't a comedy club where you might heckle the comic, but rather that we were "making television together". By the time we were in the studio, we were all ready to laugh as loud and as hard as possible (although they did ply us with candy bars to get our energy up).
Amazingly the show (at least this particular show) was shot in essentially real-time. There were absolutely no retakes of any kind. When the aired show is in commercial, there is (taped) music playing in the studio. I fully expected the bit where Mr. Shatner loses his mic to be edited out, but it appears on-air exactly as it happened live in the studio. The only things that weren't done live-to-tape were Bocelli's appearance, as he was actually in Italy performing at the Winter Olympics at the time, and of course Craig's taped "Michael Caine at the Olympics" insert.
The only part of the show that was obviously scripted was the "Presidential Expert" opening interview, where both Kind and Ferguson were looking at off-screen monitors. Everything else was apparently extemporaneous, although there is a teleprompter on Craig's monologue camera which might have some notes for him to follow; that's supposition though as the studio audience can't see what might have been on that 'promtper.
The studio is pretty much exactly like it appears on t.v., except that the use of wide-angle lenses makes it look somewhat larger than it really is. The audience area seats about 150 people in total. The only "trick" I noticed was that the guest chairs are not brought on-set until after Craig finishes his monologue.
This episode will always and forever be "our show". Craig is a very talented and funny individual, and if you get a chance to see him do stand-up, or better yet get down to Hollywood and view a taping, by all means do so, you will not be disappointed!
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
Wonderful, under-appreciated, low-budge pseudo-Sci-Fi film
I'm not surprised that many people do not 'get' this film. It is a very low-budget, 'psuedo-Sci-Fi' film. 'Psuedo', because it is most definitely not serious about being 'Sci-Fi'. All of the 'science' is portrayed totally tongue-firmly-in-cheek. If you didn't get that with the "baby bang" reference from "Doctor" Penny Priddy during the press conference scene, well, then I'm sorry, but you're hopeless.
If anything, this is an anti-Sci-Fi film. It's a spoof of all those 1950's-era Sci-Fi films where the incredibly bad science interpretation is played completely seriously. I mean, c'mon, the Overthruster tracking device with the UPS-truck turn-signal click should have clued you in that someone isn't quite serious here.
What we've got here is a great romp with some future mega-stars having a great time. Lithgow's performance alone is worth the price of admission. Ellen Barkin is luscious in both that pink dress and her tied-up black skirt. That jail-cell flirtation scene... well, what more can I say? Those wonderful in-jokes: "Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems". YOYO-dyne? "The Future Begins Tomorrow"... well, of course it does. "Negative, we do not have crossover... we are over New Jersey. All is not lost." Well, of course it isn't... or is it? (Born and raised there, Woodbridge Twp., sorry. To this day, my sister and brother-in-law live in New Brunswick, I'm not making this up.) If you own the DVD, as I do, then you probably know that practically nothing was created for this film. The Red Lectroid bivouac was an abandoned Firestone tire factory. If you ever did high-school drama, you probably recognized Lizardo's foot-pedals as an ancient lighting dimmer board. The spinning Styrofoam cup in the "shock tower" (an automotive term) takes the cake.
There is so much going on in this low-low-budget film to laugh with, not at. If you watch this film looking not to trash it but to laugh with it, I think you will get far, far more out of it.
I only wish they had been able to make the sequel.
And finally, I originally saw this film when it was first released, in the Harvard Square cinema in Cambridge, Mass. The screening was sparsely attended, but you could tell that some people "got it" even then, and many didn't. Too bad.
Emergency!: The Wedsworth-Townsend Act (1972)
Route 66 connections
Bobby Troup wrote Nat "King" Cole's hit song "Route 66" based on a suggestion from his first wife, Cynthia Hale, who inspired the song by conceiving the memorable line, "Get your kicks on Route 66".
Martin Milner starred as Tod Stiles in the television series, "Route 66", which was inspired by that famous road and also, presumably, by the song.
Many years later, Kevin Tighe (Roy DeSoto in "Emergency") starred in a film called "Road House", as the owner of the "Double Deuce" bar and dance hall, ostensibly located in Jasper, Missouri. Jasper is located approximately just ten miles north of where Route 66 ran through Missouri. Today there is a bar called the Double Deuce in East St. Louis, just a few miles from old Route 66.
And finally, Route 66 once ran through the town of Webb City, Missouri.