TVSquad

Craig Ferguson is not just a consummate entertainment professional. He's a five armed plate spinner, a punchline deliverer with a Jack Dempsey right cross, a Horatio Alger of guffaws. He puts his whole being into every late night show and comedy performance he does that he could even make an audience laugh if they were in total darkness.

Sound like a bigger tall tale than Pecos Bill taking Amelia Earhart to the homecoming prom? Here's the proof. His Late Late Show suffered a power outage towards the end of Tuesday night's episode and he still stepped in front of the camera with only a flashlight to serve as his comedy spotlight. This convinces me that if a bull suddenly got loose in the studio, Ferguson could use the moment to make the audience laugh until they are gasping for life while teaching the bull English just so he could beat an apology out of it. Chuck Norris never made me laugh, intentionally.

There are a lot of great traditions in the world of late night. Every host has to endure the wrath of Mother Nature's cruel comedy by letting an animal crap in their lap. Every host has to invite a nutball celebrity who is guaranteed to shoot up or snort something in the green room five seconds before their interview.

But one lesser known, some would say downright boring, tradition has gone by the wayside. Maybe that's because the choices are usually something boring. There was Johnny Carson's face mug, Conan O'Brien's Eisenhower mug and some boring old mug that's so dull, they couldn't even sell it in the gift shop to tourists who would buy a bag of puke if it had the Last Call with Carson Daly logo on it.

All of that changed when CBS' Craig Ferguson revived this grand tradition by jamming a cardiac needle of adrenaline into its heart with his mug.

We reported Ed McMahon's "very serious" medical condition a few weeks ago, and it tugged at the strings of our very weak and sodium clogged hearts.

He's a TV legend, so much so that even people who didn't grow up watching The Tonight Show at least know of him and his work. It's been even harder to duplicate. Hank Kingsley was right. Sidekickology is a "dying art."

But a few little factoids popped up around the Internet surrounding McMahon's hospitalization, and it made the news even more tragic and depressing.

The late night war is officially back on, folks, and it's about to get nasty because Paris Hilton has become CBS' weapon of choice.

Craig Ferguson and his Late Late Show crew plan to turn the tables on Jimmy Fallon's first foray into his late night territory by launching a cluster of MOABs at NBC that are packed to the brim with Paris.

And no, we don't mean Ferguson literally plans to launch Paris into the Late Night offices where she will unleash her demon whore spawn and turn Fallon's staff into a grisly smorgasbord of bloody flesh and gnarled bones. Let's be realistic. Paris would just hire someone to do that for her.