Today I made an executive decision and gave the podcast an oh-so-creative name: "The TV Squad Podcast." This was after we recorded it on Tuesday, so I still refer to it by its old APB name. If you have any suggestions, let me know at tvsquad [at] gmail [dot] com.
In this episode, Late Show writer Bill Scheft joins me, Danny Gallagher and Kona Gallagher to talk about his new book Everything Hurts. Of course, there's lots of good behind-the-scenes info about what it was like to work at The Late Show, especially on how the events of the past month affected the staff and the show's writing, including the monologue.
He also tells some funny stories about being canned from Sports Illustrated (and spawns a new catchphrase), feeding lines to the guy who played Mike Singletary and more. It's 45 minutes of fun.
After the interview, Kona, Danny and I give our picks of the week. Run time is 1:03:02.
A former female writer at Late Night with David Letterman has dropped a bombshell in a Vanity Fair article in which she complained of a "hostile work environment for women". While he didn't hit on the writer, she claims that she noticed Letterman paid "extra attention" to her and had a reputation of sleeping with female workers.
While this could be a legitimate complaint, I find it somewhat suspicious that she waited until now to write about this. It could be a case of jumping on a bandwagon or she may have been afraid to say anything for fear of repercussions (as in "you'll never work in this industry again").
There is also that fine line between taking advantage of a subordinate and flirting. Not having been there, it's difficult to access what the case actually was. Mind you, flirting with subordinates at the workplace is probably not a good idea in this litigious society, but he was likely so busy with the show, how else was he going to meet single women? Match.com?
In the wayback days of my entertainment journalism career (2004, to be precise), I had written a few poorly-executed but fun articles for a wonderful little site called Knot Magazine (not to be confused with The Knot, a website which I'm unfortunately all too familiar with these days). After publishing a couple of my missives, the editor had an idea for me: why not interview that spunky assistant Dave Letterman has on his show?
Sounded like a cool idea. It's not like Stephane Birkitt hadn't been interviewed before; she had spoken to a couple of papers from her alma mater and her hometown, and seemed approachable. And it would have been a fun story to try to figure out how she went from anonymous assistant to the girl who talked about her weekend on the phone to the on-stage presence Dave often called "Vicki." How hard could it be to get an interview?
Writing about this is just asking for trouble from the more politically extreme, but it's television news so I'm writing about it. President Barack Obama will be appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman this coming Monday, Sept. 21. He is the sole guest and will take up the full hour of the program.
It is the first time a sitting U.S. President will be appearing on Letterman's CBS show. Obama is likely trying to promote his new health care reform. Usually a television appearance like this one is reserved for those on the campaign trail for the office. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Why stop with Letterman? He could stay another hour on CBS and appear on Craig Ferguson. And why not appear on Leno's new show? Or Conan? Or Jimmy Fallon? Or even Jimmy Kimmel? However, the President is likely a busy man and doesn't want to spread himself too thin. Letterman will do for now.
Paul McCartney will be the special guest on The Late Show with David Letterman this coming Wednesday night. Supposedly he's going to perform as well as be interviewed.
This is significant for two reasons. First, despite the fact that Dave's been on CBS since 1993, McCartney has never appeared on the show. Second, Letterman broadcasts out of the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is the same theater the Beatles played in during their famous appearance 45 years ago on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Given the significance of the event, I'm surprised McCartney hasn't appeared on the show before. I guess he had nothing to promote (this time around he's promoting some American shows he'll be performing at). Ringo Starr appeared on the show in 1995, making McCartney the last of the two surviving Beatles to put in an appearance. It would be kind of trippy and nostalgic if both of them could put in an appearance together. One can hope.
The shame (one of many) about David Letterman's tired, ham-fisted grasp at humor this past week regarding the daughters of Sarah Palin is that it's become such a political hot potato. It's gotten to the point where, despite the fact that Dave apologized and Palin accepted, Palin's supporters still want to see the late-night host fired.
Liberals point and say, "See! Conservatives can't take a joke. They're too bitter and uptight after losing the presidential election." Meanwhile, conservatives shout back that liberals are "out of touch with decency and only get offended when liberal women are attacked."
What both sides miss is that Letterman's clunky "knocked up" gag is a problem because it attacks a kid (be she 14 or 18, if you want to split hairs). While Sarah Palin is fair game and any comic or pundit can verbally knock around her "slutty flight attendant look" without fear of reprisal, it's an unwritten law that you don't go after the kids when doing political material.
It looks like Sarah Palin got her chance to respond to Dave's inappropriate joke about her daughter. You know, the one he already apologized for. Palin chided that Dave should apologize to all young women around the country rather than just she and her family.
Was it a legitimate mistake on Dave's part and the part of his writers? I believe it was. Is Sarah Palin using this as a political opportunity to get her name even more out there than it is? Yeah, I believe that's the case too.
A more appropriate response from the Alaskan governor would have been to accept the apology and, if she wants to hold a grudge, simply never appear on Dave's show or give it him any further publicity. She's a public figure, and sadly so are her children even if they didn't choose to be. No doubt they will be the targets of inappropriate jokes time to time.
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brienreversed its ratings decline and managed to squeak by with a win over The Late Show with David Letterman this past Wednesday night. Apparently, he even blew Letterman away in the coveted 18-49 demo.
I've never understood the appeal of The Tonight Show, but NBC has pretty much built the ultimate juggernaut of late night talk shows with it that nobody can seem to topple. On the other hand, when Letterman first moved to CBS he dominated the late night ratings for the first few years. With that in mind, I still think Letterman can turn this into a win before his current contract expires in 2012. And even if he doesn't, he deserves to.
Of course, the big elephant in the room is Jay Leno's upcoming 10 PM talk show. With such a lead-in, Dave's show could take an additional hammering in the ratings. Only time will tell.
Coming as no surprise to anybody, the final performance of Jay Leno on The Tonight Show absolutely slaughtered the ratings of the rerun of The Late Show with David Letterman. Given the enormity of the event, it's a good thing Dave just decided to hang it up and show a rerun that night in the first place.
I've made no secret of the fact that I've always preferred Letterman to Leno, but even I can see how Leno's laid-back, straight-forward presentation style seems more palatable with mainstream America than Dave's snark and wit. But then, I've never had anything resembling mainstream tastes.
Jay now moves to 10 P.M. and Conan takes his place as Letterman's direct competitor. Leno's style does suit the more family-friendly hour he's been placed at. Starting Monday we'll learn whether it was the man or the name-brand built by Leno and those before him that kept people watching The Tonight Show.
The politicians in the Philippines may be overreacting a tad. If anybody in this country took Baldwin so seriously, he would not have been the leader of the F.A.G.s in Team America: World Police. The Russians, being more worldly, apparently did not make a reactionary statement to the part of his sentence involving Russian mail-order brides.
I doubt his position on 30 Rock is in jeopardy as a result of this incident. If anything, he's gotten more publicity out of it.
He just should have said the mail-order bride was from Arkansas. At least the incident would not have been an international one.
"You look like Buddy Hackett after a bad clam." "Why don't you and I get a couple of whores?
This is why I love David Letterman.
Regis Philbin showed up on The Late Show last night, dressed as Shrek, part of a Broadway celebration he's doing on Live with Regis and Kelly. He says it took 2 1/2 hours to get into the makeup and then he had to wait while Letterman did other things. He looks a little like a green Joe Torre. More stunts like this and I think it could kill Reege.
One of the possible upshots to the Conan-taking-over-The-Tonight-Show scenario is that it could have freed Jay Leno to do many things elsewhere, away from NBC. In fact, he could have gone on The Late Show with David Letterman the night that Conan takes over his NBC show and be Dave's guest for the first time in...well, a very, very long time. But now that seems like it's not going to happen.
Leno reveals to The New York Times that The Late Show really did invite him to be the guest on the show that night, but Leno says that he doesn't want to do that to Conan. And I have to agree with him on this. It would be kind of a kick in the teeth to have Leno guest on Letterman's show at the same time Conan is launching his hosting duties on The Tonight Show. Leno shaking hands with Letterman again and sitting in the chair will be must-see television for everyone who watches late night, so you know that Conan would be hurt by that (ratings-wise and probably personally too).
Leno does, however, hope to do Letterman's show at some point. Even though he's still with NBC, he'll be on at 10pm now and won't be competing with Dave anymore.
Well, Jerry and his wife have finally responded to cookbook author Missy Chase Lapine's lawsuit.
Lapine sued the Seinfelds after Jerry went on The Late Show with David Letterman and said some rather nasty things about her, including calling her a "wacko" and suggesting she was a stalker (even making a joke about her having three names, like killers often do). This also stems from the incredible similarities between Lapine's hide-your-veggies book The Sneaky Chef (released in April of 2007) and Jessica Seinfeld's hide-your-veggies Deceptively Delicious (released in October of 2007).
CNN: "the most trusted name in best political teams."
Tom Bergeron is going to has a new show called Supper Club, where he will host a dinner party at the home of Universal Studios head Ron Meyer and talk about the environment. Huh?
Microsoft might buy Yahoo, but Yahoo is definitely buying Maven, which does video for several sites, including CBS Sports and FOX News.
Today I made an executive decision and gave the podcast an oh-so-creative name: "The TV Squad Podcast." This was after we recorded it on Tuesday, so I still refer to it by its old APB name. If you have any suggestions, let me know at tvsquad [at] gmail [dot] com.
A former female writer at Late Night with David Letterman has dropped a bombshell in 
In the wayback days of my entertainment journalism career (2004, to be precise), I had written a few poorly-executed but fun articles for a wonderful little site called 
Writing about this is just asking for trouble from the more politically extreme, but it's television news so I'm writing about it. 
Paul McCartney will 
The shame (one of many) about David Letterman's tired, ham-fisted grasp at humor this past week regarding the daughters of Sarah Palin is that it's become such a political hot potato. It's gotten to the point where, despite the fact that Dave apologized and Palin accepted, Palin's supporters 
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien 
Coming as no surprise to anybody, the final performance of Jay Leno on The Tonight Show absolutely 
Despite being a terrific actor, Alec Baldwin has a tendency to apologize for verbal faux pas, whether it involves a telephone call 
One of the possible upshots to the Conan-taking-over-The-Tonight-Show scenario is that it could have freed Jay Leno to do many things elsewhere, away from NBC. In fact, he could have gone on The Late Show with David Letterman the night that Conan takes over his NBC show and be Dave's guest for the first time in...well, a very, very long time. But now that seems like it's not going to happen.
What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.
Well, Jerry and his wife have finally 
What's going on at the other TV blogs via the internets.
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