May 20--After a ten-year run during which he won accolades for his tear-up-the-cue-cards style of hosting, Craig Ferguson left CBS "The Late Late Show" last December. But he's kept busy hosting a game show, "Celebrity Name Game," for which he recently won a Daytime Emmy as best game-show host. And his "Hot and Grumpy" comedy tour has been traveling the land. Some of its final stops come in the Chicago area next week. We talked to Ferguson about leaving the desk behind, hitting the road, and the debt he owes to Ted Baxter. This is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Q: So the folks who come to see you in Joliet, Merrillville and/or Waukegan -- and I guess we could throw Milwaukee into that mix, too -- what can they expect?
A: Their guess is as good as mine. There'll be cussin', my guess is; there usually is. There'll be some dirty stories; there usually are. They can expect some anecdotal, ribald tales from my past. And some discussion of the aging process on the body.
Q: How much are you mixing it up every night?
A: Quite a lot. It depends. In a show that lasts about an hour and a half, between 50 to 60 percent of it is stuff that I know I'm going to tell, and then, other than that, we go where we go.
Q: Yeah, that was what I always found so, exciting, really, about your late-night show. It was that feeling of anything could happen. He could take this anywhere. The commercials may never come.
A: Really, I think you want to have that feeling no matter what, in any performance. There's a very, very good German actress called Ute Lemper who said every performance needs the illusion of spontaneity. And you should never be able to tell when I'm improvising or when I'm doing something I've done before.
Q: You're actually touring by bus, or partly by bus, is that right?
A: Yeah, for a lot of the tour. For the ones that we've got coming up in Chicago, I'm just going to stay in town and travel out. But, yeah, for a lot of the time, me, the two guys inside the horse and Josh (Josh Robert Thompson) who does the skeleton robot, we all get in the bus and roll around like we're some kind of pop group.
Q: Do you miss the late night?
A: Not at all. Not at all. It was time. In all honesty, I think I might have stayed a little longer than I should have. I'm very happy to be out. I was just done. I felt like I'd gone to every corner of that particular house. I'd done everything I could possibly imagine doing with it.
Q: I think that's the challenge of it, for anybody trying to do one of those shows these days. There's been a set formula for so long. And there've been so many smart people doing it and trying to twist the formula. What can possibly be left?
A: Right. That's why I went onto a game show, to be honest. What I wanted to do was go onto another format which existed in a very traditional sense and see if I could do anything with it. I think it's still too early to tell. But we're about halfway through (taping) the second season of "Celebrity Name Game," and things have begun to fall apart, and I think that's a very good sign. I am very enouraged.
Q: Now that you mention the game show, I should say, 'Congratulations, Daytime Emmy winner Craig Ferguson. Susan Lucci is so jealous.'
A. Yeah, take that, Lucci. She eventually got one, didn't she? (Yes, in 1999, after 18 nominations without a win.)
Q: You described being a game-show host on Twitter as -- I'm not going to get this exactly right -- but it was something to the effect of "(messing) around and laughing my (bottom) off."
A: Well, that's kind of what it is. Somebody asked me once, "How did you approach the job when you started doing it," and I said, "Well, I stole it from an episode of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show.'" There's an episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" where (news anchor) Ted Baxter gets a job as a game-show host, and Lou is delighted because finally they can get rid of him. And then the guy they get to replace Ted on the news is even worse. Lou had to go and get Ted back. He sees Ted trying out for the game show and Ted's fantastic at it, because he really enjoys doing it. I thought, Well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to throw myself at it and be enthusiastic as I can about it cause that's probably the way it will be funny. And it seems to be working. So, like most things in TV right now, it's a ripoff of "The Mary Tyler Moore" show.
Q: Not the most expected or obvious ripoff of that show.
A: Right, but still everything leads back to "The Honeymooners," "Lucy" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
Q: How do you think James Corden's doing as host of "The Late Late Show"?
A: Good. I think he's great. He's a very very nice man, and he'll do a great job. It's different and it's friendly and that's who he is. He's a very firendly, very sweet guy, and I think he's making it his own, and that's what you should do.
Q: I saw you shot a pilot fo ABC. Is there news yet on whether that's being picked up?
A: It's not going to go. I kind of knew the writing was on the wall when the network picked up "The Muppets," and I thought, well, my dark single-camera comedy about an agoraphobic in New York is probably not going to play on the same network as the Muppets.
Q: You've also hinted at doing -- or not not doing -- some kind of talk show in the future. Is that still some kind of vague possibility?
A: Yeah, I saw that printed earlier in the year that my plans to do a talk show had fallen apart. I'm like, Well, no one told me I had plans to do a talk show. Never say never, but I'm not going to do one right now. The whole idea was to not do a talk show. Maybe in a couple of years, maybe, if it rolls around. I don't see it, but maybe.
Q: Well, thanks, Craig. Oh, are you still 51?
A: I'm 53 now! But listen if you can get me down to 51 you go ahead and do it, and I'll send a check.
sajohnson@tribpub.com
Craig Ferguson plays Joliet May 28, Merrillville, Ind., May 29, Milwaukee May 30 and Waukegan May 31. Tickets at Ticketmaster.
