Jills for Team Craig

Conan O'Brien will always have a special place in my heart for being Marc Maron's perfect foil, but I'm with Cookie Jill on who the underestimated gem in the late night crown is.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you Craig Ferguson's Finest Moment:

UPDATE: Thanks to Lee in the comments for this one:

I may just have to start adding something else to the DVR, or else remember to catch the monologue over at the Insomniac's Vent-Hole.

David Letterman is getting all the press, but Craig Ferguson is funnier

...and better-looking, too:

Thursday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree: Craig Ferguson:

OK, yeah, I'm a sucker for Scottish accents. Ferguson could stand there and read the Book of Leviticus and I'd be here laughing. But when stand-up comics are the electoral conscience of the nation while the so-called "experts" are behaving like Mary Hart and Pat O'Brien, we have a serious problem.

Pr0n for Smart Women

It just doesn't get any better than this: John Cusack on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson:

He's not Stephen Colbert, but then, who is?

Have I ever mentioned how I loves me some Craig Ferguson? Of course I'm a sucker for the speech cadences of the land of kilts and haggis (sorry, Liss), which go a long way towards turning a recitation of The Brothers Karamazov into a riotous comedy. And of course he has those craggy, Basset Hound-y good looks. But I think Ferguson ascended from being just another goofball into Comedic Valhalla with his brilliant riff on the media treatment of Britney Spears in the context of his own recovery from alcoholism.

Nothing will ever again hit the absolute perfection of Stephen Colbert's wicked skewering of both George W. Bush and the media at the White House Correspondents' Dinner a few years ago. Last year they decided to play it safe with the spectacularly unfunny Rich Little, and learned that really bad comedy can lay as big a turd in the punchbowl as Colbert's scathingly dry indictment of the whole room did the year before. Sure, there's the mandatory Shecky humor; the bad jokes that seem to come right out of the Borscht Belt that are missing only the snare drum. But if they're not going to have the guts to bring in Marc Maron to do this gig, I think Ferguson found a way to skewer the media and the administration at a level they could understand.

So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Craig Ferguson (and don't miss the Rumsfeld montage in Part II):

Not even a Scots accent makes alcoholism funny

Props to Craig Ferguson, who already showed last Friday on Real Time with Bill Maher that he can be thoughtful and serious, and risked career suicide on Monday by using his monologue and his own history to call into question the whole cottage industry of making fun of troubled celebrities:

I've always liked Ferguson. Part of it is that I have a weakness for Scottish accents dating back to Ewan McGregor in Shallow Grave and Billy Connolly's standup days, talking about the airline pilot who's always named Nigel. There's a reason for Mike Myers' accent as Shrek, and that's because there's something about the speech cadences of Scotland that are just innately funny. Part of it is that he's kind of dashingly, craggily handsome, of course, but it seems I was on to something. Ferguson has taken a lot of crap for his show, for unknown reasons, since he was, after all, replacing the Jackass Known As Craig Kilborn. But this is a truly extraordinary monologue. Note how the audience continues to laugh like Pavlov's dogs at the mere mention of Britney Spears' name, until they realize what Ferguson is doing -- and then he proceeds to leaven the seriousness by poking fun at not Spears', but his own alcoholism.

Ferguson deserves all the applause and all the cards and letters to the CBS brass that we can write. Because this was a brave, fearless, and unforgettable piece of work.

UPDATE: Apparently choosing NOT to make fun of a celebrity is a Very Big Deal.