It’s been more than 10 years since Craig Ferguson quit hosting CBS’s “The Late Late Show,” but to be honest, he hasn’t been thinking much about the world of late night lately. That’s especially true when asked about his former employer’s decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and exit the talk game all together.
“This is my truth in late-night TV,” Ferguson recently told Variety. “I didn’t watch a lot of late-night TV before I did it, and I certainly didn’t watch it while I was doing it, and I haven’t watched much since. So, to be honest, I don’t think I’m qualified to predict or comment on that. I mean, I did what I was supposed to do, but I don’t know if what I was supposed to do was actually a part of it. You know what I mean?”
Of course, Ferguson has a bit of a cocky attitude. He has an idea. Ferguson hosted “The Late Late Show” for 10 seasons, replacing him in 2005 with Craig Kilbourne before leaving the show at the end of 2014. James Corden then took over, but Corden left the show in 2023, and “The Late Late Show” was retired. Now, with CBS ending Colbert’s show in May, the franchise (which started with David Letterman in 1993) will soon be gone. Last year, several die-hard Ferguson fans tried to float the comedian’s name as a way for CBS to stay in the talking game, but Ferguson wasn’t interested.
“That’s not what I’m interested in,” he said. “You only do two days at Shawshank, right? The first day and the last day. I’m so proud of that talk show that I did. I’m really glad I did it. I think I hit the ball more times than I missed the ball. But I don’t think I need to do it again. If I started doing it again, it wouldn’t have much of the value to me.”
Ferguson’s time on “The Late Late Show” lives on through pirated clips on YouTube. The fan account “Late Late Show w/Craig Ferguson Archive” has over 1 million views, not bad for a feed that is out of control of Mr. Ferguson, producer Worldwide Pants, or CBS.
“It’s weird, because I think I probably have less of a connection to that old show than some people who used to watch it a lot,” Ferguson said. “That was then and it’s still the same now. I’m glad I did it and I’m very proud of it. But I didn’t live it on a daily basis for a long time.”
Instead, Ferguson has spent the past decade appearing on slightly different TV shows, including hosting game shows and panel shows. In recent years, he has hosted Syndicate’s “Celebrity Name Game,” History’s “Join or Die With Craig Ferguson,” and ABC’s “The Hustler.” He is currently joining Season 2 of The CW’s primetime gamer “Scrabble” (replacing Raven-Symonet), which premieres Thursday night.
“I’ve been playing Scrabble since I was a kid,” he said. “Given my upbringing, I think that’s why I can actually read. So I was very keen to get a TV version of Scrabble that I thought represented the game correctly. What I realized was how competitive Scrabble players are. I thought I was good at Scrabble, but they’re better at Scrabble.”
Ferguson said he’s attracted to the improvisational, freestyle nature of game show hosts like “Scrabble.” “The problem is the fact that we haven’t really prepared anything,” he said. “I play the game with the contestants, but the only information I have is their names and their correct pronunciation.”
Of course, Ferguson admits that he had so much fun interacting with the contestants that the taping was long and most of the banter ended up on the cutting room floor.
“An hour of TV is about 44 minutes (before commercials), but when you’re talking so much BS about this and that and the next thing, it’s easily twice that,” he said. “I just play, and whatever I need to take out for the game will be dictated to me. I suspect there will be a ton of B-roll and outtakes available as soon as the show starts airing.”
Fans of Ferguson’s quirky humor (he had a robot sidekick, a mime horse and a puppet on The Late Late Show, after all) will be happy to see the comedian open each episode of Scrabble by dancing to the show’s theme song. “I need to dance more,” he said. “But let me tell you this: People who like Scrabble don’t seem to care how much I dance on Scrabble game shows.”
Meanwhile, although he has no intention of returning to talk TV, Ferguson has launched a podcast, The Joy Podcast Hosted by Craig Ferguson, in 2023. The show started with regular guests and is still being interviewed, but only if they meet in person. “I think I’m probably as good as people who do Zoom call interviews, but in person, I think I’m probably a little bit better than most people who do it,” he said. “So I’m just trying to get the best out of myself. It’s so much more fun when I’m in a room talking to someone. So what I do now with my podcast is, when I’m away for work, I just record half an hour of myself answering questions from people who are watching the podcast. That’s what the podcast is. If I can’t have guests in the studio, I just talk directly to the people watching.”
Next month, Ferguson will depart for the next leg of his current stand-up tour, “Pants on Fire,” which begins February 5 in Charlotte, North Carolina, but it remains to be seen whether he will turn it into a television special.
“I don’t know if I want to do any more stand-up specials,” he said. “I did one a few years ago and it turned out OK and I was happy with it. But the point is, you make something special. I always think you make it. And then you look at it later and you’re like, ‘Oh, shit, I could have done that better.'” Jay Leno has never made a stand-up special in 50 years, and I don’t think he ever will. I kind of understood. I like doing stand-up, but I’m not sure if I need to film it. Maybe you will. I don’t understand. ”
“Scrabble,” produced by Hasbro Entertainment, The CW, Mattel Television Studios and Lionsgate Alternative Television, premieres Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW. David Hurwitz will serve as showrunner and executive producer, with Raven-Symoné producing the EP along with Gabriel Marano, David Garfinkle, and Chynna Weiss.
