Tuesday night on late-night television, Craig Ferguson didn't sing, as he had promised to, on CBS -- but over on NBC, as Jimmy Fallon's guest, Bruce Springsteen did. Both the singing and the non-singing, as it turned out, involved a surprise...
On CBS's The Late Late Show, Ferguson had been rehearsing for days, planning one of his high-energy, higher-insanity cold opening musical production numbers that was to open Tuesday night's show. The special guest on that night's show was Matt Smith, the current star of BBC America's Doctor Who, and Ferguson had worked up a wild tribute... wild by even HIS standards.
He'd written lyrics to the instrumental Doctor Who theme, explaining the origins, and alluding to the the many strange creatures and companions that inhabit the universe of the nomadic Time Lord. And to perform it, he'd enlisted the help of his usual (?) crew of backup singers and dancers, puppets, Secretariats, and even a surprise appearance by Matt Smith himself.
What a way to start the show!
Except... flanked by everyone BUT Smith, Ferguson opened the show, instead, explaining that he'd been informed -- just five minutes before showtime -- that legal rights to the music were not available after all, and the song couldn't be used.
Was Ferguson annoyed? Put it this way: Remember the most vitriolic thing his boss, David Letterman, ever said about NBC, General Electric, CBS, or Les Moonves, and multiply it tenfold, with lots of tutsi-frutsi dubbing thrown in to cover Ferguson's unusually long string of obscenities.
The show itself, by the way, was very entertaining, and Ferguson alluded several times to his hope that the opening number -- performed and recorded, but not televised -- would somehow leak out on the Internet. So far, it hasn't, but keep looking.
Meanwhile, the Internet HAS provided us a way to watch a musical surprise that was occurring, at the same hour, on a rival program.
NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon devoted most of its hour to a visit with Bruce Springsteen, who was there, along with longtime E Street band member Steve Van Zandt, to promote The Promise, his enticing new package of songs from the mid-'70s Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions. (It includes a DVD of the documentary that was shown on HBO a few weeks ago,as well as almost two dozen songs recorded for, but never released on, the Darkness album. You can order it HERE.)
The interview, so much looser and better than most of Fallon's efforts, was delightful, in part because on Springsteen's talk-show appearances are so infrequent, and partly because Springsteen and Fallon obviously enjoy one another. How else do you explain the evening's bizarre, unexpected highlight, when Springsteen put on a fake beard to impersonate his '70s-era incarnation, and joined Fallon -- as Fallon's frequent Late Night musical alter ego, Neil Young -- to sing a duet?
And not just a duet on any song, but on "Whip My Hair," the novelty hit by Willow Smith, the young daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. How great is that?
And I think it all goes back to Fallon's spectacular opening number at this year's Emmy Awards, when Fallon, as host, gathered a Glee club of cohorts to sing an opening number, which culiminated with Fallon, as Springsteen, leading the group on a rousing rendition of "Born to Run." It was fabulous -- and yes, as a full-service gift from TV WORTH WATCHING, you can watch that here as well.
Last night, all that Emmy work paid huge dividends for Fallon. Now, if only CBS could have ponied up the bucks for the rights to that Doctor Who music....