Tonight, to celebrate the 1,000th installment of his CBS talk show The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, the host is taking the night off -- and turning over the program to his popular alter ego puppet, Wavy the crocodile or alligator. (Even Wavy isn't sure which.) As a TV concept, it's a blast from TV's most distant past -- but also a clear indication why Ferguson, in late-night TV terms, is the wave of the future...
Puppets go back to TV's infancy -- to Kukla, Fran and Ollie, to the Muppets, to the puppet friends of Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo, and, counting marionettes, all the way back to 1947's Howdy Doody. But in the right hands, so to speak, they're still really entertaining today, as Robert Smigel has proven for more than a decade with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Ferguson started playing with puppets as part of his "cold open," having them mouth to old recordings from time to time -- usually, dusty old songs with yodeling involved. Then he began pulling out other funny-looking puppets -- a monkey, a dinosaur, a shark -- until he stumbled upon Wavy, and gave the snaggle-toothed reptile a Cajun accent and a womanizing manner.
He's been riding the Wavy wave ever since. And a few months ago, when David Duchovny somehow ended up being interviewed by Wavy instead of by Ferguson, a new late-night star was born. Later, another guest, Lauren Graham, showed up -- as a talk-show guest one night, but also appearing on another show as a guest puppeteer.
The show is pulling out the stops for tonight's 1,000th show. Jason Segel, who unveiled his Dracula puppet in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, will be there. So will that film's co-star, Kristen Bell, one of Ferguson's favorite and most playful guests. And Jason Schwartzman and Maria Bello -- and, I'm told, lots of other puppets, and even a few sexy dancers.
All presided over by Wavy, not by Craig. Sounds like fun. And sounds different enough, and wild enough, to suggest that the Ferguson folks are having a blast, while several others in the TV talk game right now just seem to be going through the same tired motions.
And for the record, last night's 999th show, which was full of Craig, was laugh-out-loud funny. His opening rant against Continental Airlines, and his at-the-desk rant against TMZ, were brave, bold, honest, completely hilarious diatribes.
So watch tonight, at 12:35 a.m. ET on CBS, and see if you enjoy riding the Wavy.
By the way: There's an easy way to ascertain whether Wavy is a crocodile or an alligator.
I've grilled both. Alligator tastes like chicken. Crocodile tastes like conch...