In my opinion, one of the best late night hosts of the last few decades was Craig Ferguson, especially years 2-9 of his ten-year run. The first year, he seemed to be trying to figure out the job and what his show was. The last year, he sometimes seemed bored and he spent a lot of time dancing, seemingly to amuse himself. But when he was good, he was very, very good and his show had the spontaneity that others lacked.
He didn't have the budget that some of the others had. He didn't have a band. He didn't get a lot of the big guests. He sometimes had to tape two shows a day. For a time, he didn't even have a sidekick or a bandleader to talk to and when he did get a sidekick, it was a robot skeleton. But I thought he was very clever, very honest and very humble.
You'll only see a little of that in this video. It's his first show once he was named the regular host following a lot of different tryouts, including his. This aired 1/3/2005…