Last night’s Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson was, for me, a tale of two shows. The first show was Craig being absolutely hilarious. The second show was Helena Bonham Carter dealing with jet lag. Here we go:

His pre-opening credit bit was great:

Normally, at this point, I would type up my favorite jokes and spare you the rest of the monologue. Craig’s monologue was so excellent, however, that it’s really worth watching the whole thing:

The desk segments were Craig chatting aimlessly and answering emails and tweets. The chatting was entertaining, but in the interest of time I’m going to go with the funnier of the two.

Helena Bonham Carter was the first, and turns out only, couch guest. She is in the new Alice in Wonderland film.  Overall the interview was good, as Craig’s humor played well off of Helena’s jet-lagged weirdness. Here’s the first half of the interview, which was really fun to watch:

The rest of the segment was fine, but I felt it dragged on unnecessarily. I’m sure that Craig was having a good time with Helena, but I would have liked it more if he had made room for his second scheduled guest Ben McKenzie. For me it’s a respect thing. If you ask someone to be on your show, and they make the effort to show up, and there are no technical or news-worthy interruptions, then you should have the guest on the show. If you renege, then you’re being a jerk.

His standard closing segment, What Did We Learn on the Show Today Craig, lasted thirty seconds and wasn’t funny.

Very good show. I give it:

- Woody

Craig Ferguson decided to conduct an experiment with Tuesday night’s Late Late Show. He removed the audience and only had one guest for the entire hour. If that’s not a call to review the show, I don’t know what is.

He described his plan and explained his thoughts behind it in the pre-opening credit segment:

Stephen Fry was the only couch guest. He’s in the new Alice in Wonderland film. I’ve seen bits and pieces of Stephen on television in the past, but never so much at once. After only a few minutes I completely understood why Craig picked Stephen to be his guest for this show. Not only is Stephen entertaining and charismatic, but he’s also very intelligent and worldly. When he spoke I found myself really paying attention to what he said, and actually understanding it, as opposed to his conclusions flying over my head. For me, Stephen as a person really seemed to make sense.

Needless to say I enjoyed watching the interview. It’s in four installments, however, and I recognize that not everyone has the time to watch the entire thing. So if you want to get a feel for the whole experience I’d recommend watching the second installment, which you can do right here, right now:

If you have time to watch the rest you can click here to watch the first part, click here to watch the third part and click here to watch the fourth part.

Craig ended the show discussing the experiment with Stephen:

So, I liked the show, appreciated Craig’s desire to run this experiment and was happy to indulge him. That being said, I honestly hope he doesn’t do it again, or at least very often. I find the Late Late Show to be very unique in the way it entertains, and this episode was, by Craig’s own admittance, not unique.

I give it:

- Woody

Congratulations to the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson for winning a Peabody Award!

Wavy Rancheros did a hilarious job in the pre-opening credit bit with the Peabody announcement:

There were essentially only two monologue jokes, so here they both are:

It is Al Gore’s birthday today. Today Al ate a giant cake and a gallon of ice cream, then he remembered his birthday.

In Geneva scientists are celebrating cause they’ve got a big multi-million dollar atom smasher there, and it’s given us new information about how the universe began. And I’m thinking you could have saved the money and just asked Larry King.

The desk segment, as usual, was email and tweets. While always entertaining, this segment really varies in terms of humor. Sometimes it’s really funny, sometimes it’s just so-so. Tonight was the latter, so we’re going to skip the clip.

Wanda Sykes was the first, and due to them spending so much time talking, only couch guest. I like Wanda and find her really sharp and funny. The first part of the interview was pretty funny and is worth watching:

The second part had moments, but overall kinda dragged. This is a bummer because I think the time could have been spent better talking with his planned second guest. Oh well.

Good show. I give it:

- Woody