Cynthia Littleton On The Air

Upfronts: Pilot buzz in this Very Weird Year

It's a very weird year. That's what everyone in town keeps saying over and over again as the biz gears up for the annual upfront ritual, which will be a little less ritualistic this year.

Gone in this Very Weird Year is the time-honored way in which reporters get big hints on what pilots are getting picked up -- by tracking the talent that is being flown in to New York.

As we all know, there are a whole lotta pilots that have not yet been shot and are just now setting casts. Most of the chatter, good and bad, about 2008-09 hopefuls this week has centered around the projects that the nets have in hand as pilots or presentations, or at least have significant thesps attached, a la ABC's "Never Better," which landed Damon Wayans (pictured right) as its lead last week.

So with the caveat that it is all spin and conjecture at this moment in time, let's review the buzz out there.

ABC's the hardest to read when it comes to new stuff.

On comedy front, Cedric the Entertainer (pictured left) vehicle (ABC Studios) seems to have traction -- or not, depending on who you talk to!

"Bad Mothers Handbook" (ABC Studios), about three generations of femmes living together, has not lensed but has the benefit of Alicia Silverstone (pictured right) and another high-profile name in the offing.

"My Brother's Hot and Other Dilemmas" (ABC Studios) about a girl attracted to her new step brother, has Alyssa Milano (pictured left). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that either a Silverstone or Milano comedy vehicle could be a nice companion for ABC's frosh hit "Samantha Who?" -- assuming that either pilot satisfies the larger obligation to actually be funny.

"Never Better" (ABC Studios) shot up on the radar after Wayans signed on and Marc Buckland signed on to direct.

Drama-wise at ABC ... I just don't know.

Only "Life on Mars," offbeat time-travel cop drama, is in the can. David E. Kelley and Tommy Schlamme have bowed out of that project, they're looking to move this from 20th Century Fox TV to ABC Studios and retool it under prospective showrunners Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg.

There's been a lot of chatter in the biz that "Life on Mars" shuffle granted a reprieve to Kelley's "Boston Legal" for another season. (Biz watchers with long memories will recall that two years ago, the same thing happened when ABC was hot for Kelley's "Mars.") But I'm hearing that "Boston Legal's" fate also has a lot to do with Kelley and how involved he intends to be going forward, among other factors.

It seems a safe bet that "Women's Murder Club" is headed for the morgue, though ABC is said to be anxious to stay in biz with star Angie Harmon. Midseason drama "Eli Stone" is said to be 50-50 for a sophomore year. And surprisingly, ABC is said to be considering a pickup for midseason comedy "Miss Guided." Can't swear to this but I heard the actors' options have been extended for a few more weeks.

At CBS, it's always a dangerous game trying to predict what Team Moonves is going to announce at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday. But some chatter about returning shows seems to be firming up.

Craig Ferguson and the latenight ratings race

CBS needed some happy news last week, and it got some courtesy of its resident Scotsman-turned-American in late night.

"The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" notched a milestone in its three-year-plus competish in the wee hours against NBC's long-dominant "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" by winning the week ended April 4 -- Ferguson averaged 1.88 million viewers for the frame to O'Brien's 1.77 million.

Not that latenight always has to be measured strictly a death-match, zero-sum game -- both Conan and Craig are very funny fellows indeed and viewers are well-served by their diverse styles -- but it is a competitive business and ratings are the yardstick by which ad sales and pop culture traction are measured.

NBC number crunchers noted that Ferguson got a big boost that week from the post-strike return of CBS' big scripted guns, the three "CSIs," "Without a Trace," "Criminal Minds" plus the circulation lift from the NCAA finals coverage, while NBC was still mostly in reruns.

Looking back over the past few weeks, however, the trend is interesting. "Late Late Show" has been making it a real horse race with "Late Night" of late, in spite of the latter's lead-in benefit from "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Indeed, Ferguson is more competitive with O'Brien than his 11:35 a.m. companion, "The Late Show with David Letterman" is with "Tonight Show" -- the berth O'Brien is to move up to in the fall of '09.

Craig Ferguson: 'As I was saying...'

"Late Late Show's" Craig Ferguson took a cue from history, sort of, in his first show back Wednesday night after the two-month strike furlough.

Near the top of his monologue he used the line: "As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted." The tale has long been told that when the BBC resumed television broadcasts in June 1946 after a seven-year lapse because of the matter known as World War II, the picture resumed with the same announcer who'd last been heard on the air in September 1939 with the line: "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted."

Great story. Unfortunately, it happens to be apocryphal, at least according to the Beeb. In 2006, BBC covered the 60th anniversary of its post-war return to the TV in-depth, and as it turns out, the opening words from host Jasmine Bligh were not quite as clever.

"Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh? Well here we are after a  lapse of nearly seven years ready to start again and of course we are all terribly excited and thrilled."

The tall tale had it that the the BBC's picture went dark in 1939 in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon, and that it resumed seven years later at the exact same point in the toon with the announcer's voice-over. In reality, the Mickey Mouse cartoon ran in full, then was followed by test signals. The tale is detailed in this BBC News account from June 2006.

Nonetheless, Ferguson seemed to be giving a nod to the past, at least the more interesting version. (My colleague Brian Lowry also notes in his insightful review of "Late Late Show" that Jack Paar also used the "As I was saying..." line when he came back to "The Tonight Show" in 1960 after famously walking off for a month in a censorship dispute with NBC.) He made his own solemn vow to the viewing public a few minutes later in his heartfelt, but still appropriately cheeky, opening soliloquy. In response to all the speculation that WGA-sanctioned David Letterman and Ferguson will have the advantage in booking top-tier guests over WGA-struck Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, Ferguson promised:

"This show won’t change a bit. It will be garbage. I make you this pledge people of America. We will not improve this show. It will not be funnier. It will not be better."

What we really need now is a visit to "The Late Late Show" from Hugh Laurie. When he and Craig go at it, the brogue gets so thick you can cut it with a knife -- and us Yanks can make out about every fourth word. Now that's quality latenight television. Welcome back, Craig.

(Read Ferguson's entire monologue after the jump.)

David Letterman digs deep

This just in from the home office at the Ed Sullivan Theater in Manhattan. This is why we've always loved David Letterman. From his spokesman Steve Rubenstein:

“Next week's tapings of 'The Late Show' and 'The Late Late Show' have been cancelled and we will continue to make a week-by-week determination about future tapings. However, it is important to Dave that our staff members have some degree of support during this uncertain time. Therefore, Worldwide Pants, which independently produces both shows, will continue to pay the non-writing staff of the shows – fully compensating lower-salaried employees, and providing a substantial portion of salaries for those at the higher end -- at least through the end of the year.  Of course, we all want to get back to work as soon as possible, and it remains our hope that both sides in this dispute will make progress toward that end. In the meantime, we will continue monitoring this situation closely as we make decisions regarding our future production schedule.”

"Colbert Report": Meet the showrunner-in-chief

Stephen Colbert comes across as so comfortable in the skin of his "Colbert Report" arch-conservative pundit persona that it's easy to forget he's playing a character that has been developed by him and the writer-producers on his Comedy Central skein.

Chief among those "Colbert Report" truthiness-deciders is Allison Silverman, who was upped last month to exec producer of the show along with Colbert and Jon Stewart. Silverman, whose resume includes stints as a writer-producer on "The Daily Show" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," has worked closely with Colbert during the past two years to fine-tune the character that walks a fine line between arrogant jerk and arrogant-but-lovable-jerk. (And arrogant-but-lovable presidential candidate as of Oct. 17, so long as those pesky Federal Election Commission rules don't drum him out of the race.)

"In the beginning we were conscious that he could turn out to be a real jerk of a character, and we still think about it a lot. We've always wanted him to be arrogant and willfully ignorant, but not someone you'd just hate," says Silverman, who joined "Colbert" shortly after it was picked up to series in 2005. "A lot of times it's all about the tone. Sometimes he'll do something that comes off as too repugnant. He'll say the exact same things but change the tone just a little bit and it makes all the difference."

David Letterman: Pride of Ball State

He is a very special young man. Muncie, Ind.-based Ball State University is naming its new communications building after its most famous alumni, David Letterman.

Letter-mom Dorothy Mengering was on hand Monday for the announcement with Ball State prexy Jo Ann Gora (click here for cute pic of Dorothy, known to viewers for her occasional work as a "Late Show"/"Late Night" correspondent). The $21 million, 75,000-square foot facility houses all kinds of state-of-the-art digital media stuff, a surround sound recording studio and post-production facility, is set to open on Sept. 7. Letterman and his mom are expected to attend the ceremony.

"I'm so thrilled that David finally let them do this for him," Mengering told the AP. "He's a very special young man, and I'm proud of him."

Gora noted that Letterman's frequent mentions of the school on his NBC and CBS late night shows have exposed Ball State to millions of people who otherwise never would've heard of it. He's also quietly been a huge supporter of its various institutions, from the Letterman Scholarships established in 1985 to the checks he's written to help launch the school's radio station, among other initiatives. Letterman graduated from Ball State in 1970.

"I'm proud to have been a student at Ball State, and I'm deeply honored to have this recognition for me and my family," Letterman said in a statement.

(Pictured above: Letterman, right, and George Clooney. No, Clooney didn't go to Ball State but I found this nice shot on the CBS press Web site and let's face it, Clooney livens up any post.)

Tom Snyder: Fire up a colortini in tribute

Let's all hoist a colortini toast tonight to Tom Snyder; may he rest in peace after what had to have been a tough battle with leukemia.

The man was born to be a broadcaster, born to talk on TV, without a net, without a script, and without needing much help from other people to tell him what to think. Snyder, who died Sunday in San Francisco at the age of 71, was smart, sharp, fast on his feet and funny, sometimes too funny with jokes that were an acquired taste. At least he had the brains and .... confidence to speak freely on live TV.

Or as Peter Lassally, who was exec producer of CBS' "The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" and now exec produces the successor show with Craig Ferguson, put it:

"Tom was a true broadcaster, a rare thing. When he was on the air, he made the camera disappear. It was just you and him, in a room together, having a talk."

Snyder had a reputation for being cantankerous, or "prickly," as the AP put it in its obit, but he was way-way nicer than he needed to be during a down phase of his career when a green reporter called his production office one day to ask if she could sit in on a taping of his show.

TCA: Jay Leno prepping for his second act?

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

Jay Leno remembers the "Tonight Show" transition well.

As Johnny Carson was stepping down as the king of latenight in 1992, both Leno and David Letterman were in line for the job. Letterman was at the time a 12:30 a.m. cult fave and Leno was a steady stand-up comedian who would often act as a fill-in host for Carson.

After much behind-the-scenes wrangling, Leno got the job and the ratings have been steady, so NBC can feel like it made the right choice. Letterman, of course, moved on to CBS where the network was finally able to create a latenight beachfront.

But now Leno will be on the other end of a "Tonight Show" transition, though this should be much smoother. Maybe not so much for Jay, though.

TCA: Conan O'Brien coming to your desk top

Speaking of Conan, NBC has finally taken the sensible step of making his show readily accessible for people to goof off with at work. Buried in the Peacock's raft of TCA announcements today was the news that as of Aug. 27 segs of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" will be available for streaming on the NBC.com Web site, starting at 5 a.m. PT the morning after they air. And surely "Late Night" will also be a prime offering on the yet-to-be-named joint venture NBC Universal is whipping up with News Corp. Now if CBS would only do the same thing with David Letterman and Craig Ferguson, there'd be no need to stay up late anymore...