Article 3633 of alt.zines: Path: news.cic.net!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!zip.eecs.umich.edu!panix!ddsw1!not-for-mail From: barnhart@MCS.COM (Aaron Barnhart) Newsgroups: alt.fan.letterman,alt.fan.conan-obrien,alt.tv.talkshows.late,alt.zines,rec.arts.tv Subject: LATE SHOW NEWS 5/10/94 Followup-To: poster Date: 9 May 1994 23:01:45 -0500 Organization: The Colorcast Lines: 214 Message-ID: <2qn0v9$ijp@Venus.mcs.com> Reply-To: late-show-news@mcs.net NNTP-Posting-Host: venus.mcs.com Summary: Send the message "subscribe late-show-news" to listserv@mcs.net to join the LATE SHOW NEWS distribution list! Xref: news.cic.net alt.fan.letterman:22018 alt.fan.conan-obrien:747 alt.tv.talkshows.late:1069 alt.zines:3633 rec.arts.tv:107042 From Chicago: Hometown of Al Bundy and John Wayne Gacy ... it's --------------------------------------------- LATE SHOW NEWS for Tuesday, May 10, 1994 Issue #13 A weekly electronic sheet by Aaron Barnhart --------------------------------------------- 4. MY NEXT GUEST IS A MAMMAL _Space Ghost: Coast to Coast,_ a new animated series appearing Fridays on fledgling Turner cable channel Cartoon Network, is the story of one intergalactic comic-book hero who decides he must save planet Earth from the dangerous escalation of Talk Show Wars by ... starring in his own. Well, no one ever said cartoons lived or died by their plot lines. These days, they are largely judged -- the adult toons anyway -- on their ability to satisfy a generation of viewers raised on metatelevision. From the time we caught our first Monty Python or _Saturday Night Live,_ our appetites for shows about shows have become bigger and more varied, and brought us everything from David Letterman to t.v. newsmagazines. And for those of you who like your media references fast, frequent, and as meaningless as possible, animation has lately been delivering the goods at Roadrunner speed. Since _The Simpsons_ blazed the trail, we've seen _Ren & Stimpy,_ _Beavis & Butt-Head,_ _The Critic_ (dropped by ABC but picked up in a heartbeat by Fox) and now, on a station only available in 10 million U.S. households, comes the 15-minute _Coast to Coast._ Like the others, this show shouldn't have any trouble winning loyal constituencies. Indeed, people are posting wild accolades to Usenet already, and the program is only four weeks old. Interestingly, _Coast to Coast_ doesn't appropriate many symbols from late shows, choosing instead to dip into the rich iconography of cable television (which is probably what Space Ghost viewers are watching late at night, anyway). Mike Judge supplies the voices of Beavis and Butt-Head to a couple of space-age home viewers. One episode features only guests from _Gilligan's Island._ There's an order-now ad for a "greatest hits" album by Space Ghost's old nemesis Zorak, an oversized locust who is on some sort of work-release program as the show's bandleader. The lone tribute to late-night talkers that we spotted is the host's use of blue index cards. The set, whose design seems inspired by _The Jetsons,_ features a live-action outer-space backdrop, no props and no studio audience. As for the host, Space Ghost is not very telegenic -- he stares straight ahead and addresses us just like a Saturday morning superhero. He might be looking at us, but with those Little Orphan Annie eyes of his it's hard to tell. The humans appear on a monitor that's not integrated with the toon (Roger Rabbit this ain't), so it figures that their interactions with the host resemble less an interview than word jazz in which the videotape editor plucks the bass line. While Space Ghost prattles on about how strong he is, his guests, most of whom wouldn't make Conan's B list (Kevin Meany, the Bee Gees), are made to utter anything from cogent replies to banal non sequiturs. And when that gets tiresome, the host simply zaps the tube and it's on to the next guest. _Space Ghost: Coast to Coast_ is more satirical than Bugs Bunny, more anarchic than Toontown. But viewers hoping to see a dead-eye hit on the late-night talkers will be disappointed. 3. MEDIA BITES "I think it's trickier to be a guest on the _Tonight_ show than to host," Jay Leno told Tom Snyder last week, and apparently that goes double for guests on Snyder's CNBC show. Witness not only Jay's ham-handed performance on the show -- endlessly interrupting the host, almost competing with him to finish sentences -- but also the appearance on Wednesday of _Later_ host Greg Kinnear. One can now see why the interview format is not going too well for Greg: glib is not his game. He has perfected the t.v. smirk (though Dennis Miller was heard to comment recently, "That raised-eyebrow thing is a little tired"), but even that served him poorly on Tom's show, where a premium is placed on straight talk and the humor is more traditional. Perhaps you think this is the host's responsibility to overcome, but as the Letterman show demonstrates each night, the onus is really on the guest. At one point, Tom became distracted by some off-camera chatter going on about five feet away from him, and stopped his interview to interrogate the noisemakers. Greg howled, "Whoaaaa!" and made a how-weird-is-this face. The moment brought to mind Tom Arnold's sneering, condescending Snyder show appearance earlier this year -- and look where that got *him.* Dave's May 2 show was highlighted by passing jogger turned instant cohost Amy Butler. Some people apparently had trouble believing her appearance hadn't been planned in advance. (Admittedly stunts that are more challenging to perform inside the Ed Sullivan Theater, like bringing a New York City mounted policeman in through the lobby or parking a taxicab onstage, have been staged.) But if you review the tape, you will see Amy jogging into the right edge of the picture and slowing down as she disappears out the left. Then she returns in the next shot and stands next to what turns out to be the lucky telephone, which Dave orders handed to her. Some viewers may wonder how so many people could be congregating around the theater without knowing that *something* was going on. The short answer is, on weeknights between 5:30 and 6:30, there *is* something going on: the Letterman taping. And most of New York seems to know it. Ever since the good weather returned there's been a crowd circling the theater on taping days. Afterwards many of them huddle near the stage door for a glimpse of departing guests. In addition, Dave has lately been using the external camera overlooking the payphones (his crew installed a public address system there) and has been known to place a call to one of them. It should not be surprising that some in the milling throng were wise to these facts and hung around in hopes of their own big moment on t.v. 2. F.Y. EYES Johnny Carson made a prerecorded cameo appearance on Dave's show yesterday, the first of five programs originating from Los Angeles. As if to conjure up the good Carson vibes, Dave last week told a joke that was worthy of the old _Tonight_ show: "The audience last night was so bad, in the middle of the show I called Dr. Kevorkian to find out about a group rate!" Also this week, Dorothy Letterman, as always via satellite ... Tom Snyder, in a very nice profile done by Andy Meisler in Sunday's _New York Times,_ insists he always was flattered by Dan Aykroyd's impersonation of him, but adds, "What I did mind was later, when Joe Piscopo did me. Piscopo showed me as a failed broadcaster living in a skid row hotel, interviewing the doorman as a guest on my television show." Joe Piscopo, hmmmm. That name sounds familiar ... Bobcat Goldthwaite set fire to his seat during an appearance Friday on _Tonight_ ... And _Advertising Age_ says CBS will announce details of its 12:35 a.m. offering next month. 1. THE LINEUPS LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, CBS, 11:35 P.M. EST Tu 5/10 Angela Lansbury, Michael Keaton (from L.A.) We 5/11 David Copperfield, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (from L.A.) Th 5/12 Candice Bergen, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Dennis Miller (from L.A.) Fr 5/13 Bette Midler, Magic Johnson, Traffic (from L.A.) Mo 5/16 Heather Locklear, Travis Tritt, Harvey Pekar Look everybody, it's our acerbic pal Harvey. Time for another of those old Dave/new Dave comparisons. THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO, NBC, 11:35 P.M. EST Tu 5/10 Michael Richards, Alan Alda We 5/11 George Carlin, Jack Palance Th 5/12 Don Johnson, Huey Lewis and the News Fr 5/13 Richard Dean Anderson, Tony Toni Tone Here are the lineups for New York: Mo 5/16 Mike Myers, Spike Lee, James Taylor Tu 5/17 Model Cindy Crawford, Julio Iglesias We 5/18 Michael J. Fox, Kathie Lee Gifford Th 5/19 Bill Cosby, Farrah Fawcett Fr 5/20 Blue Man Group LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN, NBC, 12:35 A.M. EST Tu 5/10 Fran Drescher, poet Allen Ginsburg We 5/11 Mary Stuart Masterson, Gay Talese, Smithereens Th 5/12 George Wendt, Indigo Girls Fr 5/13 Geraldo Rivera, Chris Noth Mo 5/16 Andrew Shue, Steel Pulse, Dr. Joyce Brothers LATER WITH GREG KINNEAR, NBC, 1:35 A.M. EST Tu 5/10 Jacqueline Bissett We 5/11 David Copperfield Th 5/12 Clint Black Mo 5/16 TBA -- Thanks to S Trowbridge THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW, Syndicated Tu 5/10 Spike Lee, Nancy Wilson We 5/11 Chuck Norris (+ spotlight on bandleader Michael Wolff) Th 5/12 Lisa Hartman Black (+ Everette Harp on sax) Fr 5/13 TBA Mo 5/16 Jaleel White, Elayne Boosler Also, don't miss TOM SNYDER on CNBC, airing live Monday-Thursday at 10 p.m. Eastern with a rerun of that evening's show at 1 a.m. Reruns also air at those times Friday through Sunday. The E! entertainment television cable network broadcasts reruns of _Late Night with David Letterman_ "seven Daves a week" at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Monday through Friday, reruns can also be viewed at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern. The following schedule was taken from the E! update line. Mo 5/9 Peter Ustinov, Marv Albert (1-7-86) Tu 5/10 Geri Hall, Rich Hall (6-10-85) We 5/11 Deborah Norville, Dr. John (9-7-89) Th 5/12 Alec Baldwin, Andy Kaufman, Dr. Ruth (11-17-82) Fr 5/13 Howard Stern, John Chancellor, Pat Metheny and Gary Burton (4-25-90) Sa 5/14 Frank Stallone, Ronnie Shakes (7-23-84) Su 5/15 Anthony Perkins, Sandra Bernhard, Eric Burton (9-21-87) Thursday's show just might be the first public appearance of Metheny and Burton since their Flatt & Scruggs-like feud of the early '80s. --------------------------- Entire contents Copyright (C) 1994 by Aaron Barnhart. All rights reserved. Redistribution prohibited without written permission of the author, with the exceptions that a single user (a) may retrieve LATE SHOW NEWS from the archive listed below by anonymous FTP, and (b) may send to another single user by electronic mail where an electronic mailing list such as Majordomo is not employed. 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