Week 19!

Fresh logo, fresh start. So, it seems there might have been a bit of an error involving last week’s LNT. Um, sorry, we hope that didn’t cause you any grief. To make up for the mistake, we’ve tracked down the piece in question and present it to you, the reader, via the magic of YouTubes:

We would just like to apologize one more time. No one’s listing mentioned Anthony Bourdain’s appearance, so how could we have known? Okay, yes, we here at LNT HQ are huge AB fans, and we definitely should have known. The HQ Tivo is full of No Reservations and we have every episode of A Cook’s Tour on there too. So believe us when we say that was a huge flub on our part, and we’re doing everything we can to repair the damage. We even went to rehab as a team (which was fantastic by the way, we filled up two official LNT autograph books in the three hours we were there). We also left rehab as a team. Red wine is bad? Are you kidding me? Wine is what separates us from the monkeys. Sure, those guys have figured out cigarettes (Oh, we’ve seen movies.), but you’ll never see a monkey relaxing with a nice glass of cabernet sauvignon (see, we really do know you) after a hard day’s work in the television mines. Never!

That’s neither here nor there, but what is there is the other part of our atonement. We’ve added the cream of the Anthony Bourdain crop of purchasable stuff to our Amazon Store. That link takes you to the store page with all the Bourdain stuff you should own on it, but don’t forget that’s there’s lots of other stuff in the store that you and your loved ones should also own.

Enough tacky, self-shilling, let’s get on to this week’s lineups (guaranteed to be error-free*):

Monday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Jodie Foster, Cedric the Entertainer, Lili Haydn
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Helen Mirren, Jose Canseco
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Bob Costas, Marc Maron, Moby
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Aisha Tyler, Richard Branson
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Naomi Watts, James Blake, Cobra Starship

STEPHAN: Author (author!!!) Jose Canseco is the guest on Letterman tonight. Looks like the WGA got everything they were fighting for. At least the later shows have some promise. Aisha Tyler can explain how she lost the hosting gig for Late Late to faux-Craiggers, and both Bob Costas and Marc Maron are talk show funny (Of course, Marc Maron is regular funny too).

ERECH: Aisha Tyler and Craig Ferguson, once they were rivals but now they play friendly, since f-Craiggers won the battle of “Which D-Lister would host this show?!” - it’s clearly such an honor too. Still, Aisha is funny and hot, and Fergie is one of those things, should be an okay show. Aw, who am I kidding, I love you Craig, and I’m calling this my SoTNTW (Show of The Night To Watch) - go get em Fergs!

Costas on Conan will be good. They’re both OCD enough to mesh together well, and Costas has such a wide range of topics which he’s honestly knowledgeable about, as well as having a pretty good sense of humor (for a sportscaster at least) about himself, means there should be some fun hijinx in store. Especially since Conan doesn’t know jack about sports, Costas better come out swinging with something…

Jay and Dave are a toss-up, neither look great and neither look awful, but Mirren edges out Foster just a hair I’m gonna say. And even though Lili Haydn wasn’t great in those Star Wars prequels, I really liked him in Jumper - plus I hear the ladies like him too. Tough call, I say it’s players choice tonight!

Jimmy is a rerun, as usual on Mondays. Boo.

Tuesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - David Beckham, Sherri Shepherd, the B-52’s
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Sen. John McCain, Cat Power
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Helen Mirren, professional yodeler Wylie Gustafson, Carbon Silicon
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Forest Whitaker, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Your Lips Your Lips
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Ryan Phillippe, latest eliminated celeb from “Dancing with the Stars”, Carole King

ERECH: Jay will bore us with at least 3 mentions tonight about being neighbors with Posh and Becks, guaranteed. And then we get Shepherd, who is one of the dumbest women on the teevee (yet oddly not one of the dumbest women on The View, how’s that math work?!), and that’s a hard title to score too. Follow that up with the b-52’s, and I’m calling this one right here and right now, kids. Blah!

Mirren is doing the rounds this week it seems, for what though I’m not really sure (LNT doesn’t stand for what you think it does!). But Conze flirting with an old lady, even one as hot as The Queen here, will make for some fun times. I approve.

STEPHAN: The only problem with Helen Mirren is that I can’t find the clip of Tom starting the “Tom is the Queen” chant during the WFMU fundraiser last year. I know she’s super hot and all, but that’s literally all I can think about whenever I see her.

Speaking of attractive old people, John McCain and his weird face/neck lumps are going to be in glorious high definition on Dave’s World tonight. This can’t help but be good times. Plus, it’ll have less awkward Leno-is-a-homophobic-hack, gay jokes than Ryan Phillippe’s appearance on Kimmel. Win/Win!

Wednesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Steve Carell, Kathie Lee Gifford, Ani DiFranco
• The Late Show with David Letterman - George Clooney, Norah Jones
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - The Bravery
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Marg Helgenberger, Kylie Minogue
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Randy Jackson, Julie Bowen, Back Door Slam

STEPHAN: Is anyone planning on seeing that old-timey football movie with George Clooney in it? What if I mentioned that it’s got fake-Tim Canterbury and Renee “lemons are delicious” Zellweger in it too?

How does Clooney get to be the biggest movie star in the country? How many of his movies do people actually see? Those Ocean’s movies are okay, but Will Smith by himself (with just a little help from some poorly CGI’d vampires) brings more box office and he’s a scientologist (read: idiot). Then again Clooney does make better movies than Smith, and I guess we can take a stupid, pointless, Renee Zellwidger romantic “comedy” every now and again as long as he keeps doing stuff like Burn After Reading. Look at that cast list. The Coens are on fire right now. September can’t get here fast enough.

Oh, and Ed’s girlfriend is on Kimmel. According to imdb, she hasn’t done anything since 2007, so I bet she’s going to announce that Ed is finally coming out on DVD. To make up for all the music licensing fees, each season is going to cost $180, but if you buy each of the seasons the boxsets lock together to make an awesome panorama of Stuckeyville. Hooray!!!

ERECH: Jay is a snooze tonight. Carell always seems like he hates it there too, SO WHY KEEP GOING BACK STEVE?! Lesbians however will tune in for DiFranco, who still thinks America is buying her straight thing - nice try AWW-KNEE!

I doubt we’ll be lucky enough to get a full hour of The Bravery tonight on The Zone, but it’d be nice, right? Oh wait, I’m alone in my love for them, and their fake Cure-ish charms? C’mon, someone else out there has to go out on the ledge with me, and profess your love for this admittedly awful band (just like I did with brit-poppers S Club 7 - ewwww!), don’t leave me hangin’ guys.

Guys?

Thursday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Sen. Hillary Clinton, Patton Oswalt, Ferras
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Renee Zellweger, Gayle King, Paddy Casey
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Bode Miller, Cobra Starship
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Jennifer Love Hewitt, Greg Grunberg
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Special 1000th Episode

ERECH: Poor Patton, doing his best Sinbad impression here - let’s just hope the sniper-fire is kept to a bare minimum tonight, yeah?

Renee Zellweger is, as the kids say, Batpoo Crazy. Gayle King is ALMOST as dumb as Sherri Shepherd, and finally Paddy Casey is someone I’m too lazy to Google. Yep, that’s right, Dave is gonna be on full-charge hate tonight, it might actually be fun to watch him crush these f-tards. Although then you’d actually have to watch it, so YIKES to that. Just remember though kids, nobody hates celebrities more than Letterman, so believe you me he’ll feel your pain if you do decide to tune in - which you shouldn’t.

Instead, tune it for Yimmy’s 1000th episode extravaganza, and marvel at the notion that ABC will at this point not only give a show to anyone, but then leave it on forever too. Congrats Jim, you’ve almost earned it!

STEPHAN: Fun fact: I don’t watch anything on ABC. I don’t like Flashback Island (though I wouldn’t necessarily say I dislike it, it’s more ambivalence than anything), and I don’t think anyone expects me to defend my not watching any of the other programming. So, I guess where I’m headed here is 1000 shows on ABC is almost equal to one season of John From Cincinnati on HBO. Good job, I guess.

Greg Grunberg was great in The Jake Effect, and is the first person in history to get a lifetime pass for doing a television show that never actually aired. Seriously, he can do that Heroes show until he’s blue in the face, and I’ll still back him.

Friday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - David Spade, Nora Hardwick, Ben Lee
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Ellen Pompeo, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Christina Applegate, Lewis Black
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Jena Malone, Jonny Lee Miller, Bell X1
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Artie Lang, Paramore

STEPHAN: Ellen Pompeo is the lady from Old School right? I’m sure she has a lot of stories from when she was Zellwidger’s anorexic stunt double to regale Dave with, and I’m sure America will be enthralled as well. Christina Applegate is dating a fisherman, or maybe she was dating a fisherman. Right there she’s already the most interesting person not named Jay-Z on any show tonight. Y’know, I might have made that fisherman thing up, but I do think she’s admitted to having a bit of a crush on the olde Zone. Either way, that’s still pretty good. If Lewis Black apologizes for his new Comedy Central show Lewis Black’s Hamstringing Actually Funny People with a Terrible Concept for a Show this might, in fact, be the perfect Zone. Fingers crossed everybody.

ERECH: Dave has half of a winner on tonight. I just can’t get over that obnoxious set of grinning fangs at the end of Pompeo’s anorexic neck though. That woman irritates me to no end, and it doesn’t help that the character she plays on that awful show of hers is a vapid and mewling whore, too. Yeah, I said it, what’re you gonna do about it housewives of America? (NOTHING!) Further, I’m sick of all the men I know who were forced to watch this show for so long with their wives, somehow now trying to pretend that they like it - and even declaring it GOOD. How dare you. That’s how brainwashing works buddy, recognize. Jigga and Mary J will make up for it though, especially if Dave and Jay actually get to chat. So that’s half a yay.

The Zone looks like it might be half a good show as well. Applegate is always charming and funny, with good stories to tell. Lewis Black on the other hand has burned all the bridges he had into my heart. The routine is old, and after seeing the 4th episode of Root of All Evil, I’ve gotta say - that show would be pretty damn good if not for him and his scripted retorts. Like, you know how bad it is when you watch shows like The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, or Hannah Montana, or even stuff like Saved By The Bell before it (oh, like I’m the only one here who has a drinking problem…), and they are so awful and manufactured to their core that they’re barely even real shows at all? And THEN, you realize Black and co. are taking EVERY cue they can from all those shows, right down to the edited cutaways and even using canned laughter! Uh oh, here come all the L.A. hipster nerds to tell me I don’t know what good comedy is, just because some good comedians are on the show - well get back before I burn a hole in your Chunklet shirt, dork. Sure the show has some great comedians on, but they all seem stifled by the format of the show, which then pretty much negates every great reason about even having all these awesome comedians on in the first place, right? Why not just get Frank Caliendo to play all the parts then? To his credit though, Paul F (the F stands for Funny! ) Tompkins not only gave it the old college try, but has actually scored a few genuine laughs from me too (and also slam-dunked that Oprah segment when he interviewed all those school kids). Sadly, the same cannot be said for Black. Stop yelling at me sir, I ask - NAY - demand it. And fix your show too, because it could almost be good if you even pretended you wanted to be there just a little bit.

Finally, Artie on Jimmy means between the two of them, there’ll be more cocaine and butt-hair in one viewing than any standard-def tv can handle. It’ll be fun to see which one has a coronary tonight first, right? My money is on Artie, but that Coors-stain has burnt me one too many times in the past, so I may just have to sit this one out. OR, do more coke - tough choice.

Of course here at LNT HQ, Stephan & Erech never endorse the use of illegal drugs or intoxicants to help better any life experience. Honestly though, just between you, me and the rest of the tubes, we can all admit it does really help a bit, right? I mean would those Tim & Eric guys even have a career if it wasn’t for drugs? And what about the whole of the National Geographic channel? Furthermore, can we all finally get off that Cheech & Chong thing, and come clean - none of those movies were ever even a little funny, not even on dope.

So what it comes down to is, some drugs are good and make things better. While other drugs are bad and make things worse. But even more, some drugs are great, but nothing can save Miss Guided, sorry Parnell! LNT - we’re better than L.A. hipster dorks and we know it!

* Guarantee void in Tennessee.

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