Twenty. Eight. Weeks.

That’s when the zombies infected (we’re not using the zed word) break out again in movies. On Late Night Television, it just means that summer is here and fake celebrities telling boring stories are everywhere. This might be a good time to find a hobby. Maybe read a book. We hear comic books are popular nowadays (they even make movies about them), so you could try one of them.

Or you could not only waste your own time, and start a club to help waste the time of others as well. All you need to have is a hobby and the ability to make up arbitrary rules, with the fortitude to punish anyone who isn’t willing to follow those rules. Pretty easy. Here’s an example: We over at LNT HQ are an outgrowth of TV Club. TV Club is a club for people who enjoy watching television. However, not just anyone who watches television makes it in the club (though all are invited). We watch at least 6 episodes one night a week (TV on DVD has made TV Club substantially easier to administrate). We meet every week and if someone doesn’t show up, we don’t watch anything. Plus, nobody in the club watches any episodes of a TV Club show in between meetings. This means that we can take months to watch just a single season of a show. But, there are provisions in place. When people consistently miss TV Club (consistent meaning either two meetings in one month or two consecutive meetings) we vote on their membership. And if you’re voted out, you can never get into TV Club again! See, we’ve taken something fun like watching TV with friends, and turned it into a system that can destroy friendships forever. Hooray!

That’s the magic of clubs, you can take something fun you like doing and turn it into something awesome. Why don’t you give it a try this summer and start one yourself? TV Club is an easy one to do, but you may want to practice first. It’s no fun being kicked out of your own club after all.

So while you all think up ideas for clubs, in the meantime just scroll on down and enjoy all that you need to know about the Late Night ‘Verse for the week:

Monday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - William Shatner, Chelsea Handler, Newton Faulkner
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon, Adam Sandler, Donna Summer
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Seann William Scott, Tim Meadows, the Raconteurs
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Matt Costa
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Matthew Fox, “Dancing with the Stars” winner Kristi Yamaguchi, Pussycat Dolls

STEPHAN: America’s Greatest Hero, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is on Craiggers tonight and you can bet we’ll be watching. Rumor has it, she’s going to send $50 to everyone who does watch tonight, which should leave her with whatever $4 billion minus $800 is. Which is still pretty good.

Matthew Fox is that guy that raised his siblings after his parents died and then became a doctor on that island, right? Looks like I’ve got something to watch before JL-D then. We just started watching Flashback Island for TV Club. It’s been pretty good so far, but we’re only 10 episodes in. Lots of time for it to go all X-Files-shaped. My understanding is that the creators of the show are ending it themselves though, so it’s going to work out. It has to work out, doesn’t it? The X-Files was a long time ago, but it was bad enough that everyone learned to not do that, right? Yeah, probably not. At least Flashback Island won’t be bad enough to take over the Worst TV Club Show slot from Ricky Gervais’s award-winning BBC2 series Extras.

ERECH: Oh man did Extras ever break bad or what? And I love Gervais more than most and definitely more than I probably should, even I couldn’t stand the 2nd season of it. YIKES.

Anyways…

Ooh ooh oooooooh - Denny Crane is on Leno tonight! And then AW DAMNIT, boo, that troll Chelsea Handler is on after. Think she’ll make some sort inference that her and Captain Kirk have gotten it on? Big money is on “of course she will” side, because that’s just the sort of cutting edge lady-comedy she brings to the table. I hate her, and so should you.

Tim Meadows on Conan should be a treat. Meadows hasn’t been up to much since he left SNL/did that Sex Guy movie, other than hang out with Craig Ferguson and not be in more things because he’s awesome. Wanna feel bad for someone, think on this - Tim Meadows was on SNL for-literally-ever before he left in 2000, where Darrell Hammond had also already been on for 6 years - but Hammond is still on SNL to this day. Isn’t that sadly insane? Guess as long as there is a Donald Trump around though, Hammond’s got some job security, yeah?

(pssst - dear Donald Trump, please die.)

Tuesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Liv Tyler, Judd Apatow, Usher
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Julianne Moore, Morgan Spurlock, performance from Broadway musical “South Pacific”
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Colin Firth, Hugh Rowland, Jackie Greene
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Kristin Davis, Joel McHale
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Dennis Hopper, Doug Benson

ERECH: Liv Tyler is on a string of stink this year, how she’s the A-guest on any show with her current level of output is just a sign of how bad things are in Hollywood (in general) and The Tonight Show (specifically). Tortureporn flick The Strangers is in theaters now, and then in a few months we get The Incredible Hulk remake/reboot/reyawn, that’s a double-dose of ouch right there. Tack on the forever-taints of One Night at McCool’s and Jersey Girl, and no matter how pretty she may or may not be, or how famous her dad may or may not be, this is just a tragedy. More talented people than her have had their careers destroyed by starring in less awful movies than these, although I’m hard-pressed to think of anything worse than those 4 movies right now, so maybe I should just take this all back and shut it. She sure is pretty, but pretty enough to watch Leno though is entirely UP. TO. YOU.

Doug Benson is on Kimmel tonight. Doug Benson just started his amazingly awesome podcast I Love Movies (and the first ep featured David Cross!) back up for a new season, which you should all be listening to, because it really is amazingly awesome. We love Doug here at LNT HQ, like a lot, so suffice it to say that if you’re going to watch Jimmy at all this month, tonight is the night. You can bet we will be.

STEPHAN: Doug hates candy wrappers, screaming babies, sticky seats with 50 ads and popcorn kernels in his teeth, but there’s still not one that he won’t see cuz Doug loves movies. Doug Benson’s I Love Movies is the reason God invented podcasts. The only problem with ILM is that it’s routinely too short. I can’t think of a single episode that shouldn’t have been longer.

Speaking of 50 ads, Colin Firth was in 22 of the 25 trailers I had to sit through before The Fall this weekend. None of them were movies I am going to see, but at least one of them prominently involves Helen Hunt and Bette Midler, so be forewarned. There were only 20 people in the theater, so come a little late so you don’t have to run that gauntlet. The movie is good enough that it’s worth sitting through that awful, but why subject yourself to something that bad if you don’t have to?

Liv Tyler was super hot ten years ago in McCool’s, of course, lecherous old men want to interview her now though even if she has nothing to say. It could be worse, her dad could be on TV.

Wednesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Jeff Foxworthy, Arianna Huffington, N.E.R.D.
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Jack Black, Esperanza Spalding
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Adam Sandler, Jewel
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Jane Kaczmarek, Evan Handler, Bengt Washburn
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Coldplay

STEPHAN: 10 years ago, this would have been a pretty good lineup for Conan. For 2008, that’s some pretty weak sauce. Luckily for the Zone, everyone else did their booking tonight by just grabbing people off the street. There is no TV redemption tonight.

ERECH: Dave and Conan battle it out tonight with 2 A-guests who should be consistently making better films than they ever do. I think the last good Sandman movie I saw was Punch Drunk Love, and of the 8 movies Jack Black makes a year usually only 1 and a half of them are even worth watching on DVD, let alone paying to go to the theatre (with an R E even!) for. The Zohan movie looks to be of the lowest caliber of Happy Gilmore films, ranking somewhere between Little Nicky and Grandma’s Boy. Meanwhile, Kung Fu Panda is probably only a Jack Black movie in paycheck only - because seriously, these kinds of movies can really and easily have their lead voice actors interchange and who would really notice? For 2 guys who everyone knows are capable of so much better, we sure do get so very little from them most of the time, yeah? Sad.

Thursday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Dustin Hoffman, Gordon Ramsay, Flobots
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Julia Roberts, Al Green
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Wanda Sykes, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Lewis Black
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Jeff Foxworthy
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Usher

ERECH: Tonight Show looks good enough tonight, Hoffman is awesome, and Ramsay and Leno have a good rapport. I don’t know if I care about the Flobots at all, but you might like bad music, so I suppose Leno edged himself out a W tonight.

Conan is an edged winner tonight too. Sykes and Black for the laughs, and Chriqui brings the (supa!) sexy (who we will forgive for starring in that Zohan movie because she is so very very), coupled with the usual funny you’ll find on the Zone, and looks like you won’t even have to use the remote tonight because NBC is the spot to be. And NBC can thank that fact not for their own ability, but for the simple reason that none of the other networks are doing their job tonight at all. Jeff Foxworthy and Usher? NO THANKS.

STEPHAN: Summer has officially started. Nobody has anything going at all. Yeesh. It’s hard enough coming up with something to say about “celebrities” every week, but having to come up with something about people who aren’t even “celebrities” is impossibleness itself. Although according to that picture, that one lady is really attractive, so I guess you should watch that.

Friday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Will Smith, Pete Sampras, Ed Harcourt
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Jenna Fischer, Jim Nantz, Gavin Rossdale
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Lightspeed Champion
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Michael Clarke Duncan, Chelsea Handler
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Kevin Nealon, DeAnna Pappas, the Ting Tings

STEPHAN: Why is Chelsea Handler on actual channels? She’s always (I just accidentally typed “awful” instead of “always”) on the E! Network, can’t we let her stay there? I suppose it doesn’t matter because nobody but us watches Craiggers anyways, and why should they when nothing can follow Letterman’s lineup. Sure, it’s not the real Dawn, but Jim Nantz is going to spend his entire segment playing creepy Michael Scott to Ms. Fischer’s Pam, and it’s going to riveting. Then Gavin Rossdale is performing his five minute, one-man Broadway adaptation of Constantine (which is totally awesome).

ERECH: End of the week, and what do we have? Hancock, fake-Dawn Tinsley and John Coffey (”like the drink, only not spelled the same”) and who knows who else on Conze. Looks like most of the tv is a bore, so instead and since it’s Friday, maybe you should go out and try to see The Promotion if it’s playing in your town tonight. Good cast, lots of funny people in it, and it beats having to say you stayed up too late on Friday so you could catch the mother effing Ting Tings.

Ouch.

Late Night Thing comes to a close this week, which was another winner if you were to ask us. And didn’t we all learn lots this time around too? Things like using the thinly veiled term of “club” as an excuse to get together with your friends and drink and hate things is actually good summer fun. Also, we learned that as bad as Liv Tyler is in most everything lately, the silver lining of course is that we should count our blessings that it’s her kind of awful being served and not the kind her father brings to bear. Who here wants a new Aerosmith album after all? And finally we learned that Jack Black and Adam Sandler really, really, and we don’t want to undersell this, but really hates us all.

That’s a lot of learning to take on for one week, and just you know that Stephan & Erech are proud of all you nerds-of-midnight for taking it on. There really are more important things to stuff into your heads each week, besides which recently badly written character is going to get the Skrull retcon, or whether you’re really supposed to care that Darkseid is dead or not. And now that we’ve come to the end, we hope you’ve learned it.

TV, it usually fails, but never for long. Long Live TV.

LNT ARCHIVES