LNT 2.10

It’s time for another trip to the Komplaint Kouch!

Abraham Lincoln didn’t have an invocation. That was 150 years ago, and we knew enough as a nation to keep that nonsense out of the presidential office then. It’s adult time folks. We’re putting away childish things, remember? We’re not here to make fun of your religious beliefs (though if you’d like us to, feel free to e-mail, we’ve had a lot of free time recently), but this is politics. This isn’t Sunday morning (or Friday evening), this is the time to get things done. We get that some people think that Barack is a secret Muslim, but those people are stupid and should be in Gitmo anyways. It’s time to get to fixing, America, not screwing around with some a-hole who supports abstinence education in Africa. If we don’t have an economy, none of us can help Africa anyways. 64,000 extra jobs disappeared in America today, and we spent the better half of the most important day in the last eight years listening to some idiot bigot sell his church on every television and radio station on the planet. Then the next day, our president spent the morning at some prayer service. On a Wednesday. Awesome. We will never understand politics. Never.

At least now that we have that out of the way, we can get back to TV. So, on to the main event:

Monday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Josh Brolin, Windell Middlebrooks, the Bird & the Bee
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Brian Williams, Ben Kweller
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - John C. Reilly, Jimmie Johnson, the Walkmen
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Chris Matthews, Paul Morrissey
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Kiefer Sutherland, Malcolm Gladwell, David Cook
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Donald Faison, the Ting Tings

STEPHAN: Don’t fear people. Yes, there are a bunch of good guests tonight, but the rest of the week is a wasteland, so you can continue to not watch television while you fret about how to pay your mortgage now that you’ve lost your job. My advice, take the Cardinals and the over. Doesn’t this feel like a 27-21 game? The over/under is 46.5 right now, so that’d get you both (even if the Cardinals don’t win outright). Also, Conan is going to be great tonight. I saw Tim & Eric on tour last week and they played a new Steve Brule clip. He is the funniest thing going right now. Guaranteed. Oh, and even Carson has good guests tonight. In a perfect world, Carson would somehow get injured during the taping and Donald Faison would have to take over as host. Then through some wacky tax-related mixup, Faison would not be the host, and Carson Daly would be on that abortion known as Scrubs. We’d all win.

ERECH: Watching the SAG awards over the weekend, I realized I never noticed before that Kiefer Sutherland is a wee, wee little man. Like tiny even. That guy is supposed to be tough? Man, Hollywood is weird, I’d fight that guy even after eating a whole bag of Taco Bell with no hesitation. However, I guess if you like short, scrawny little dudes who puff up their chests a lot, Jimmy’s the show for you tonight (Take that, David Cook!).

I’d also like to note how awesome it is that in the 3 weeks since we decided to cover Carson Daly here at LNT, a full week has been reruns. Is that show really that hard to do? There’s not any writing really, the guests are usually stinkers, and once in a blue moon they do some field footage bits but those never need to be new or relevant to be aired first. What’s the deal? So in that vein, Stephan and I would like to throw a little note out there to our pal Wayne Federman - Wayne, please watch Carson for what NOT to do.

Is it March 2nd yet??

Tuesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Rainn Wilson, Paula Abdul, Hoobastank
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Evangeline Lilly, Seth Meyers, Andrew Bird
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Matt Lauer, Steve Harvey, M83
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - RZA, Jared Harris
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Anthony LaPaglia, Miranda Cosgrove, Boz Scaggs, Dov Davidoff
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Quincy Jones, Little Joy

ERECH: No surprise, but NBC is a total blah tonight. Leno’s lineup is pretty much exactly the sort of joke lineup I would make up to ridicule how bad Jay’s guests are sometimes, only this is the real deal. Rainn Wilson, exceptionally annoying. Paula Abdul, completely insane. Hoobastank, are you &#@*!%##*ing kidding me?? Carry over all that juice right to Conze’s with Matt Lauer (hey, I like Matt, but c’mon. If I wanted to see Matt Lauer talking I’d get up at 5 in the goddanged morning to do it, right?), Steve Harvey (I liked Steve a lot 15 years ago. He’s long since worn out his welcome and his funny though. C’mon.), and then some band with a bad 80’s sound. Oh NBC, you never fail to fail, does ya?

Anytime the Scot has black people on, it’s gonna be funny. The culture gap is too wide for humor not to ensue, despite the fact there are many uniting factors in there too. Fergie made a movie about marijuana, and black people smoke that. Scottish people love their booze, and black people pour out a little when their cousins pass away. Also, sharp dressing as a rule. RZA is a pretty well-spoken dude though, and Jared Harris is a pretty funny guy, so Craiggers looks like a nice topper to the evening, yeah?

STEPHAN: Is it just me or is Evangeline Lilly substantially less attractive when she’s all glammed up? She looks like when Melissa started wearing makeup on Home Movies.

Wednesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Dakota Fanning, Bradley Cooper, the Neville Brothers
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Guy Fieri
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Evangeline Lilly, Kevin Connolly, Cold War Kids
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Cuba Gooding Jr., Freida Pinto
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Kristen Bell, Brody Jenner, Disturbed
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Jamal Woolard, Katy Perry

STEPHAN: Can we stop pretending to enjoy Katy Perry doing anything? She’s not a very good singer. If she writes her songs she’s not a good writer. If she doesn’t write her own songs, then she clearly can’t read. C’mon! If people really need to stare at her chest, can’t she just do Maxim or something and stop bothering the rest of us? She’s Guy Fieri awful. Fun Fact: In some interview I read, Anthony Bourdain compared Guy Fieri to Poochie from The Simpsons. Additional Fun Fact: Tony’s the best.

ERECH: Pretty awful guests all around. Conan is the least offensive, if you skip the B slot and go from the pretty lady right into Cold War Kids. Kristen Bell is pretty good too, but not worth watching Jimmy good.

I’m going to bed early tonight, guaranteed.

Thursday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Justin Long, Franz Ferdinand
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Renee Zellweger, Tony Dungy, Graham Nash sits in with the band
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Jon Stewart, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Mike Birbiglia
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Dominic Monaghan, Rosemarie DeWitt
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Andy Garcia, macaroni and cheese box collector Ian Golder, Kraak and Smaak
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Angela Kinsey, Asher Roth

ERECH: Conan. Cone. Conze! Now that, THAT is a lineup. Are you kidding me? Jon Stewart into Ricecub into Birbigs? Can we just call the rest of the week right now? We should, because it’s not getting any better than this, folks.

STEPHAN: Does Graham Nash sitting in with the Broadway Melody Makers mean he’s not the dumbest member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young? I can’t decide.

Friday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Elizabeth Banks, Dev Patel, James Morrison
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Mary Hicks, the Gaslight Anthem
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Greg Kinnear, J.J. Abrams, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Michael Sheen, Russell Peters, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Carlos Bernard, Benji Hughes
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Jerry Rice, Anthony Green

STEPHAN: Remember when we all looked forward to seeing Elizabeth Banks in stuff? Yeesh. I’m sure she’s a nice enough person, but her agent is a little too good. Cool it down, guys. She’s a delicious sherbet. Sure, it tastes great when you have it occasionally, but it’s quickly tastes like garbage if you try to eat it every day.

ERECH: It got better, folks!

We get the weekly listings for Letterman faxed over to Murdershow HQ every Sunday night, just in time to bring you the magic that is Late Night Thing. Usually the list just has the guests name on it, and occasionally there will be those sort of mutant guest info notes added on too - “National pig calling champ Chet Chetkins” or whatever. None of that was to be found for tonights listings though. So even after Googling “Mary Hicks” I still couldn’t figure out who she was. Braniac that I am, I decided to go look on the CBS Late Show site, and lo and behold, the info was there - she’s Bill Hicks mother. After all that work (all 9 seconds of it…) you can be sure I’m going to tune into Dave tonight then, just to see what this is all about. As we’re coming up on the 15th anniversary of Hicks death, I can see that coming into play. But also maybe some of this might be coming up too, as it’s common knowledge this has bothered Dave for many years. Hmm… Interesting night, maybe the most interesting night we’ve had in a while actually. Definitely the only show this week you should watch if you can only watch one.

Or not.

And that’s another Late Night Thing for the history books. And we’re not proud enough to say that if our kids went to LNT High, we’d want them to study from the LNT History books exclusively. Can you imagine? The history of Leno vs Letterman - the war of 1991! The crucifixion of Tiny Tim! Jonothan Winters! And many, many more history even!

Speaking of history, remember last week when we promised to take aim on 30 Rock for all the problems we were having with it? Well then those bastards had to go and air last weeks eppie; Retreat To Move Forward. It was great, better than great even. It was exactly what that show needs to be, and exactly what we loved about it in Season 1 and 2! Writers room, Jack put out, and more writers room! Tami Sagher got the shows swagger back, and big time. So much so, that we’re not even going to complain about how much we were disliking where the first half of this season was going. And certainly not to mention how messed up it was to see a Comcast commercial two weeks ago DURING 30 Rock WITH Lonny Ross in it, even though we have barely seen Josh on the show this season.

Nope, not gonna mention it at all. Just carry on, 30 Rock, and do the damn thing already.

LNT - wow, we really wussed out there, didn’t we?

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