11th week of year 2.

We know you all want us to complain about the Super Bowl, and we’re willing to acquiesce, but only because neither of us managed to watch any Carson Daly last week, so we’re going to pretend to be outraged about football and hope that no one notices our dereliction of duty. Sure, the officiating was terrible, the commercials were lackluster (though we do enjoy the idea of Bob Dylan and will.i.am together), the 10 people on the NBC pre-game show told us absolutely nothing (although Matt Millen the GM who masterminded the only 0-16 team in NFL history was prominently involved), the mutants that comprise the Stillahs fanbase (we’re looking at you Seth Meyers), but honestly, we don’t care. The last quarter of the game was good, and that’s that. The whole thing is a conflation of two very different worlds for the sole purpose of selling crap to the people who like football and those of us who only like spectacles, but now that it’s over, we still don’t really care.

Most importantly, Andrew Bynum is out for 8-12 weeks, folks. This is huge news. The Celtics have a pretty thin bench this year (Eddie House apparently doesn’t even travel with the team for road games), so there’s a very good chance the Cavs come out of the East. You’ll notice we didn’t mention the Magic, but their center still doesn’t know how to dominate a game, and they rely on three pointers way too much to win a seven game series against either the Cavs or the Celtics. Lebron is better than anybody on the Celtics (and anyone on any other team for that matter), and Mo Williams provides a legitimate second scoring threat to go with that already great defense. So, what does this have to do with Bynum? The West is overall better than the East, but the upper tier is not as good as it’s been. Gregg Popovich is going to coach his way right through the conference now. He’ll provoke Kobe and we’ll get to watch Kobe shoot 45 times while his teammates stop playing and the Spurs are suddenly playing the Lebrons in the Finals. What are the odds Popovich already has a plan to take Lebron out of the game? 1:2? 1:3? Get ready for another Spurs title this June everybody.

What does this have to do with celebrities or late night television? Absolutely nothing, although TNT has replaced Charles Barkley with C-Webb and The Glove, and Thursday nights are quite possibly better than ever. Those two are killing it, and suddenly we all have another option Thursday nights.

Oh, and there’s still regular talk shows on this week so let’s walk through them, together:

Monday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Kate Winslet, Danny Boyle, Akon
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Ben Roethlisberger, Steve Martin
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Kathy Griffin, Paula Deen, Amy Lavere
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Alfred Molina, Lance Burton
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Kiefer Sutherland, Malcolm Gladwell, David Cook
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Dev Patel, Gym Class Heroes

STEPHAN: What a bizarre world 2009 is turning out to be. Danny Boyle (who looks like whatever they call trolls in England) directed some movie about poor people and gets to be on Leno while the attractive star of the show gets to be on Carson Daly (at least he’s gets the A spot). Granted this is probably the way things should be. Danny Boyle has consistently made good, interesting films for the last 15 years, he probably has some pretty interesting talking to do. No doubt Jay is the guy to facilitate.

ERECH: What’re we, like 2 weeks away from the final Late Night with Contessa O’Brier, and this is what we’re getting? Kathy Griffin? That diabetic faux-hillbilly Paula Deen? And some other lady?? C’mon, this is countdown time, we should be getting the all-stars of the last 15 years as guests, not the leftovers. Right now should be a time of bittersweet remembrances, not just pure melancholy. Get it together Conze and cronies, this sorta claptrap ain’t gonna fly once you guys get to LA - not unless you wanna get your asses handed to you every night in the ratings…

Tuesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Penelope Cruz, D.L. Hughley, Sara Bareilles
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Rod Blagojevich, Richard Jenkins
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Brian Williams, Johnny Knoxville, Zac Brown Band
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Robin Williams, Jason Randal
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - John Cleese, Chris Ayres, the Bird and the Bee
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Jamie King, Tom Freund featuring Ben Harper

ERECH: Letterman is the place to be tonight. If you can’t understand why, then you don’t deserve to watch it.

Pretty lady Penelope Cruz is a nice counterpoint to Blagojevich though, if you’re into that sorta thing. D.L. Hughley will get to speak for all of black people tonight too, as Leno asks him questions about the differences between black and white people - you think I’m joking? Jay is probably the only white man more awkward around colored people than Larry David. I have no joke here.

STEPHAN: Remember when Letterman spent the entire interview trying to get Penelope Cruz to say the word “dinghy” again? Leno is Letterman. Who are we kidding, Dave is appointment viewing tonight. It’s finally happening.

Wednesday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Drew Barrymore, Matthew Goode, will.i.am
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Joe Torre, Demetri Martin, Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Jon Hamm, Ginnifer Goodwin, Theresa Andersson
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Hudy
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Justin Long, Camilla Belle, Nick Kroll
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Yelle

STEPHAN: Jon Hamm is a great actor, and probably a greater talk show guest. Plus, he’s a Cardinals fan, so he and Conan can commiserate on their respective teams losing respective Super Bowls they should have won. And he’s going to be on the 30 Rock television program. That’s going to be a good one. Oh, and all you Adam Carolla superfans (we both know that’s most of the LNT audience) will want to check out Adam’s fave, John Hiatt on Letterman tonight.

ERECH: Dave has another winner tonight. At least someone wants me to watch the talkies.

SIGH.

Thursday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Jennifer Aniston, Jamey Johnson
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Extreme fisherman Matt Watson, Mark Olson and Gary Louris
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Seth Meyers, Taraji P. Henson
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Magician Ed Alonzo
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Vanessa Minnillo, Morrissey
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Razorlight

ERECH: Magician Ed Alonzo? Really? I’m telling you Craiggers, hire me and Stephan as your talent wranglers, and it’ll be like episodes like this never happened. We promise.

I know someone out there is excited about Morrissey being on Kimmel tonight, but he ain’t me.

STEPHAN: I would love to be in the green room at Kimmel tonight. Can you imagine the scintillating conversation Vanessa Minnillo and Morrisey are going to have? From what I could find on google, she’s an “actress” who is famous for dating Nick Lachey and wearing nothing more than photoshop. Instead of having Jimmy interview either of them, they should just air the green room footage.

Friday:

• The Tonight Show With Jay Leno - Dave Salmoni, Frank Langella, Ben Lee
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Dakota Fanning, Keith Alberstadt, Beirut
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien - Russell Crowe, Alicia Keys, Death Cab For Cutie
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Kristen Bell, Alex Kapranos, Franz Ferdinand
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Teri Hatcher, Larry Wilmore, Jazmine Sullivan
• Last Call with Carson Daly - Tom Moon

STEPHAN: Larry Wilmore is great and has a book out that you should purchase. This is how much I like him, he’s worth sitting through Teri Hatcher and whatever boring stories her publicist cooked up tonight.

ERECH: Does Kristen Bell do the scots show like once a week nowadays? I’m not complaining or anything, but man, it sure seems like she is on that show a lot more than is healthy. I know she is his Amy Sedaris, but she’s no Amy Sedaris for reals.

Conan has that bootylicious singer/songwriter/actress/TEMPTRESS Alicia Keys on. I’ll watch that, if you know what I mean!

And that brings us to the end of yet another week here at Late Thing Nights. The boys of LTN would like to take this time out of their busy day to thank all our sharp-eyed readers for letting them know they forgot to change the date to 2009 in the all the front page images for the last OHHHHH 5 weeks or so. Seriously, you guys rock. Glad to know we’re not the only ones not paying attention to stuff around here.

Speaking of paying attention, if you’re paying attention to the calendar you’ll know that the all digital changeover is just a few mere weeks away. Thanks to our republican friends to help keep that on point, we’re really only like 15 days away from never having to hear about getting a converter box during an episode of Friends or 3 and a Half Men again. Seriously, can this not happen any faster? Stephan & Erech certainly feel bad enough for any elderly folks out there who don’t understand this new technology and don’t have a son, grandson, nephew, anyone, to come help install one of them digital doo-dads so they can keep watchin’ them stories. All the rest of you schmucks can go play in analog traffic though. You’ve had like 3 years to get it together. If you didn’t get your coupon already, or have a newer tv or cable, then boo hoo. It’s not like on February 18th all the sudden the converter boxes are going to cost $400 dollars or something. You wanna watch tv, you better pony up the cash son. The way we see it down here is that if you don’t already have your act together on this, then you really probably don’t deserve to watch tv anymore anyways.

However, on the same subject, given most of America is being subtly forced to purchase HDTV’s in order to keep watching the news, we’re gonna have to demand that Hollywoods is forced to get on the same page now too. Look, we don’t want to see Pat Sajak wrinkly puss in the vivid clarity of HD any more than you do, but the fact that half the shows on tv nowadays are still shot in standard def is no longer acceptable. Going from HD Letterman into SD Ferguson just won’t float anymore. So, we the people are going to demand that all currently recorded television shows upgrade to hi-def by March 11th, OR ELSE.

LNT - we’re leading this revolution, get behind us HDer’s!

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