Another week of the Summer of Craig! He’s been on fire lately folks (You did watch him interview Rosie Perez like we suggested last week, didn’t you?), but we’re starting to think we may have been a little myopic on this one. This just might be the summer of CBS.

Y’see, Dave has almost completely passed the Conan-helmed Tonight Show already. And it’s not even August! Dave’s been winning in the overall and Conan’s vaunted 18-49 advantage has been steadily shrinking. In fact, check out this press release from CBS right here. 0.3 is really nothing, especially when drilling down into the demographics like that. Those numbers are coming perilously close to the margins of error. Yes, at this rate we could be looking at a statistical dead heat by the beginning of August. Then when Leno comes back and starts cannibalizing Conan’s guest roster while Dave really starts trying? That spells “uh oh” for our beloved Zone.

Well, at least Coco will put up a fight first. And if worse comes to worse, we’ve always got Craiggers. And we’ve also got a special Craiggers centric outro this week too. Hop on down to the listings and then stay for the love:

Monday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Adam Sandler, Peter Sarsgaard, Kate Voegele
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Katherine Heigl, Jeff Altman, Spinnerette
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Will Arnett, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Tom Jones
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Margaret Cho, Michael Lewis, Eric Church
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - David Arquette, Jill Wagner, Linkin Park
• Last Call with Carson Daly - WHO CARES

STEPHAN: What’s the deal with David Arquette? Does anybody know? If Fallon didn’t have THE Will Arnett tonight, I’d gladly tune in to hear Jimmy try to peel that onion.

ERECH: Will Arnett on Jimmy2, I feel like I should know if he has been on before or not, but honestly don’t. Way to go, me. That said, definitely going to tune it to see if his 12:35 magic is still there for Fallon, like it used to be for the Zone. Also, that Chriqui gal is one hot tamale. Young James, my friend, you’ve done it again!

Margaret Cho is someone I almost feel like I should like some, or more, or at all. Or at the very least, pretend to. Lots of funny people I respect speak kind of highly about her, but then other funny people I respect more have HORRRRRIBLE things to say about her (or her comedy, rather), I’m looking at you Shooter. I dunno what to think, so I’m gonna just let Tourettes Guy sum it up for us:

Fair enough Tourrettes Guy, fair enough. Suck it, Cho.

Tuesday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Jonah Hill, Cheryl Hines, Dan Naturman
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Kevin Spacey, Jesse James, the Flatlanders, Top Ten List by Stewart Cink
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Jordin Sparks
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Gerard Butler, Jackie Collins
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Seth Green, “Bachelorette” Jillian Harris
• Last Call with Carson Daly - MORE CRAPPY RERUNS

ERECH: Fallon is doing a little The State show tonight, worth checking out if you like funny stuff (you do).

That’s all I got folks. Me, I’m hoping Scharpling is back in spirits tonight, and we get a new Best Show (and we will be, with some funny guests, if the rumors are true…). Tom, you have no idea what it does to us when you take a week off, even one as deserved as you probably earned lately, but still. In closing, we love you Tom Scharpling; you’re our only hope! (also, be sure to check out Tom’s ongoing Twitter novel, Fuel Dump, at twitter.com/scharpling!

STEPHAN: Gerard Butler and Craiggers sounds like a win to me. Even if Butler is there to sell that stupid Hiegl movie he’s in. He should get to do better movies. Wouldn’t he make a great 006 in one of the new Bond movies? Assuming they don’t want to use Sean Bean again anyways. Bond should have a shifty, probably traitorous Scottish spy to interact with. I’d see it as long as they didn’t make him as stupidly duplicitous as 006 was in Goldeneye, anyways. Who am I kidding? I saw both 300 and Dracula 2000 in the theater. Of course, I’d see it no matter how stupid it was.

Wednesday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien -Mat Kearney
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Tracy Morgan, Leslie Mann, Diane Birch
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Bob Costas, the Mighty Boosh, Flo Rida
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Kelly Rowland, Jim Breuer
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Rev. Al Sharpton, Jewel
• Last Call with Carson Daly - THEY REALLY CAN’T GET ANYTHING NEW FOR THIS TIMESLOT?!

STEPHAN: Tracy Morgan better explain why 30 Rock is not getting the Blu-ray treatment. The last season of The Office is coming out on Blu-ray September 8th. Sure, that season was definitely an uptick for the show, but it wasn’t even in the same ballpark as our pals at Rockefeller Center. How come I can record HD episodes of the show that look and sound much better than anything I purchase? This is ridiculousness! When 30 Rock was renewed after the first season, NBC admitted that it’s demographics skewed wealthy and somewhat young. Do you really think that’s not the audience that would want Blu-ray, NBC? Come one!

ERECH: I like the look of Fallon tonight, because I’m a fan of Bob Costas the talk show guest, if not Bob Costas the Olympic commentator. Subtle difference, but it’s there.

The real meat tonight looks like Dave, as usual, so yeah. Do it.

Thursday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Zach Galifianakis, Jason Aldean
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Diddy, Vera Farmiga, Ginuwine with Missy Elliott
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Kevin Nealon, Demi Lovato, Twisted Sister
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Cheryl Hines, Ben Mezrich
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Katherine Heigl, David and Shaun Cassidy, La Roux
• Last Call with Carson Daly - OH GOD STOP THE MADNESS CARSON

ERECH: I used to have the biggest crush on Katherine Heigl, for years and years and years. Somehow though, her being on that awful ABC doctor show completely ruined it. Now I’m sure after she reads this, she’ll be kicking herself for ever having taken the role on the show to begin with, but the damage is done Kathy. Even with the news you’re moving on from that show, my crush shows no sign of renewed life. The point of all this rant? You got me, but I just felt like putting it out there.

That Letterman roster is weird. And as much as I really dislike Diddy, he’s actually a really good guest on that show, so hrmph. Ginuwine is getting national play tonight though? Wow, what’d BET donate a bunch of money to Nascar in order to get Dave to let these jerks on? (in fairness, I used to really like Ginuwine, back in his DC gogo days, so that means I’m allowed to crap all over him now!)

Also, listening to the Adam Carolla podcast right now as I type this, with Jeff Garlin as the guest, talking about the return of Curb on HBO in September. How the hell is that show going to come back after the last season?! And will Cheryl Hines be there? I guess if we watch Fergie tonight, we can find out! (segue genius!)

STEPHAN: Hiegl also seems like quite the bitch which just might make her even more attractive. Good for her getting off that awful show though. It doesn’t really matter what kind of a person she is tonight anyways. Zatch is on the Zone and now that he’s a famous movie star he gets to come out first and talk all day. Will tonight be the night he finally announces the DVD release of Late World? Of course notTune in to find out!

Friday:

• The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien - Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, De La Soul
• The Late Show with David Letterman - Amy Poehler, Nick Griffin, Judy Collins
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Anthony Mackie, John Mulaney
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Rashida Jones, Chef Jose Andres, Dobie Maxwell
• Jimmy Kimmel Live - Tom Arnold, “Trailer Park Boys” Rob Wells, John Paul Tremblay and Mike Smith
• Last Call with Carson Daly - WE HATE YOU.

STEPHAN: Friday night? More like appointment television night. John Mulaney gets to do a set on Jimmy2, De La Soul have risen from the dead over on the Zone, Flashes of Quincy on Ferguson, and most importantly The Trailer Park Boys are on Jimmy. Those boys made a mighty fine comedy show, for several seasons at least. We’d go to the mat for seasons Three through Five (and Two and Six weren’t too shabby either), even if that last season was a bit of a disaster. But now they’re back with what looks like a real movie (not just a lukewarm re-imagining of the show like the first movie) and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

Please enjoy the Not Even a Little Bit Safe For Work trailer:

ERECH: De La will get me to tune into Conan tonight if nothing else. I’m a little ambivalent about Rogen on the whole, though I guess I like his movies enough because I do want to see Funny People pretty bad. De La though tickles my spot in just the right place, and I’m all about checking this out, because they’re one of the best!

And yeah, what Stephan said about Kimmel. Show of the week, I’m hoping. Cross your fingers, Park fans.

And cross your legs, ladies and gents, because it’s time to bow out for the week. Fear not though, fans of late night, the boys of Late Night Thing will be back again next week, deep in the trenches, finding out the dirt on all your favorite post-primetime activities!

Speaking of dirt, it’s time to sling some. LNT is getting sick and tired of having to apologize to all our readers for how much we like Craiggers, compared to how generally bad his guests are. And look, we know Craig can make lemonade out of lemons, and can for the most part make the most boring shill guest segment entertaining, but again, we’re tired of apologizing.

Which is where Stephan & Erech come in. Since CBS and Worldwide Pants don’t wanna hire them to wrangle talent for the show, they’re going to give this one away for free. This is a segment we’d like to call, Top 5 Guests To Boost Fergies Ratings:

#5: Jimmy Pardo. We know Pardo has been on in the past, and that Pardo and Ferguson are friends of sorts, but we want Jimmy on the couch, talking, and not just out there delivering the yucks for a few minutes. As hit and very miss as his podcast Never Funny* can be, Pardo himself seems a great guy we’re ready to champion, and declare he needs to be doing some cooler stuff (not a knock on the podcast or his stand-up, but we’re sure even Jimmy wouldn’t disagree with earning some more money, and teevee would enable that, ergo cooler stuff). No matter how many people see your stand up, these aren’t the days of making a career after you get called over to the couch with Johnny, and personality is what is going to save the day. We think if people see how funny and likeable Jim can be, there’d be a lot more interest in seeing more of him, than just by seeing his 5 minutes of comedy at the close of the show. Jimmy, we’re behind you, and Craiggers needs to get behind you too. Period.

#4: Anthony Bourdain. Tony’s been to Scotland and he came up in New York around the same time as Craig. Oh, and he also went to rehab (probably more on the heroin tip than Craiggers, but still). This couldn’t help but be an epic interview.

#3: Audrey Tautou. Not only is she easy on the eyes, but she’s a good actress (she used to be great, but nobody gets to be great and do two Dan Brown adaptations) and she’s a dirty foreigner. We don’t even know if she actually speaks English. Sounds like Craiggers wheelhouse. How much of the interview will he spend using the frog puppet? We don’t know, but we sure wish we did. *Note: This spot probably could have been Penelope Cruz, but Dave already asked her about the dinghy.

#2: Mitchell & Webb. Remember when BBC America finally came online? Finally, we wouldn’t have to pay $30 for VHS tapes or wait until PBS finally aired (at 3 in the morning) all the British shows we’d heard so much about. Instead of airing those shows, we got endless repeats of Ground Force and home makeover shows. Things still haven’t changed. Peep Show has routinely been killing it. Series after series of solid comedy and we get Ab Fab and the Graham Norton SHow (and stuff like The Mighty Boosh on AS) instead. Awesome. Note: We don’t actually dislike the Boosh, but we defy anybody to go Boosh over Peep Show. Come on.

#1: Paul F Tompkins. This guy is the goods. Aside from any personal bias Stephan & Erech may have (an FOT is a friend of me!), our objectivity here is without waiver. PFT is certainly one of, if not THE, funniest guys going today. Sure, we love your Patton and Bammer’s, and it’s hard to pick favorites, but Paul is firing on all cylinders right now, and we like it. We get lots of Paul from him popping in on various comedy podcasts, and of course on The Best Show on WFMU, to know he’d bring the goods to this show every chance he’d get. Having recently probably/maybe/most likely lost his hosting gig on VH1’s Best Week Ever, which means moving back to LA soon, Paul is ready for some new exposure. And being an amazing go-to guest on Craiggers is a way to do it.

Look, we’re not deluded enough to think any of these guests need the exposure that being on at 1 in the am would bring, this list is mostly just about people we want to see more of. And really, isn’t that what all of this is about? However, Stephan & Erech are sure that all of these guests would help the middle of the road ratings the Scot gets each night a bit, and we’re all about that around these parts too.

LNT - That one is on the house, but the next one is gonna cost ya.

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