Day: January 8, 2010

Talk about the "gift" that keeps on giving. I've heard that both Jimmy Fallon and Conan O'Brien will make remarks tonight about the swirling rumors of reshuffling of the NBC late-night lineup, but they'll be later in the night. In less than an hour, they'll have to hear from Jay Leno first, who delivered more digs about his "cancellation" rumor, which, of course, is not a cancellation at all. He digs David Letterman, saying he is getting punished without sleeping with any of his staffers, and notes that he has not even unpacked from the last job he got "cancelled" from at NBC. Roll the clip! And for the conspiracy theorists who thought NBC didn't want to post the jab from last night Leno made about NBC, Comcast and "anti-trust," well, the show page does have that up...

Ready for six episodes of high-quality stand-up comedy? Ready or not, Comedy Central is bringing it to you over its television network at 11 p.m. Fridays, starting tonight with the debut of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show. Oliver, best known as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, hosts and will give you what amounts to a new hourlong special of his own over the course of the series. That's cool. Also great: Pretty much everyone he'll be showcasing to you. Tonight's debut features Maria Bamford, Fabrice Fabrice (Nick Kroll), Greg Fitzsimmons, and a triple dose from Eugene Mirman. It's all funny stuff that the comedy nerds in New York City and Los Angeles may have heard before, but it's great to see it get showcased on a national/global scale via Comedy Central. Want to know who else taped sets for the show? Full list of comedians here. Here's a clip of Rob Riggle "helping" John Oliver promote his show. Roll it! Related: John Oliver talked recently with the New York Times about his series. Relevant quote? Sure thing! I did done cut it and pasted it for you: The comedians on your Comedy Central series, they were chosen just because they‚Äôre performers that you liked? "And Comedy Central liked. It wasn‚Äôt just me. Alongside the fact that we‚Äôre trying to book it so there are very different...

Check this out! HBO's online schedule finally has a home for the 10 half-hours, which has turned into 12 weeks according to what HBO tells me, of new sketch comedy on TV thanks to Funny or Die, in their series Funny or Die Presents. It all premieres at midnight Friday on Feb. 19 (or, technically, 12:00:01 a.m. Feb. 20). From my earlier reporting, I already told you that as a result of the FOD's deal with HBO, we'd be treated to televised productions of Brett Gelman's 1,000 Cats absurdity, a mini-miniseries starring Paul Scheer and Rob Riggle, and new sketches from Slovin & Allen. What else can we look forward to? Oooh, suspense! Here are the initial times for the first two episodes, as shown on HBO's schedule (note: all times Eastern)....

With all of the hullaballoo yesterday about what NBC may or may not do with its late-night TV lineup, you also may have been interested to know what the main competition over on CBS had to say about this. David Letterman had made almost nightly jokes about Jay Leno's 10 p.m. show for a while, and last night, Letterman poked fun at a late-night rival. But not Leno. Instead, Letterman's cue-card guy, Tony Mendez, got his own mid-show sketch in which he used a shout-out for a relative's birthday to promote Lopez Tonight on TBS. I'm guessing the ever-changing news on NBC caught Letterman's crew too late to want to say something last night, and considering Friday's show was pre-taped on Monday, you'll have to wait for their jabs until Monday, when perhaps they'll have a better idea of what to mock exactly. Conan O'Brien himself was silent on the matter. Unless you want to read something into his monologue joke about David Hasselhoff leaving America's Got Talent to host his own show. Fallon remained quiet, too, but he taped earlier in the night, and also, his name had not come up in all of the rumors, so why insert himself into it. Meanwhile, Craig Ferguson didn't have to wait, and he did not wait. He opened his show by announcing he couldn't appear since he was now going...