Review: Craig Ferguson, “Tickle Fight” on Netflix

Don’t get me wrong. James Corden is very talented with the singing and the goofing around with famous actors and musicians. But I really miss having Craig Ferguson to throw the cue cards and segment producer notes away in the Late Late night on a regular basis.

If you have Sirius XM, you can listen to Ferguson chat it up with guests still.

But if you want to see him, you need to hope his stand-up tour hits a town near you, or it has been long enough for him to release a new comedy special. Here comes Tickle Fight on Netflix.

Ferguson says early on: “I used to start every show with ‘It’s a great day for America.’ When I was touring around America, I’d say, ‘It’s a great day for America!’ And that’s what I’d say. And then…right about November…(audience laughs, then applauds)…alright, alright…” So yeah, the election. America has divided voters and comedy audiences alike. “It’s very difficult to make everybody happy,” Ferguson notes. Nothing like a tickle fight to break up a civil war, right?

As I wrote for Decider:

Instead, when Ferguson addresses the divisiveness in America in 2017, he directs it toward his beard instead of toward the current occupant of the White House. Ferguson, after all, did open his Late Late Show monologues each night with “It’s a great day for America!” He reminisces that audiences never got upset at anything he talked about on TV, only calling and emailing with nasty feedback whenever he attempted to grow facial hair. Which he pokes fun of, while also describing his body hair as full of different mustache styles. Self-deprecation is still allowable, while Ferguson wonders if any other targets haven’t yet become off-limits now.

Read my full review on Decider of Craig Ferguson’s new Netflix special.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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One thought on “Review: Craig Ferguson, “Tickle Fight” on Netflix

  1. Craig Ferguson, making fun of Canada in his Netflix special Tickle fight, showed all his years of drinking must have affected his brain cells. I live in Canada and have been on the vegan path when he was probably still drunk, eating cheeseburgers on the floor with someone like David Hasselhoff.

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