Craig’s New Stage
When Craig Ferguson and the Late Late Show move to a new studio space soon, they won’t have to go far.  As an excited Craig himself explained on Tuesday’s show, they’ll be moving from tiny Studio 58 to the stage “next door” at CBS Television City, which is Studio 56.

Here is a look at the space, which is nearly three times larger than the show’s current home:

It seats 260 people, compared to the 110 who squash into Studio 58, so when warm-up comedian Chunky B tells the audience, “Give me thunder!” he’ll be able to get a little more thunder out of them.  For comparison, there are about 275 seats in NBC’s Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, where Jimmy Fallon hosts Late Night, 340 seats at the NBC Studios in Burbank for Jay Leno‘s Tonight Show and 461 seats at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, home of David Letterman‘s Late Show.

With the much larger floor space, the Late Late Show team will have greater flexibility for staging, perhaps giving Craig a place for his monologue that won’t require moving the desk against the wall, or space for musical guests to perform without having to clear nearly everything out of the way every time.  Along with more dressing rooms, there will be more room for Geoff Peterson, more space for producer Michael Naidus, and with the longer distances… dare we dream it… better lighting!

Studio 56 and Studio 58 History
Studio 56 and 58 were added during a renovation of CBS Television City in the early 1990s, using what had been rehearsal halls in the original building design.  The first use we can find for a television show being recorded in Studio 56 was in December of 1993, where part of a special program on World War II was taped although there may be earlier uses.  Its first assignments as a regular home base were in 1994 when two new shows began taping there:  The Dennis Miller Show and Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect.  When Tom Synder became the first host of the Late Late Show in 1995, they used the smaller Studio 58, because Tom did one-on-one interviews with no audience.  The audience was added in 1998 when Craig Kilborn took over as host and changed the show’s format to more closely mirror other late night talk shows.  More recently, Studio 56 has been used for The Tyra Banks Show, The Wanda Sykes Show and Australian talk show Rove L.A. with host Rove McManus.

We have not been given a clear indication of when the move will take place but because of all of the electronic equipment involved, our guess is that it will take a few weeks.  They may schedule the move for when Craig and Company take their usual late-summer break and debut the new look in the fall as the new television season gets under way.  We’ll keep you posted.

Studio 56 Moment
To get an idea of the stage in Studio 56, here is a clip of the Dennis Miller Show where Dennis interviews comic book writer/illustrator Rob Liefeld in 1994. You can get a sense of the larger space and how the audience sounds. Also at the end of the clip, you can see a couple of shots of the audience:

Video courtesy: CrashLanden

Paley Center Update
As we reported last time, Craig will be appearing in person at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles on May 10th to talk about his work and show clips from the upcoming shows in Scotland, which are due to air May 14-18. Paley Center members got first crack at tickets but now they are officially on sale to the general public. Some skellies who have bought tickets say that if you plan to attend, be sure to get the $10-15 seats which are in the room where Craig will speak. The $7 seats are in another room with a closed-circuit feed.

Scottish Insults
The Huffington Post was amused by Craig calling Ted Danson a “giant girl’s blouse” on Tuesday’s show.

Tonight’s Guests

Wednesday on the Late Late Show, Craig’s guest is actor Jeffrey Tambor along with a last-minute addition, Denver=-base band The Lumineers.  Thursday, watch for actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan and actress Jennifer Coolidge.

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