Fall Tour Grows
Craig Ferguson is going all out with his New Deal Tour this fall, booking new dates every week. In recent days, he has added stops in New Brunswick, New Jersey and four shows in Florida: Miami Beach, Immokalee, Sarasota and Orlando. By our count, there are 28 shows on the schedule from September through December, and more could be added. For the most complete and up-to-date listings of Craig’s shows anywhere online, please visit our Live Comedy Tour page. Our thanks to the RSA’s @bgrhubarb and @whyterose713 for scouring the internet and sending us new tips! If you hear of a show coming to your region and don’t see it on our page, please let us know!

Josh’s Show on a Roll
Josh Robert Thompson‘s self-titled variety show continues to get great support. When Josh put out an appeal on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo.com, his $25,000 goal to complete post-production on the show was met in just three days. With 27 days left on the the challenge, he has added a stretch goal of $60,000, to do even higher quality production and to create a new website to showcase the show and new exclusive content. We’ll keep you up to date as the drive continues.

Craig’s School Days
The RSA’s @CozyHobo was looking around the internet recently and found a photo of Craig from his primary school days. Look for a familiar face in the 3rd row, 4th from the right.

Exclusive Preview
Craig Ferguson‘s new stand up comedy special Just Being Honest will debut on September 10th at 10pm ET/PT on the EPIX premium cable channel. It will be available to everyone who has EPIX on their cable or satellite system because it’s part of a free preview weekend September 10-13. EPIX subscribers will be able to see it on air, online, on demand and via the EPIX app. Non-subscribers will be able to watch the special at EPIX.com.

Thanks to the folks at EPIX, here is an exclusive message from Craig talking about the special:

Video courtesy: EPIX

New Tour Dates Added
Craig Ferguson‘s New Deal Tour is rapidly adding new stops for the fall. The latest to be confirmed by the venues are October 18 in Frederick, Maryland; October 19 in Wilmington, Delaware; October 20 in Glenside, Pennsylvania (just north of Philadelphia), November 3 in Regina, Saskatchewan; November 4 in Enoch, Alberta (just west of Edmonton); November 13 in Onamia, Minnesota (about 90 miles north of Minneapolis); and December 13 in Bellingham, WA. The addition of those shows puts Craig on pace to break his record for stand up shows in a single year, set back in 2010. We anticipate more stops being added soon, so be sure to keep an eye on our Live Comedy Tour page, where we have all of the latest venues, dates, times and ticket links.

Josh Crowdfunds Show
Josh Robert Thompson has given a tremendous amount of his time, energy and money to create a pilot episode of his self-titled variety show. It’s been completely shot and edited, but needs post-production to become a finished product, complete with titles, music, color, sound design and visual effects. To get it done, he has launched a campaign on the popular crowdfunding site IndieGogo.com, where he hopes to raise the remaining budget in 30 days to complete the show, and be able to present the finished product to networks to consider. Like most crowdfunding campaigns, every donor gets a little something for helping out… the bigger the donation, the bigger the perks. In just the first few hours, the campaign had already raised more than 60 percent of its goal, and has now topped 80 percent. We’ll keep you updated on the campaign’s progress. Meanwhile, the website Dorkly.com named Josh’s take on George Lucas as one of the best cosplays at this year’s San Diego ComicCon.

Bloom County Returns
And now for something that has nothing to do with late-night television, but for humor fans, it’s kind of a big deal: Artist and author Berke Breathed is bringing back his beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip Bloom County, after a 25 year hiatus. As CNN.com explains, rather than publishing it in newspapers, this time Breathed will be posting new strips on his Facebook page.

Corden Enjoying LA
The local CBS television station in Los Angeles recently sat down with Late Late Show host James Corden to see how he’s doing with 50 shows under his belt.

Video courtesy: CBS Los Angeles

Keeping Up With Craig
Craig Ferguson is taking some time off between touring and taping episodes of Celebrity Name Game. He’s been tweeting his way across Europe, including stops in Glasgow and Paris. He also drew attention to the plight of Syrian refugees, displaced by years of war:

HEY! LOOK @ THIS! 4m Syrians now @refugees.Time to help if you can. Join UNHCR – be a Lifeline http://bit.ly/1KYjoFg

The link connects to the United Nations refugee agency, which has noted that the number of refugees from Syria has surpassed four million.

Josh Nails It At Comic-Con
Josh Robert Thompson drew some great attention at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego, dressed in full makeup as George Lucas. He tried it out the gag at a Star Wars convention earlier this year and brought it back in San Diego, complete with a picket sign reading “Greedo shot first.” The whole thing was covered by Business Insider and Yahoo, and drew an appreciative tweet from Mythbuster Tori Belleci. He also did a great interview recently on The Edge podcast.

Tour Update
Craig will be touring in September and October, with dates scheduled in the U.S. and Canada. So far on the list are six shows at the Comedy Works in Denver, and tour stops in Ridgefield, CT; Staten Island, NY; Westhampton Beach, NY; and in Toronto. One other tentative date popped up for a show in October in Niagara Falls, NY. We keep an eye on several ticket outlets including Ticketmaster to see when tickets will go on sale, and it listed a sale date of July 10. But the Ticketmaster listing disappeared a few days later. We’re not certain if there was a scheduling conflict or a technical reason it has been taken down, but as soon as we hear more about that show or others, we’ll update it on our Live Comedy Tour page.

UPDATE: The Niagara show has been restored, with tickets going on sale July 17. The on-sale date for Staten Island has been pushed back to July 22, and a show has been added in Troy, NY on September 27. See all the details and links on our Live Comedy Tour page.

Pull My Finger
In a preview of the upcoming season of Celebrity Name Game, we see Craig recalling a touching moment he shared with one of the Desperate Housewives.

Video courtesy: Celebrity Name Game

Comic Craig
Loyal and talented robot skeleton @iknowjojo has been watching Craig Ferguson‘s tweets this week, as our fearless leader takes some time off in Scotland. She’s been reading people’s replies to him as well, like these:

Twitter user @allybrough tweeted to Craig:

@CraigyFerg welcome back to Scotland mate! Just seen you cruise about the glasgae streets with some blonde babe#NiceHat

To which Craig naturally replied:

That’s no babe, that’s my wife!
#prehistoricjokeformula
#glasgowrocks
#thanksaboutthehat

So she came up with a comic collage to sum it all up in her daily sketch journal:

Nice work as always, Jo!

Gaiman Reaches For Starz
Neil Gaiman‘s book American Gods will be made into a television series on the Starz network, reports Mashable. The network is going all-out with the creative team, naming the endlessly imaginative Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies) and fantasy genre stalwart Michael Green (Everwood, Smallville, Heroes,The River) as showrunners. We can’t wait to see what they can do.

Carson On Top
In a recent poll by Quinnipiac University published in the Los Angeles Times, people were asked to name their favorite late-night television host of all time. It’s no surprise the Johnny Carson still tops the list. Among current hosts, Jimmy Fallon came in first.

Let’s Dance
As we go through the summer and get ready for a new season of Celebrity Name Game, the show’s producers are releasing some fun “sneak peak” previews, including this one featuring Craig dancing:

Video courtesy: Celebrity Name Game

Rocky Mountain Sly
The Comedy Works in Denver kept it secret for a few days, listing a “mystery comedian” as a guest from September 17-20. But the secret didn’t take long to get out. Craig Ferguson will be appearing on stage for six shows at the club. As has become his pattern, after completing a tour cycle (usually two years), Craig records a DVD of what has become a polished, tightly-packed show and starts over from scratch. He likes to use smaller venues like the Comedy Works to test out new material for the next tour, gauging audience reactions and experimenting with timing. Then he starts making his way around the country in medium-sized venues, improving his set. And by the time the tour really gets rolling, he has an all-new show ready to take on the road. It can change a little bit from town to town, but he soon finds what works. If you’d like to see some of the nuts and bolts of how a show comes together, don’t miss the chance to see Craig in Denver. Tickets are selling quickly (the 7:30pm Saturday show is already sold out), so book early to avoid disappointment!

Comedy Special
With Craig’s newest stand up comedy special Just Being Honest coming out on the EPIX premium cable channel in September, the network is already releasing some promos of the show. On their website, EPIX includes a couple of behind-the-scenes interviews with Craig, talking about how he creates his shows, a story about his call from Mick Jaggar, and about his fans. Be sure to watch the fan clip, because it includes some familiar faces from the Robot Skeleton Army!

Doctor, Doctor Give Me The News
When Chris Hardwick does his @Nerdist podcast live from this year’s San Diego ComicCon, one of his guests will be none other than the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi. You don’t even need to go back in time to get tickets. Yet. Oh by the way, Chris is also hosting the Doctor Who panel at ComicCon. And he’s hosting the Con Man panel. And he’s distributing a movie. Go Chris!

‘Name Game’ Montage
Loyal robot skeleton @ellenchanglx has assembled a video showing some highlights of Craig’s wild, frolicking self from the first season of Celebrity Name Game. Just try to watch this without smiling. We double-dog dare you:

Video courtesy: Chang Ellen

Backstage at ‘Name Game’
Craig Ferguson is on a short break following the conclusion of the Hot and Grumpy Tour: Walking the Earth, but will be back in the studio soon to record new episodes of Celebrity Name Game. They will be updating the set in the second season and speeding up the pace of the show. Craig’s tour account recently tweeted a photo of our fearless leader backstage, and the producers have been tweeting out photos from behind the scenes of the most recent tapings:

 

In the Cabbage Patch
Craig recently tweeted a photo with one of his dogs, the notoriously farty French bulldog named Cabbage. He looks comfortable, and is catching up on some reading with the first of three James Bond novels written by Sebastian Faulks. Craig has three dogs, including Gordon, the German shepherd who marches around the house at night and annexes the neighbors’ yards, and Maryann, the Jack Russell terrier.

‘Just Being Honest’ Coming to EPIX September 10

As we reported on Friday, Craig’s new stand up comedy special Just Being Honest will debut on September 10th at 10pm ET/PT on the EPIX premium cable channel. The story was first reported on the website Deadline.com. It will be available to everyone who has EPIX on their cable or satellite system because it’s part of a free preview weekend September 10-13. EPIX subscribers will be able to see it on air, online, on demand and via the EPIX app. Non-subscribers will be able to watch the special at EPIX.com.

The special was filmed on March 7th at Town Hall in New York City and covers “the pros and cons of catch phrases, shoes that look like feet, and the Scottish version of hacky sack, as well as religion, aging, and sex, drugs and rock and roll.” A DVD release date has not yet been announced, but is expected later this year. We’ll keep you up to date and until then, you can see a preview.

Carter to CNN
Bill Carter, longtime television writer for the New York Times is now working for CNN as a contributor, according to The Huffington Post. He has written extensively about late-night television, including the battle over the Tonight Show hosting gig, and has said many nice things about Craig over the years.

Josh Preview
Josh Robert Thompson has been hard at work creating his new variety show and tweeted out this preview:

Video courtesy: YouTube

New Stand Up Special Coming to EPIX September 10

Craig Ferguson‘s new stand up comedy special Just Being Honest will debut on September 10th at 10pm ET/PT on the EPIX premium cable channel, reports Deadline.com. It will be available to everyone who has EPIX on their cable or satellite system because it’s part of a free preview weekend September 10-13. EPIX subscribers will be able to see it on air, online, on demand and via the EPIX app. Non-subscribers will be able to watch the special at EPIX.com.

A DVD release date has not yet been announced, but is expected later this year. We’ll keep an eye out for you. The special was filmed on March 7th at Town Hall in New York City and covers “the pros and cons of catch phrases, shoes that look like feet, and the Scottish version of hacky sack, as well as religion, aging, and sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

We’ll have more Craig news in our next weekly post on Wednesday.