Did absence make our hearts grow fonder of late-night TV's hosts, missing in action for the last two months? I suppose it's possible, though I doubt anyone's preferences were changed by what they saw Wednesday night, when all of the network hosts finally returned to work, all but David Letterman and Craig Ferguson without writers. (If anything grew, it was facial hair, at least on Dave and Conan.)If you're the sort who for whatever reason prefers affable Jay Leno over cranky Dave, or chooses to stay up late for the delectable derangement that is Conan O’Brien, nothing about Wednesday’s opening night would likely have shaken you from your long-ingrained after-hours habits. The strike beards sported by Dave and Conan in solidarity with the still-striking writers (“and to prove that I still have some testosterone,” joked Conan) were the most noticeable changes on the late-night landscape.Here’s my report card on late-night’s opening night, keeping in mind ...
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Lost director-producer Stephen Williams has inked a new two-year deal with ABC Studios, where he will continue to direct multiple episodes of the drama as well as get promoted to co-executive producer.... Not about to be one-upped by Valerie Bertinelli, Letterman sidekick Paul Shaffer is penning a memoir filled with "anecdotes that have been accumulating in my mind for the past three-plus decades," the musician tells the AP. Expect the tome, due out in '09, to set a record for occurrences of the word "nutty".... Shooter last week repeated as the DVD sales- and rental-charts topper. Blood Diamond was the No. 1 HD DVD seller.
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Most people know Paul Shaffer as the bespectacled bandleader on Late Show with David Letterman. What they may not know is that Letterman's sounding board is also the music director for the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. In 1986, Shaffer's HoF gig got him noticed by HBO, and he was brought on board as music director for an episode of the Cinemax series Sessions. This, however, would be no ordinary concert. Piano legends Fats Domino, Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis would be sharing the stage at New Orleans' vaunted Storyville Ni
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When you reach 5,000 episodes, you deserve a celebration, so Jeopardy!, that game show of a certain age, will do it up big with two weeks of Celebrity Jep. TV Guide has learned that among the 30 names hitting the buzzers for charity for November-sweeps broadcasts are hopefully smart-and-nimble Desperate Housewives guys James Denton and Doug Savant, Law & Order franchisees Sam Waterston, Christopher Meloni and Kathryn Erbe (all competing against each other), Anderson Cooper, Rachael Ray, Paul Shaffer, Martin Short and Regis Philbin, who says he wants to make up for the "broken buzzer" he had during his last time on the show.Additional reporting by Ileane Rudolph
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