LATE SHOW NEWS #177 November 4, 1997 by Aaron Barnhart NOTE: This issue is rated L for language. *** Former Letterman monologue writer Bill Scheft, whom some may remember from his weekly segment with Bill Maher during the first season of "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central, dished spicy to The New York Observer this week, in which he deconstructs the watershed night in Jay Leno's career. "There's nobody more interesting than Dave Letterman just talking, but that's just not enough these days," complains Scheft. "He really knows the medium, he can really reach people. But you know, it's all just nonsense now, and everybody's fighting for the same guest. Now the ball is clearly in the celebrities' court because they have all these shows to choose from. It's not, Did I piss them off? It's, What they didn't do for me. "Like when Hugh Grant got busted. One of the talent coordinators came to me and said, 'Is Dave going to do any jokes?' and we said, 'We're going to do, like, *four*.' And he said, 'He won't come on.' So Bob ["Morty" Morton] and Dave go nuts and decide that Hugh Grant is *not* going to dictate what we do on the show. Meanwhile, Hugh Grant's people go to Leno and say, 'If you do any jokes about him, he won't go on,' and so *he* said, 'Fine, we won't do any jokes,' and for two weeks he acted like the story didn't exist.' ... "Leno blinked, and he got a huge number that night. Can you imagine if Orson Welles had said to Johnny, 'I'm not going to come on the show if you keep doing the fat jokes?' Johnny would have said, 'Fuck you.'" Well, hold it right there, stranger. In the first place, as LATE SHOW NEWS reported at the time, Hugh Grant was booked on the show *before* he was booked by the cops. ("Hugh Grant's scheduled appearance on the 'Tonight Show' seemed a sure cancellation following his arrest two weeks ago on charges of lewd behavior with a West Hollywood hooker. But Jay Leno and his staff rescued their booking ... and what's more, landed a world exclusive when Grant decided he would address Leno's audience before his own British public" -- LSN #70, July 11, 1995). To answer Scheft's second charge -- that Leno laid off the Hugh Grant material -- Leno on Monday pulled out his trusty monologue archive and read to me some of the jokes he told on the show in the days following Grant's arrest: "Welcome to Hollywood, or as Hugh Grant calls it, Counseltown ... Did you see the mug shot of the woman, Divine Brown? I thought Flip Wilson was making a comeback ... You thought there were a lot of stains in *O.J.'s* car -- oh my god!" So much for that. Now it may be, although I'd never get this confirmed in a million years, that Scheft is half right: that Dave's people did get a call from Grant's people, offering to arrange an even earlier panel with their man than they'd given to Leno, *if* Dave would agree not to tell Hugh Grant jokes. Then when Dave said no, Grant's people simply reverted to Plan A. Actually, I probably could confirm something like that if I paid a few sources, but then I'd have to kill myself. *** Yours truly was on a panel of "distinguished journalists" -- well, at least everyone else there was distinguished -- at a Radio and TV News Directors' Association conference at the University of Missouri this weekend, where we discussed "Why Are the Media So Reviled And What Can We Do About It?" Believe it or not, they put this thing on the Internet in the form of a RealAudio broadcast: http://www.missouri.edu/~jourmlm/rtndalive.ram It's an hour and a half panel split into five RealAudio parts. The opening 40 minutes or so are the keynoter by RTNDA president Barbara Cochran. If you want to dive in at the interesting part, where J-school profs, TV news types and the print guy mix it up, cue your player to about the 55-minute mark. I don't think you'll have any trouble identifying the non-radio voice that's mine. *** Speaking of distinguished journalists, Marv Albert will be visiting the Ed Sullivan Theater Nov. 12, his third stop in the Albert Contrition Tour of '97 (before Dave, Marv panels with Barbara Walters and Larry King). Something tells me he won't be bringing along a reel of video clips ... By the way, Gabe Abelson is the name of the writer who replaced Scheft at the top of the monologue totem ... Hm, so maybe I called this one wrong. Sinbad is going great guns as the new host of "Vibe," with ratings way up from the final week of Chris Spencer's run (and by the way, for those of you who sent frantic e-mails, Spencer was the guy to whom I was referring last week as getting his walking papers). Furthermore, producers at "Vibe" are now denying that Sinbad ever was considered as a "temporary host," as was earlier reported. Sinbad himself told a trade journal he's in for the long haul. Perhaps that's why ex-NBA player John Salley, whose name had surfaced as a potential temporary host, just signed on with NBC to fill the Julius Erving slot on the network's NBA pre-game and halftime reports ... Those who watched the "Chris Rock Show" Friday night say that guest Chris Spencer was nothing if not gracious toward Quincy Jones for giving him the "Vibe" hosting job, as well he should be ... "Saturday Night Live" is not only turning off all those critics it fought to win back last season, now it's pissing off the Native Americans. "The insensitive, racist 'humor' pertaining to the collection and marketing of the scalps of indigenous peoples was beyond any limit that this hateful show pushed before," said an e-mail that was circulated following the Oct. 18 broadcast along with a call for a mass fax campaign plus show boycott ... Our pal Guardian was listening to Howard Stern's interview with Amy Heckerling, who'll be directing the "Roxbury Guys" movie about those two dancing idiots on "SNL." Stern asked, and Heckerling confirmed, that she's dating one of them, and it's probably not Will Farrell ... Dave Thomas has opened a production company with offices in Santa Monica in Toronto that will shepherd, among other projects, a sequel to "Strange Brew" ... Harrison Wyman writes, "In the course of pointless but shorter anchor chat during the 4 am 'World News Now' replay, the name of the new exec producer came up. Bret Marcus was the news director at Washington's WRC-TV (Channel 4) in the early-mid 80's." *** Reader mail: Apparently the shine is off of attending a "Late Show" taping. The waiting list used to be six months but is now something closer to six weeks. Here's what a LSN reader wrote about her recent, and as you will see, unhappy taping experience: "Big fan. Went fully aware that it was to be a pre-taped Halloween Show. This is how it went: "1. Somebody brought candy for the entire audience, but we had to eat it in line before entering the studio. (No mention of it in David's monologue -- and no, I didn't bring the candy!) "2. Eddie Brill, the warm up dude, told the same jokes to us that he did on a 'Late Show' comedian appearance Sept. 1, 1997. "3. Saw a rerun of David working at Taco Bell. "4. David came out prior to the show but didn't ask if anyone had any questions. No canned ham give-away, no eye-balling the crowd for Halloween attire. The only thing he said to us was: Because it's Halloween, hang on to your ticket stubs. If there is a lull in the show at anytime, a drawing would be held for one lucky audience member to come up and punch him as hard as they could in the stomach. ... "5. Little to no effort was put into the pre-show band warmup and/or music during the commercial breaks by the CBS Orchestra. Same monotonous, repetitious tune through the whole show. ... "I think the only thing that saved their ass was Stupid Human Tricks. I speak from experience. I've been there on *numerous* occations, and the show has never been that ungrateful to the audience members. What a shame." [THIS NIGHT IN HISTORY will return next week.] THE LINEUPS with Sue Trowbridge LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, CBS Tu 11/4 Danny Aiello, Helena Bonham Carter, Mandy Patinkin and his mom We 11/5 The Duchess of York, Leann Rimes Th 11/6 Harry Connick Jr., Pamela Lee Fr 11/7 Robert Kennedy Jr., Kelly McGillis, B.B. King and Tracy Chapman Mo 11/10 Wesley Snipes, Martina Hingis, Naomi Judd Tu 11/11 Claire Danes, Michelle Kwan, Lorrie Morgan We 11/12 Marv Albert, football kid Daniel Scribner, John Fogerty Th 11/13 Bill Murray, Alison Eastwood, Matchbox 20 Fr 11/14 Don Rickles, Heather Graham, the Shenyang Acrobats THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO, NBC Tu 11/4 Fran Drescher, Singing Dogs, Dylan Christopher We 11/5 Michael Bolton Th 11/6 Courteney Cox, Emeril Lagasse, Tom Jones Fr 11/7 Richard Gere, Shania Twain Mo 11/10 Drew Carey, bug splat expert Mark Hostetler, Bai Ling Tu 11/11 Vanessa Williams We 11/12 Dustin Hoffman, Tim Russert Th 11/13 Cindy Crawford, Denis Leary, Blue Man Group LATE LATE SHOW WITH TOM SNYDER, CBS Tu 11/4 George Hamilton We 11/5 Jane Seymour, Sally Quinn Th 11/6 Dick Butkus Fr 11/7 Robert Blake Mo 11/10 Cokie Roberts, Anne Rice Tu 11/11 William Diehl We 11/12 Patrick Duffy, Art Linkletter LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN, NBC Tu 11/4 Mia Kirshner, Lewis Black We 11/5 Cybill Shepard, Helena Bonham Carter, Royal Crown Revue Th 11/6 George Stephanopulos, French Stewart Fr 11/7 Karl Malden, Phish Mo 11/10 Jay Mohr, Charles Dutton, Dom Irrera (R 8/20/97) Tu 11/11 Francis Ford Coppola, Green Day We 11/12 Matt Lauer, Lisa Rinna, James Ellroy Th 11/13 Peter Gallagher Fr 11/14 Bill Murray, Patti Smith LATER, NBC Tu 11/4 Cindy Crawford with Robert Pastorelli We 11/5 Cindy Crawford with Jeff Gordon Th 11/6 Cindy Crawford with John Leguizamo Mo 11/10 Cindy Crawford with Lisa Rinna Tu 11/11 Cindy Crawford with Kobe Bryant We 11/12 Cindy Crawford with Neil Patrick Harris & Rent Th 11/13 Cindy Crawford with Howie Mandel CHARLIE ROSE, PBS Tu 11/4 Danny Aiello, John Weitz We 11/5 Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Russert, Esther Dyson Th 11/6 Joe Henderson, Peter Matheisen Fr 11/7 Francis Ford Coppola, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & John Cronin Mo 11/10-We 11/12 TBA Th 11/13 Dominick Dunne Fr 11/14 Placido Domingo, Jackson Browne, Bill Murray POLITICALLY INCORRECT WITH BILL MAHER, ABC From Washington, D.C.: Tu 11/4 Rep. Sonny Bono, Ted Nugent, William Kristol, Donna Shalala We 11/5 Al Franken, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Alan Keyes Th 11/6 Oliver North, Richard Belzer, Ann Lewis, Kathleen Turner Fr 11/7 Lynne Cheney, Jon Stewart, Barney Frank VIBE TV, syndicated Tu 11/4 John Travolta, Carmen Electra, Somethin' for the People We 11/5 Michael Bolton; the cast of "Diff'rent Strokes" KEENEN IVORY WAYANS, Syndicated Tu 11/4 Tia and Tamera Mowry, Karen McDougal, Jake Busey, Rick James We 11/5 Cracker, Kennedy, Coolio (actually, it's Robert Pastorelli as the Cracker, but I thought I'd work the one-name theme ...) Th 11/6 Casper Van Dien, Faizon Love, Traci Bingham Fr 11/7 TBA Mo 11/10 Donna D'Errico, Vincent Young HOWARD STERN, E! Tu 11/4 David Duchovny, Part 1, Alan Thicke Part 1 (R) We 11/5 David Duchovny, Part 2, Alan Thicke Part 2 (R) Th 11/6 Jenny McCarthy Part 1, Tiny Tim Part 1 (R) Fr 11/7 Jenny McCarthy Part 2, Tiny Tim Part 2 (R) Sa 11/8 Sean Young Pts. 1 and 2 (R) DIE HARALD SCHMIDT SHOW, SAT.1 Di 4/11 Julia Valet, Helmut Albrecht, Joachim Fuchsberger Mi 5/11 Les Founambules, Thomas D., Nina Ruge Do 6/11 Nina Hagen, Danja Muesch + Maike Friedrichsen Fr 7/11 Nena, consul Hans Hermann Weyer SPACE GHOST COAST TO COAST, Cartoon Network Fr 11/7 Sam Butera, Millionaire (Combustible Edison) Fr 11/14 Rob Zombie and Raven Symone Also check out for a video preview of the next episode. Also on late nights: NIGHTLINE and WORLD NEWS NOW, ABC CHARLES GRODIN, CNBC MAD TV, Fox SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, NBC (this season) and Comedy Central (classics) THE RUPAUL SHOW, VH1 LOVELINE and ODDVILLE MTV, MTV UP TO THE MINUTE, CBS NIGHTSIDE, NBC Entire contents Copyright 1997 by Aaron Barnhart. All rights reserved. This month's e-mail circulation: 11,019 subscribers in 53 countries. Guest lineups are updated throughout the week by Sue Trowbridge at LATE SHOW NEWS is made possible with the generous assistance of ECHO, New York City's premiere online service. Send news for and comments about this newsletter to aaron@tvbarn.com