Results tagged “conan”

For the third night in a row, Conan made fun of Los Angeles and how we apparently all freak out over rain. You know, as in the unusual amount of car crashes and the dramatic STORMWATCH newscasts? Yeah, exactly.

"Arrested Development" fans may have reason for rejoicing: several of the key players in the creation of the series are working on a new project for FOX. Yep, Will Arnett (Gob hisseff!), and "Arrested Development" creator/executive producer Mitch Hurwitz and co-executive producer Jim Vallely have script-approval for a single-camera comedy starring Arnett. No name or release date yet - but we can't wait to see Arnett playing a boorish ass from Beverly Hills.

So remember when everyone was taking a dump on Dan Rather in 2004 and CBS sold him down the river just to, seemingly, stay chill with the Bush Administration? Now Dan's specifically suing Les Moonves and CBS News President Andrew Heyward and the network for $70 million. --- Also in news (god we're desperate), CNN is trying to "negotiate" a change of attitude for Lou Dobbs, who is now airing a lot of "birther" hype in addition to his anti-immigrant rants. Evidently they still want him to be a crank but not too psycho a crank.

Research firm NewMediaMetrics is predicting that Jay Leno's 10pm show will take off. Confirmation that there really are that many old people in America. --- "Burn Notice" and "Royal Pains" are on tonight and they'll be on for a while as USA has ordered 16 more episodes of each.--- Anyone catch the Jordan Schlansky segment on Conan last night? He's always a treat - catch it on Conan's Hulu channel.

Yesterday we wrote about the demise of 20th Century Props and the auction of their collection - today we can notify you of another auction occurring in..... 2010! If you are going to ComicCon you should check out the Profiles in History display of "Lost" props that will be auctioned in 2010 and start saving up for that Dharma Initiative bag of potato chips that escaped the clutches of Hurley.

The economy is claiming the viability of Hollywood's 2nd largest prop house, 20th Century Props. The company will be auctioning off its 93,000 items starting on July 28th, including pieces from the movies Cleopatra and Titanic, as well as the TV series "The X-Files" among many others.

Weekend Edition When it comes to late night TV, Letterman is definitely pulling ahead in terms of sheer numbers, about 800k more viewers per night than Conan. But Conan is scoring much higher in the coveted 18-49 demographic, to which NBC is saying, "I meant to do that". We mentioned a few weeks ago that "Futurama" might be coming back, but now rumor has it that if it returns it will be without the original cast of voices, to which, we would say, what's the point then?

Weekend Edition The big deal this weekend is the return of the juvenile and entertaining "Entourage" - "True Blood" returns after a holiday break as well as the positively-reviewed "Hung". HBO owns Sundays, no doubt about it. | If you're following the Tour, get your fill this weekend because Monday is a rest day.

We have some great science fiction hitting us this weekend: tonight features "Virtuality" on FOX (by the creators of "Battlestar Galactica"), and tomorrow we have a new "Doctor Who" at 9pm on BBC America - Cybermen in Victorian England!!

Farrah Fawcett passed away today in Los Angeles at age 62. Although she gained a lot of notoriety from her role on "Charlie's Angels", a hugely popular swimsuit poster, and a disoriented appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman" in 1997, Fawcett was a truly gifted actress (rent Extremeties or The Apostle) - rest in peace Farrah.

We loved HBO's "Rome" and its Marc Anthony, James Purefoy, is playing the lead in NBC's "The Philanthropist" which premieres tonight. The series is getting major hype but we haven't received any screeners from NBC which makes us suspicious that the show isn't all its cracked up to be. Purefoy's involvement is enough to get us interested in the first episode - we know we can always switch over to "Gordon Ramsay's F Word" on BBC America if "The Philanthropist" falls short.

Weekend Edition Our thoughts are with the family of veteran newsman, Walter Cronkite, who is reportedly gravely ill. If you were a kid in the '70s, chances are that Cronkite is still the voice and face of the news to you. | The late night battle between Letterman and Conan is getting tighter. Conan still has a slight lead but this is rapidly closing and the two should achieve parity in the next few weeks but we're heading into summer which usually means viewers will spend a few less hours in front of the TV.

So how about those Lakers? Better yet, what is your opinion on the coverage of the NBA finals? Who provided the best/worst commentary? What do you want to see in future basketball TV coverage? How about what kind of post-championship street riot coverage you'd like to see? Also - how about the season premiere of "True Blood"? If the HBO series stays true to itself, this will be a great season as indicated by last night's episode. We particularly enjoyed the imaginative flashback scenes of the Sam Merlotte character. Did you watch "True Blood"? What did you think?

Thank you for the comments on yesterday's column - looks like Conan has created a winner with the new "Tonight Show".

Conan is having fun exploring Los Angeles so he went canoeing in the LA River. "Let's never do that again," he said after humorously trying it near the 6th Street Bridge.

The TV Junkie is back from two weeks in France where we didn't watch much of any TV but we're still addicted, so here we are. What we missed was the debut of the new "Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien" - tell us how you think Conan is doing in the earlier time slot - Comment Please! Speaking of "The Tonight Show", the exceptional Bill Burr will be appearing tonight as the first stand-up comedian to grace the new version of "The Tonight Show".

You don't even need to be on shrooms to get hypnotied by this. Thanks, Conan! Yesterday the blog Serious Lunch found that Conan's background seems based off the Mario Bros. Mushroom Kingdom. And boy, it looks like they were right.

The TV Junkie is still on vacation but we've put together highlights of the week. The TV Junkie will be back next Monday. The big story this week is Conan O'Brien taking over "The Tonight Show" with a new set and hopefully a new take on the show as Jay Leno's tenure, while stable, seemed a little dated by the time he signed off last week.

Tonight marks the last broadcast of Conan O'Brien on "Late Night..." and what a ride it's been. From being a virtual unknown in front of the camera, O'Brien is now a staple of late night television. O'Brien's resurrection of NBC's "Late Night" after the departure of David Letterman to CBS was not easy and the first few years were very tenuous ones for the wild haired funnyman. With support from Lorne Michaels, O'Brien was given enough time to build an audience, something almost unheard of these days.

Our friend Michael Ian Black and his fellow "The State" colleague, Michael Showalter, will finally again be gracing the airways on a new Comedy Central show this summer called "Michael and Michael Have Issues". The first of seven episodes will premiere in July and we can't wait for them [hint, get us screeners or even have us visit the set].

Controversial contestant Joanna Pacitti has finally been pulled from "American Idol" after it was revealed that she had friendships with multiple executives with "Idol" co-producer 19 Entertainment. For fans of the show who couldn't believe that she had made the cut after performing poorly and fumbling lyrics to several songs during the Hollywood rounds of auditions, it will be assumed that she had moved ahead due to these personal relationships and not merit.

While we still don't believe that Joaquin Phoenix's schtick on Letterman last night isn't anything other than a stunt, it doesn't mean that show's like "Late Night" need to go along with it. Do the producers of his latest movie, we don't even remember what it's called, think that this has helped them? What's your take - is Phoenix faking or tripping?

Last week we went to a sneak preview of Demetri Martin's new show on Comedy Central, "Important Things With Demetri Martin", which premiere's tonight at 10:30pm. The show has been in the works since last Spring so we are happy to see it make it on air.

Did any of you watch the Grammys? Did you enjoy it? OK, so you might actually like pop music but tell us what you specifically like about it. To us, the performances seem somewhat off and the staging heavy-handed. There was a 17% increase in viewership of the Grammys this year over last year with most folks watching during the 8:30-9:30pm hour.

Anyone else watch programming on ABC.com? Get ready for more commercials on that web property as their research has shown that they can pump a lot more commercials at viewers than they thought they could. You gotta love the attitude of one of the members of the National Association of Television Program Executives, a panel that is supportive of the research findings: "The key is what is that very fine line and balance before we push them (the audience) over the edge of being pissed."

Sir Paul McCartney will pay a visit to Comedy Central's "The Colber(t) Repor(t)" tonight - we're wondering if Colber(t) will succeed in performing a song with yet another famous musician. [Also Colber(t)-related is his latest "remix challenge", so all you audio-tweakers should check out the details here.]

Still flying high after attending the SAG Awards last night, hope you saw our Twitterstream of pics yesterday, you can see them again here. We will have many more pics and video clips of the event for you soon.

For those of you that watched the 2-hour premiere of "Lost" last night, are you enjoying that old familiar feeling of not knowing what the hell is going on?

Yesterday's inauguration of President Barack Obama spiked traffic for all the venues that attempted to carry streaming video and audio of the proceedings. The NY Times has more details in this report which was made further enjoyable because they quote an analyst named "Woodcock".

Did anyone have a chance to watch the "We Are One" inaugural gala on HBO yesterday? Some of it interesting, some of it schmaltzy, not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.