“Late Late Show” host Craig Ferguson is rarely at a loss for words. Today was no exception. Yucking it up with TV writers at the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, California, the outspoken Scotsman sounded off on…
HIS UPCOMING AUTOBIOGRAPHY (out in September): “I am looking forward to reading it. It is a little bit different from the James Wright thing in the sense that lot of it I couldn’t remember, so I just made it up.”
FULFILLING CHILDHOOD DREAMS: “At 12 or 13 I thought I would be an astronaut. At 17 I thought I would be dead by the time I reached this age (47). I always kind of half expected I would do something in show business because it is tolerant of drunkenness and you can meet girls.”
HIS SHARK PUPPET: “I am thinking about getting rid of the puppets altogether. I am very undemocratic on the show. I am getting a bit bored with puppets.”
TWEETING: “I don’t use Twitter. I have an hour to fill every night. What else am I going to say? Going to say things about things?'”
DOING A 10 PM SHOW: “I don’t think people are ready for cussing puppets at 10:00. But I don’t program television. I am just the pretty one that reads the prompter.”
THE IMPORTANCE OF RATINGS: “It seems to me that when Jay Leno was s—canned from NBC he was the leader in all numbers. Then they fired him. I don’t want to get fired. So perhaps keeping your head down is what you should do with the numbers…”
FLYING THE FRIENDLY SKIES: “I got my pilots license on Friday of last week. I love aviation because it is the complete opposite of show business. In show business, you bullshit, you bullshit and that’s how you get ahead. In aviation, you bullshit, you f–king die!”
HIS FUTURE AMBITIONS: “I don’t want to be poor. I don’t want to be rich to the extent that all I care about is keeping my job. I don’t care enough about keeping my job now and that’s good. That makes me effective at what I do. I don’t I suppose my ambitions are that to spend less than I earn. I don’t want to be frightened of getting fired. So to that end, I suppose my ambitions are that I spend less than I earn. Do I want to make a lot of money? F–k yeah! But look, I have met a lot of rich people who are douchebags. I don’t want to be that.”
– By Sean Daly