last call with carson daly

I was going to write a long, elaborate intro about how excited I am that it's a new year, but I decided to make this image instead. Look out, Alec and Tina! There's a weeping angel behind you! And check out how Heidi is super excited to be with the not-so-excited guys from Flight of the Conchords. And it looks like David Anders enjoys speaking in big speech bubbles. No, I'm not still buzzed from New Year's Eve, I just have a little too much fun in Photoshop. However, I'm sure some of you are still somehow hungover from celebrating days and days ago, so let's jump right in...

Here's what's happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• WNBC (and others) named the ballplayers involved in the steroid scandal before the Mitchell Report was even released. But it was the wrong list. Whoops.
• A judge has thrown out that lawsuit against the creators of Heroes.
• But now Conan O'Brien is now getting sued.
• Goodbye Grey's, hello Lost.
• Anderson Cooper sits in for Regis and does a funny standup routine.
• Big shock: Marie Osmond is going to have her own talk show next year.
• Gary Coleman is trying to sell his Saturn.
• Remember that story about writers disrupting a taping of Last Call with Carson Daly? Here's the audio (supposedly - it keeps crashing my browser).

Really, this was inevitable.

Last night, Daly was taping an interview with football star Jerry Rice when an audience member stood up and yelled at Daly, saying he was doing a lousy interview and needed a writer to write the questions for him. Guards escorted the heckler out and they restarted the interview, only to be interrupted once again by another audience member who said "I feel so bad for the striking writers. Can I please leave?" This guy and two others were hauled out too.

A lot of people are angry at Carson Daly for starting his late night show up again during the current writers strike. Letterman, Leno, O'Brien, Ferguson, and Kimmel haven't returned yet, but Daly decided to come back. I haven't watched the show since he returned earlier this week (really, 1:35am is too late for me, especially if I'm just going to see the fourth lead from some new movie or a supermodel), but Daly did explain why he decided to cross the picket line.

Today, Monday September 10, 2007, TV Squad is remembering blogger Adam Finley who passed away tragically late last week. All front page posts will be staff picks of Adam's writing through the years.

NBC has extended Carson Daly's contract for two more years, which means I'll have two more years to not watch Last Call with Carson Daly.

It's not that I dislike Carson Daly. I've caught his show a few times and he's actually quite likable. The problem is that it's on really late at night and I have to get to bed early so I can wake up at sunrise and feed the chickens. This requires getting up early because I don't actually own any chickens and have to trespass onto random farms. It is my belief that all chickens are grossly underfed, but that's beyond the point.

Rick Ludwin, NBC's head of late-night programming, says that Jimmy Fallon is on the short list to replace Conan O'Brien when O'Brien replaces Jay Leno in 2009.

This probably isn't great news for Carson Daly, who has made it known he really, really wants the 12:30am gig. But it seems that Ludwin really likes Daly and thinks (as do Tina Fey and others) that Fallon and O'Brien would make for a great late night lineup at the network. Fallon told Howard Stern several months ago that he might get that gig after signing a development deal with NBC.

The first ingredient in a successful TCA party is to have it near the hotel where the tour is taking place. After sitting in panels and conducting interviews all day long, a shuttle bus ride to a faraway restaurant isn't really enticing.

So kudos to NBC for making a smart move by having its all-star gala on the roof of the Beverly Hilton's parking lot. It's an elevator ride away and the area is wide open. The party music isn't so loud that it's going to drown out any interviews. Nice.

Swag alert: guests received mini handheld fans upon arriving, but they weren't really needed because there was a nice evening breeze in the air.

I don't usually watch Jay Leno's show, unless he has a particularly interesting guest on, and I'll watch "Headlines" every Monday night (it really says something about your show when the funniest, most entertaining thing about it is something like "Headlines"), but he made a joke the other night that made Deadline Hollywood columnist Nikki Finke think that he might be hinting at having another show on another network when he leaves NBC.