Craig Ferguson may not be as hilarious as Conan, or as sarcastic as Dave, or as, er, people-pleasing as Jay. So what makes his show so good? Apart from the stream-of-consciousness monologues (which you may either love or hate), it's the fact that when Craig talks to guests, he really talks to them. Not just about their latest projects or where they went on vacation, but about genuinely interesting, sometimes personally revealing topics that are actually worth hearing about.
Case in point: Kristin Davis stopped by as part of the Sex and the City cast's "We own the media!" talk-show tour. After dispensing with chat about how all the ladies love the new movie, Ferguson brought up the fact that the two of them have something in common: They're both long-recovering alcoholics. (He jokes about it often on the show; while she recently discussed the issue in Health magazine.)
Before you knew it, the talk quickly turned to the kind of beverages they each used to enjoy, and that's where the fun really began. Davis quite enthusiastically outed herself as having been a youthful fan of champagne, scotch, bourbon, rum and Coke, mint julep and tequila (which she called "messy," and he described as being like drugs and alcohol in the same drink).
Just to make sure no one got the wrong idea, Davis quickly added: "We should just say that we are talking about this alcohol now with great relish, because we are alcoholics. Don't anyone get confused -- Craig and I are not going to go have a drink." Ferguson then pointed out that there's actually a name for this kind of reminiscing, "euphoric recall."
As parting advice to people who might model themselves after misbehaving celebrities, Davis ended by pointing out that "It's not glamorous to fall out of your car."
Kudos to Davis for setting an example about long-term (and, one hopes, permanent) recovery, and to both her and Ferguson for maintaining a sense of humor about a tricky subject.
Here's the video; the interesting part starts about halfway through.
Photo: HBO