Dancing Skelaton Puppet

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: the Scotsman and crew in Paris

Amongst American late night talk shows, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson stands out for its uniqueness. Ferguson literally rips up guest's "talking point" cards before interviews to engage in actual conversations. He does a largely improvised monologue. He has a gay robot skeleton sidekick named Geoff Peterson. He has a dancing horse named Secretariat, who admittedly is just two guys in a horse costume.

And now, he's branching out again as he has taken his show to Paris for a week.

The episodes were taped a while ago, but are just being aired this week. I was intrigued to see how the show was going to look for these Paris episodes, and Monday gave us our first glimpse. The show's opening wasn't atypical. Craig Ferguson lip synced and danced to a French song with the help of some of his usual compatriots and puppets. Then, he threw his red, white, and blue Eiffel Tower up in the air, and when it fell to Earth, Craig was standing in front of the actual Eiffel Tower.

The first episode did not follow the usual format for The Late Late Show. A lot of Craig's old bits, which haven't been on the shown all that often for months, were trotted back out with French themes. There was French Aquaman, Michael Caine in Space in Paris, and others. As for the stuff actually shot in Paris, it was as much a travelogue as it was a talk show. Geoff Peterson and Secretariat were there, as well as Kristen Bell, one of Ferguson's favorite and more frequent guests. She is serving as sort of his human sidekick for this week, playing up her "feud" with Geoff.

The two of them visited the Eiffel Tower, from where they espied Secretariat dancing throughout the city of Paris. They ate at a fancy French restaurant alongside actor Jean Reno, whom Craig interviewed. They apparently rented a double decker bus for the week, on which Craig interviewed French talk show host Arthur as they drove through the city. He also answered some e-mails outside of a English language bookstore along with the store's owner.

This was a decidely low rent trip. Ferguson's desk is basically a card table, and the camera quality for the stuff shot outside is less than you normally see on television. During the interview with Arthur, the two had to yell while driving through a tunnel. Despite all that, it was a really good opening episode. Granted, Craig Ferguson is my favorite late night host to begin with, and I watch his show every night, so he didn't really have to do much to sway me on the whole Paris thing. That being said, the change of venue provided a lot of different and interesting moments for the show. Typically, a late night talk show takes place almost entirely within a studio. Occasionally, there will be a remote bit. They don't feature the host talking to a celebrity in front of the Eiffel Tower. Even sitting behind a card table with a gay robot skeleton sidekick standing nearby, it was a sight to behold.

WombatNation » Dancing Skeleton Puppet

Audrey, you may be mistaken about the location of the picture that was taken of the street performer. This picture can be verified by those that are familiar with vehicle license plates. Look at the vehicle across the street in the first picture. Is it Mexico or Spain? Where you are correct is that the puppet is probably from mexico as I have seen this same puppet in Tijuana, Mexico. I hope this bit of info helps those seeking the puppet. What is nice about this one is the three holes on the top of the head. The center is for the mouth movement and the left and right holes on the head help you manipulate side to side expression.

The video of the skeleton street performer was taken in July 2002, at Las Ramblas Street, Barcelona, Spain, during my short trip for a conference.

Before this video got the first prize of a fun-video contest on a Korean TV channel, around early 2003, it had been quite popular in the Korea internet society.

The original version with better picture quality can be found at http://viki.kaist.ac.kr/skeleton.

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