I Wish It Was Christmas Today

It might have the legs to become a new Late Night Christmas Tradition (more on that in future)... Here's Jimmy Fallon, Horatio Sanz, Julian Casablancas and The Roots performing "I Wish It Was Christmas Today".

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Jimmy explains how the song came about and how Julian got involved during the "Desk Chat" segment of the full episode found here.

Ricky Gervais on Sesame Street

Ricky Gervais made an amusing appearance on Sesame Street this week as part of the "Celebrity Lullabies" series. This is a recurring sketch where Elmo hires a celebrity to sing him a lullabye. No "Freelove Freeway" encore though.

The better, but more earnest episode, was Andrea Bocelli's seen here.

Conan Works At Best Buy

The title says it all. For some extra cash he's gonna get up every day, get chemically altered, steal from his work and take an 1.5 hour lunch with several courses just like the rest of us.

 

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Boyz II Men Live

I'm not the most massive fan in the world but I know a fantastic live performance when I see it.

Here's Boyz II Men performing with The Roots "Motownphilly":

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They also did a very cool cover of "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. You can only see that by within the full episode here.

Bit o' Trivia: You can see Questlove and Black Thought in the original "Motownphilly" music video. Questlove playing the drums and Black Thought is dancing in the background.

Paul Shaffer on Late Night

Remember how much fun it was when two tv shows "crossed over"? Like "Scooby Doo Meets Batman and Robin" or "The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones"? Sure, we all do. But what's infinitely more enjoyable, to me, is when a talk show host is a guest on another talk show. Not only because of the cross-mojination that happens and the colliding of worlds, but also because the change in roles where the interviewer becomes the interviewee.

Jay Leno and David Letterman were both on Johnny Carson. Letterman was on Conan and vice versa. Craig Kilborn was on Letterman but not the other way around (though he did have Paul Shaffer). Conan was on Carson Daly's show and vice versa. Jimmy Fallon was on Letterman and Conan. And on it goes into the night.

And so it's a huge event for me that Paul Shaffer was on Jimmy Fallon's show recently. It was a great interview. You can see the full interview here starting at 21:24 but only for a limited time! As it's only available within the context of the full show, it'll be taken offline in a few days. In particular Paul confronts the Roots on Questlove's quote in Rolling Stone magazine that when thinking about which song to play for guest intros, he thinks, "What would Paul Schaffer do?" and then does the opposite. OUCH. It's so on.

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Paul's on to promote his new book which is a collection of anecdotes from his experiences in show business over the past 5 decades. I have a pretty strict rule that I only buy books that are educational but I'm thinking of making an exception for this book. Talk about a life worth reading about - he's been a song writer and studio musician for years, he was in the SNL band from the first season so he has stories about that era, he's been on Letterman for the past 30 years, he was in Spinal Tap and, oh yeah, he's the musical director for the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame so he's played with, met or worked with EVERY SIGNIFICANT MUSICIAN OF THE PAST 50 YEARS. And that's not an exaggeration. I want to make a list but if I do, I'll leave out about 30 other giant stars.

Who Cares Wins: Christmas Edition

It seems that some time in the late 80's or early 90's James Fallon made another training video - this time about how to wrap gifts. It's quite infotaining and lives up to the level of quality we've come to expect from the great people at Vision Video.

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Edit: After watching the video, the fact that you had to confirm your birthday to view it will make even less sense.