It is indeed moving - very good monologue.

Ferguson breathes life into the absolutely putrified world of late-night talk show comedy. This was fantastic.

Fantastic, genuine, heartfelt.

Yeah, you said it for me as well Winkler1. I wish I could see his show properly but I don't think it's broadcast in the UK.

[edit] I think the title is a bit hard on the audience. They're normally pumped up to laugh anyway and Ferguson didn't play it entirely straight.

True, Deano, but they also laughed at what he meant to be funny as he told his own story. I may have been a little too cryptic about the two sources of laughter.

Long and good.

If only more talk shows dipped into the jar of sincerity more often... might make it more compelling to watch, too!

I think the tough title makes it funnier; keep it!

excellent, and great analogy with America's Funniest Home Videos.

however, these people lead public lives, just like politicians and other rich/powerful people. if you're selling yourself one minute you can't take offense when people make humorous comments about what you do the next minute when you're not explicitely acting like a product.

... okay, done with the 'devil's advocate' thing.

I give credit to Ferguson for having the grapes to take a sincere and possibly embarassing story and turn it into a heartfelt, hopeful, and still entertaining monologue. Truly a great showman.

Late night TV's best kept secret. Wish he were on earlier.

This "Public lives" argument is a lie and a scam, invented by the tabloids to excuse their behavior. The press and media should be concerned not with people because they are "public" but because they are NEWSWORTHY. there is a clear difference. Anna Nicole or Britney is 99% of the time not newsworthy, does that mean noone cares? no. It just means its not really any of our business. These famous people have a certain responsibility to live as they preach, and yeah, in some cases it might be proper to take a critical look at what these idols do and what they say etc, but in general, the coverage we see is just pure stalker-ism. Not only does it destroy these celebs, but it wastes space and time that could be used for real news and public debate.

thanks bicyclerepairman!

the more you know!(rainbow & nbc logo)

... however, to a significant portion of society it IS newsworthy when popular-culture figures, professional atheletes, or publicly elected officials have problems. They exist to us as creations of our collective societal conciousness, and guffawing at their imperfect lives both brings them momentarily down to the level of the lowely tv viewer and gives another easily digested collective story to share socially.

Marie Antoinette was said to be cheating on her husband the King with his brother-in-law, Charles X. Popular and scandalous pamphlets were circulated with drawings of them having butt-sex... I REST MY CASE! hah

Yes, as I said, some of this stuff IS newsworthy, in the sense that you could write something in the lines of: "Popstar Britney Spears, who built her image on innocence and virginity is now reported to have deep emotional and personal problems" END OF STORY. Stalking her around the city, and being the CAUSE of those problems, is not the medias job.

Questioning the sanity and/or integrity of elected officials, or high ranking lobbyists, religious leaders or business men and women, is another matter altogether. If gay-hating fascists who are powerful takes a walk on the brown side, thats NEWSWORTHY, if dick cheneys lesbian daughter adopts, thats a personal, but highly NEWSWORTHY thing. Anna Nicole and Britney having issues may be worth a mention, but not the kind of obsession the current media has.

Good call, Bicyclerepairman. I totally share your opinion.

And thanks for sifting this vid. Really made my day.

canned laughter and talk about suicide... ah corporate media conglomerates. (You won't be missed when terrestrial broadcasts are written into the history books)

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

This was awesome- I'm now a Craig Ferguson fan.

Amazing stuff.

*runs off to search for more craig ferguson*

I've just registered, just to vote this up! Great and moving !

I am so jealous of this submission. I've been submitting about 7 Craig Ferguson monologues and none of them got more than 5 votes.

Maudlin submits 1, and he gets 114 votes...

How do you do it man???

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Woman -no?

*checks quickly* Yeah, woman. Phew!

I think this video just hit the Sift sweet spot this month, combining the quality of Ferguson and the initial rush of sympathy a lot of people had for Britney (partially dissipated now).

But sometimes you just don't know what will work here. I've put up things I thought were awesome and they disappeared or barely made it to the front page. Meanwhile, Principles of economics, translated somehow got almost as big as this video. I had no clue there were that many economics geeks on the Sift.

I've really enjoyed Craig for a long time, but only in small snippets as that's all we've ever got of him over here in Australia. Drew Carey show, his movie roles etc.

I've never seen a whole episode of this talk show of his...

BUT This monologue was just superb, heartfelt, true on many levels, and just makes me like the man more. A+ for him.

*1sttube

Adding video to channels (1sttube) - requested by arvana.

*latenight

Adding video to channels (Latenight) - requested by eric3579.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'alcoholic, recovery, responsibilty, pity' to 'alcoholic, recovery, responsibilty, pity, craig, ferguson' - edited by legacy0100

Tags for this video have been changed from 'alcoholic, recovery, responsibilty, pity, craig, ferguson' to 'alcoholic, recovery, responsibilty, pity, craig, ferguson, britney spears, venti sherry' - edited by calvados

*dark *drugs *talks

Adding video to channels (Dark, Drugs, Talks) - requested by calvados.

mmmmm and *happy too I s'pose

Adding video to channels (Happy) - requested by calvados.

*length=12:30

The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 12:30 - length declared by geo321.

*dead

but I'm sure it is somewhere on the web.

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by bareboards2.

Awarding Boise_Lib with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

Just watched this again, and it again reminds me why I think that Craig is the King of late night. Absolute king.

*promote it up there again, as it's worth another watch

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, February 23rd, 2007 9:51pm PST - promote requested by spoco2.