…and then Craig’s:

Please note how both of them find the time to bash Carson Daly, proving once again that there’s no such thing as too easy a target. Kudos to Jimmy Kimmel, however, for figuring out a way to get a laugh out of Daly’s situation without being mean about it:

Bob linked to this in the comments section of my earlier post, but here’s what Patton Oswalt had to say on the matter:

And, of course, this post wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t offer Conan’s own take on the situation:

Gee, can you tell he’s pissed?

Well, you know, if you had a Scottish brogue. And were funnier.

The TCA has had a long-standing relationship with Mr. Ferguson, but I swear to you that his ongoing gesture of buying us pizza whenever we hold our organization’s business meetings has nothing to do with my enjoyment of his show. With that said, however, I can’t say that the messages that he includes with the pizza – like the one below – haven’t made me respect him more. I mean, as someone who has an affinity to the printed word (as opposed to the online word), I have to give him props for this:

Craig stopped by the TCA tour for what was described as an “informal press conference,” which is no doubt why he started the proceedings by saying, “First of all, let me say my wife is standing by me through this very difficult time,” adding that “Buenos Aires is lovely at this time of year.” From there, he was willing to tackle any and all questions that were thrown at him, but before I offer up some of my favorite moments, I must drop this bombshell: he’s considering getting rid of the puppets.

Yes, I know: I’m as upset as you are. And so were many of the others in attendance, several of whom immediately gasped in horror.

“That reaction right there?” said Ferguson. “That’s what I’m looking for: controversy. ‘No puppets? That’s it! To the presses…that don’t exist anymore!’ I don’t know, I’m getting bored with puppets. If I can’t think of anything else to do with them, I’ll have to let them go the way of all flesh.”

As you can imagine, we did our best to pretend that he never made this comment…I don’t think I want to live in a world where “The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson” doesn’t provide me with my weekly puppet quota…and instead chose to focus on the funnier and more thoughtful bits of the “press conference.” Here, then, are ten of my favorites…

1. “One of the luxuries of doing a television show every night…it’s almost like you had an outlet of where you could just broadcast your thoughts. Perhaps something on the Internet would be popular in the same way. That’s why I never would Twitter: because I’ve got an hour to fill every fucking night. What the hell else am I going go to say? ‘Going to say things about things.’ So it’s really just me doing that. That’s all it is. And so I think there’s a part of it which is retro, in the sense that it’s someone just talking on television, which they used to do back in the day, and another part of it is extremely contemporary. It’s the broadcast of unedited thought…which is, you know, causing the newspaper shortage.”

2. “The other night, I was talking about Dave’s show, and I got the name of Dave’s show wrong. Now, what I could do? ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ is what I said, which is apparently not the name of his show, and I got into trouble saying it. Now, what’s more interesting is to watch a sweaty vaudevillian try to get out of a situation like that rather than cut it and make it pristine. I don’t have the patience for that, and I would prefer as a viewer to watch the mistakes. I am my own blooper reel as it happens.”

3. “At 12 and 13, I thought I would be an astronaut. By 17, I thought I would be dead by the time I was, you know, this age. It’s a constantly changing thing for me. I think for everybody, I don’t think just for me. I always kind of half expected I’d end up doing something in show business because it was tolerant of drunkenness and you could meet girls. But, you know, I’m married, and I’m ‘teetotals,’ but I’m still here because I don’t know where else to go.”

4. “I think my show is probably closer to ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse’ than anything else I’ve seen, and that is an aspiration. That’s a great show. I don’t know where we are, but wherever we are, we won’t be that next week. I do know that. That’s why the puppets won’t stay forever. It’s important to keep moving. There was a point, you know, when I had a sound board, and I was always doing the sound board, and people asked about the sound effects. Or there was the cheeky monkey thing. We have to keep moving because I’ll get bored, and if I get bored, then I think we start doing retakes when I make a mistake, and then the rote sets in, and then there’s focus groups and then committees about ‘I don’t know about this joke.'”

5. “I don’t want to be poor. I don’t want to be rich to the extent that all I care about is keeping my job. I don’t care enough about keeping my job right now. That’s good. That makes me effective at what I do. I don’t want to be frightened of getting fired. So, to that end, I suppose my ambitions are that I spend less than I earn. I don’t want to have the ambition of a time slot or a number of dollars. Do I want to make a lot of money? Fuck, yeah. But do I want to make it at the expense of…look, I’ve met a lot of rich people who are douche bags. I don’t want to be that…or any more of that than is necessary. So I hope to, I suppose, in some way try and maintain some…if I have any…type of integrity. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. That’s my ambition.”

6. “I watched Jimmy (Fallon) in his first week…maybe 10 minutes of it. I remember during that time Jimmy Kimmel – who is a very nice man – gave an interview, and he said, ‘We all watch and anybody of the late night guys says that they don’t watch another show is lying.’ So I guess I’m lying, but the truth is I don’t watch the other late night shows. You know the shows I see? I see ‘Duck Dodgers’ and ‘MythBusters.’ That’s what I fucking watch, because I’ve got an eight-year-old son, you know. I watched Jimmy, and I liked him. I thought he was good, but I stand by what I said the last time: I never thought we were in competition, and I don’t think we are in competition now. The last time I talked to you guys, I said I thought Jimmy’s competition was ‘Adult Swim,’ and I still believe that. I think my competition is sleep. Or the ShamWow commercial, or whatever the hell is on cable, or whatever video game. I don’t know. I just do what I do.”

7. “I don’t really understand (ratings). When they say people age 18-34, and then they go 18-49, I said, ‘Well, what? So the people in the 18-34, are they in the 18-49? Or is this different people that are not in the 18-34?’ Then you go, ‘Do all ratings stop at 49?’ And they do. You go, ‘I’m 47. So in two years, I’m fucked. Fuck you! No!’ I don’t really understand how it works. I know it’s important because everybody writes about it like it’s religion, but all I know is this: the numbers can change dramatically, and people get pay raises. Here’s what I do know, and this is probably the wrong thing to say in a room full of journalists, but it seemed to me…I don’t know if this absolutely accurate, but when Jay was shit-canned from NBC, he was the leader in all numbers, and then they fired him. I don’t want to get fired. So perhaps keeping your head down is what you should do with the numbers. I don’t understand how it works, but it clearly matters. Yet I don’t know why. I think the truth of it is this: I think it makes you sound clever if you talk about them, and I think that’s what a lot of people do. I understand that. I want to sound clever, too, but I swear to God, I don’t understand it.”

8. “What I think we’ve been doing at this show…I hope what we’ll be doing at the show is deconstructing and deconstructing and deconstructing the format, and the more we deconstruct the format, if we are successful in doing that, the more we separate ourselves for good or ill from the format. The format is tired. The format is tired, and it is old, and…look, here’s the reality: I’m another middle-aged white guy telling jokes late at night on TV wearing a suit. And that’s tired, you know? So I want to mess with it. Because that’s who I am, I want to mess with it. I want to poke it with a stick. I want to do it. I swear, I don’t know if I’m part of it. I kind of would like to be. You know, I kind of like to be, ‘Hey, what’s going to happen with that?’ And then another part of me thinks, ‘Well, then I’ll end up like that. Then I’ll be important. Then I’ll be worried about the fucking 18-18 1/2 demographics.’ And I don’t want to be. So I’m conflicted a little bit with it, I guess.”

9. “I’d like to announce I got my pilot’s license on Friday of last week. And I’ll tell you why I like aviation: because it is the complete opposite of show business. In show business, you bullshit, you bullshit, you bullshit, and that’s what you do, and that’s how get ahead. In aviation, you bullshit, you fucking die. You’re gone. So when Andy says to you in show business, ‘Can you do that?’ You go, ‘You bet I can.’ When Andy says to you in aviation, ‘Can you do that?’ You better tell the truth, because if you can’t, you know, you’re on the local news, and that’s that.”

10. “David Letterman, no matter what the numbers have ever been, ever, in the past…David Letterman is the king of late night television. All right. Now, I know there are press releases and other people that can prove to you scientifically that that’s not fucking true, but
I’m telling you, that’s true. I’m very happy to work for him and to work close to him, but if there is a successor to Johnny, then, of course, it’s David. My relationship with David Letterman is that I sit at his feet. I’m kind of his bitch. In the modern parlance, you know. I sit at the feet of the master.”

Welcome back to “Concession Stand,” where Premium Hollywood takes a look at DVDs while indulging in whatever food or beverage has recently been provided to us by a publicist…or, should there be a lapse in the free provisions, we’ll go find something from Dollar Tree, Big Lots, or Ollie’s Bargain Outlet that we’ve never heard of before but which screams to be tasted. Thankfully, however, there’ll be no need to leave the house this go-round, as we have a lovely bottle of spirits which was recently delivered to our front doorstep that will do the trick nicely. Why? Because we’ve decided to tackle a trio of stand-up comedy DVDs, and everyone knows that comedy is always funnier when you’ve got a few adult beverages in you.

The beverage: Three Olives Cherry Vodka. The idea of flavored vodka seems kind of lazy and cost-cutting, doesn’t it? It’s like saying, “Gosh, I’d like to mix my vodka with something to make it taste better, but then I’d have to walk two extra steps to the refrigerator to see what I can add to it, and if there’s nothing there, then I’ll just feel like I’ve wasted my time for nothing, so why don’t I just save myself the trouble and buy a bottle of vodka that already has a flavor to it?”

I’m not quite as lazy as all that, but I can still buy into the inherent concept…and based on the number of flavored vodkas being produced by Three Olives these days, it’s pretty clear that I’m not the only one. They offer – wait, let me take a breath first – berry, cherry, chocolate, citrus, grape, mango, orange, pomegranate, raspberry, root beer, vanilla, watermelon, and, triple shot espresso.

Oh, right, and they also have a plain vodka for you boring old purists out there.

The bottle they sent to me, as you may have guessed from the photograph hovering off to the right, was cherry-flavored. Seemed like the best possible flavor, really, given that A) I can manage to drag myself from the liquor cabinet to the refrigerator, and B) cherry blends well with just about any cola you might have in stock…which is exactly what I did blend it with when I sat down to enjoy the first of these three stand-up comedy DVDs. In truth, I actually had enough stand-up DVDs stockpiled to review more than three while under the influence of cherry vodka, but I figured, hey, why waste a perfectly good opportunity to do a sequel? Besides, three strong drinks could make even Harland Williams’s Har-Larious seem funny…and when you’ve reached that point, it’s clearly time to close the laptop and go to bed.

Craig Ferguson, A Wee Bit O’ Revolution
Beverage: Three Olives Cherry Vodka with Coca-Cola

Craig Ferguson is awesome…but, then, I knew that before I put in his stand-up special. I always thought he was funny on “The Drew Carey Show,” loved him in “Saving Grace” (he co-wrote the script for that, you know), and, God help me, I even have a soft spot for “The Big Tease,” but he’s now secured immortality through his late-night talk show, and, man, does he deserve it. I’d never have bet on a man with a brogue like that to survive on American television, but his tendency to talk in an open, off-the-cuff manner makes him seem like less like a host and more like a close friend. (Ironically, I’ve tried on a couple of different occasions but have consistently failed to get an interview with the man. Maybe it’s easier for him to be open to a large crowd than it is in an intimate, one-on-one setting? Yes, that makes me feel a little better about my failure, so we’ll go with that.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his first-ever stand-up special, “A Wee Bit O’ Revolution,” often feels less like stand-up and more like a spoken-word performance, as he weaves tales of his life and times between more traditional “have you ever noticed…?” bits. He offers great stories about going to see Blue Oyster Cult and Deep Purple in concert, missing virtually the entire performance by the latter due to a poor selection of pre-show pharmaceuticals. (“I knew a guy whose older brother worked in a hospital, and he had access to chloroform…which, he assured me, was a drug.”) There’s much talk from Ferguson about his past addictions – alcohol was generally his drug of choice – and how, when you’re in rehab, you know you’re getting better when you’re beating the junkies at Jenga. (“Your move, Shaky.”) The best bit for longtime Ferguson fans, however, is probably when he speaks of how his road to “The Drew Carey Show” began with an audition for the pilot of “Suddenly Susan,” where he was asked read for the part of a Hispanic photographer. Wow, so does that mean that there’s an alternate universe somewhere where he got the job and subsequently went on to play Richard Halpert on “Lost”?

Click to buy “A Wee Bit O’ Revolution”

Dana Gould, Let Me Put My Thoughts In You
Beverage: Three Olives Cherry Vodka with pink grapefruit juice. And fuck you and your “what a pansy mixer,” ’cause it tasted awesome.

I used to love Dana Gould’s stand-up in the 1990s. He was a Comedy Central staple back in the pre-“South Park” days when every other program on the network spotlighted some stand-up special or other, but at some point, he just kind of…disappeared. Those with a keen eye for TV credits, however, would have noticed that he’d simply gone off the stage and onto the writing staff of “The Simpsons,” where he spent six years. (He’s the one responsible for the classic “Evita” parody, “The President Wore Pearls.”) So I got excited when I heard that he was returning to his stand-up roots and releasing a new special through Shout! Factory, and I got even more excited when I heard it was going to be directed by Bob Odenkirk, late of “Mr. Show.”

Having watched “Let Me Put My Thoughts In You,” however, I walked away pleased but not completely blown away. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to see Gould back in front of an audience, and some of the material was downright hilarious. I felt a kinship with the man as he explained how he struggles with his daughters because he knows how to use reason and they don’t. Mind you, I’ve never gotten so frustrated that I called my daughter the C-word, but, still, I get where he’s coming from. (Dammit, don’t assure me that you’re not going to ask for milk in fifteen minutes and then, fifteen minutes later, ask me for milk!) And as someone who’s quiet and passive by nature, I laughed way too hard at his description of his initial relationship with his wife: “She does something that really annoys me, and I…say nothing and eventually die of cancer.” But there are many occasions where Gould falls into rants which are punctuated by angry faces and random exclamations which just don’t bring the funny as well as you wish they did. Still, there’s more than enough good stuff here – the idea that terminal diagnoses should be delivered in an effeminate voice to make them easier to take, the premise that you get to heaven and are forced to tell all the children who died of starvation all the things you bought on eBay – to make you glad that he’s back on stage…and to make you hopeful for future specials.

Click to buy “Let Me Put My Thoughts In You”

Christopher Titus, Love Is Evol
Beverage: Three Olives Cherry Vodka, straight up.

If you saw “Titus,” the Fox sitcom starring Christopher Titus, or you’ve caught any of his previous stand-up specials, then you know that the man’s material veers into some pretty dark places. As a result, I saved “Love Is Evol” for last because I needed that third drink to loosen me up enough to laugh at some of his bits. The poor bastard’s been through a lot of dark shit over the past couple of years, and he’s come through the other side a winner, but Titus has never been afraid to lay the truth on the line, so it’s somehow not shocking that, after ranting about how his wife of 15 years left him, he admitted that he actually held a gun underneath his chin and was moments away from pulling the trigger. So what stopped him? Was it the love of his children…? Actually, no, it was the fact that he couldn’t bear the thought of his wife getting possession of the hot rods he’d built.

That’s Titus for you.

And so is the fact that, when he’s describing how he considers the events of his life, he often has to deal with the impressions of what he refers to as his “inner retard.” Titus is a far cry from politically correct, but his incorrectness is done in such a way that it doesn’t feel like he’s being a complete asshole…or if it does, then he’s generally not afraid to admit as much. “Love is Evol” is filled with the same kind of true-life material you’ve come to expect from Titus, and although most of it focuses on his recent divorce and how he actually came out a winner in the end (he subsequently found himself with a 5’11” hottie of a girlfriend who’s both intelligent and financially self-sufficient), he does manage to make time for a flashback to to discuss how his notoriously irascible father told him the tale of his conception. I wouldn’t dare spoil the story for you, but before his dad told it, he asked with a smirk, “You sure you want to hear this?” That’s pretty much the question you ask yourself whenever you’re presented with the opportunity to listen to a new Christopher Titus album, just because you know it won’t be a completely comfortable ride. It will, however, be a funny one, which is why you invariably answer, “Bring it on.”

Click to buy “Love Is Evol”

Final Verdict:

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a lot of good laughs out of all three specials, but if I had to rank them in order of preference, I’d pick Christopher Titus first, then follow up with Craig Ferguson and Dana Gould. You just can’t go wrong with Titus. And as for the Three Olives Cherry Vodka, it’s good stuff, and it holds its own relatively well as in a straight shot, but all things being equal, I think I still preferred it with a mixer.

Actually, that was back in July, when the networks were busy pimping their new fall schedules; this time, they were presenting us with an idea of what we can expect to see on our favorite broadcast and cable channels from now until they premiere their next fall schedule.

Going out to L.A. in January was a new thing for me, though. It was my first winter tour since becoming a member of the Television Critics Association in 2007 – last year’s was canceled due to the writers’ strike – and, if the rumblings throughout the ballrooms at the Universal Hilton were any indication, it may well prove to be my last January tour. I’m hopeful that this presumption turns out to be inaccurate, but given the current economic climate and an increasing tendency for newspapers and publications to only send their TV critics out for one tour per year, there’s every reason to suspect that the networks will join suit and only be willing to pamper those critics once per year.

Sorry, did I say “pamper”? Of course, I meant, “Treat with the utmost respect.”

It feels a bit odd to be doing a wrap-up of my experiences at the tour before I’ve even had a chance to write up all of the panels I attended while I was out there, but, hey, when you get a good spot on the calendar, you make it work however you can. So still keep your eyes open for my ongoing pieces on the various shows you can expect to find on the broadcast networks during the next few months, but in the meantime, here’s a look at some of the best and worst bits from the January ’09 tour as a whole.

Most enjoyable panel by a cable network: “Rescue Me,” FX.

I’ve been a big Denis Leary fan every since No Cure for Cancer, so I knew the guy was inevitably going to go off on a profanity-filled rant before the end of the panel. What I didn’t expect, however, was that Peter Tolan – who co-created the show with Leary – would start the proceedings by telling Leary to watch his mouth, adding, “If you were going to say ‘cunt,’ don’t.”

From there, the two of them seemingly battled each other in an attempt to offer up the most memorable line. Leary complained about his salary. (“I had a crazy idea of getting paid, like, $250,000 an episode. They put limits on that, let me tell you. That’s Kiefer Sutherland money right there.”) Then Tolan claimed that he was at fault for the show’s fourth-season slump, blaming it on a drug problem and that “I was heavy into a kazillion hookers that year.” Then Leary bitched about how Michael J. Fox was going to guest on “Rescue Me” and get the Emmy that Leary himself has yet to earn. (“Five fucking episodes, he comes in. God damn, $700 million from ‘Spin City.’ He never asked me to do the show. He’s going to walk away with the fucking Emmy. That son of a bitch.”) Then Tolan started mocking Hugh Laurie’s American accent by talking about how he could do a British accent. (“Aye, pip, pip, mate, aye! ‘Allo, Mary Poppins!”) And…well, as you can see, there was really no contest: this may well have been the greatest panel ever.

Most enjoyable panel by a broadcast network: “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” CBS.

To be fair, this was already set up to be a gimme by the fact that, the night before the panel, I turned on Ferguson’s show to hear him talking about how he was going to be addressing the Television Critics Association tomorrow. The guy appreciates the critics, but he also likes to tease them, and the combination makes him just as entertaining when he’s answering our questions as he is when he’s doing his own show. He assured us that his lead-in, David Letterman, is “very touchy-feely. He’s very, ‘How are you doing?’ You know, it’s hugs, not drugs. It’s all of that with Dave.”) He told us that concerns about his being too Scottish are possibly not shared by his fellow countrymen. (“Scottish people would tell you that you could get a lot more Scottish than me, that I am not Scottish enough. Look at me, Goddammit, I’m sober.”) And he impressed everyone by challenging us to not review his new late-night competition, Jimmy Fallon, until he’d been on the air for a month. (“He hasn’t done anything yet, but everybody is commenting on his performance. Give him a chance.”) But most importantly, he bought us pizza for the third TCA press tour in a row, describing his actions as a “shameless attempt to corrupt you.” Consider me corrupted, Craig.

Most disappointing panel by a cable network: “The Beast,” A&E.

Well, it was always going to be, wasn’t it? I mean, The Swayz wasn’t there. Clearly, we’re all rooting for him, but when one of the biggest reasons you were excited about attending the tour was to be able to talk to Patrick Swayze, you can still be bummed when you hear he’s not going to be there…though, of course, you first have to get over being horrified by the very real possibility that a man in his condition could check into a hospital with pneumonia and never check out again (Thankfully, Swayze returned home within the week.)

Most unnecessary panel by a broadcast network: “The Last Templar,” NBC.

It was bad enough that NBC only allotted the tour half a day, but rather than shine the spotlight on some of their existing series with large fan bases or even a returning show like, say, “Medium,” they set aside 45 minutes for a 2-part miniseries that – with all due respect to its stars (Mira Sorvino, Scott Foley, Victor Garber) and executive producer (Robert Halmi, Sr.) – absolutely did not need its own panel.

Most promising new program that I didn’t know anything about before going into the tour: “Important Things with Demetri Martin,” Comedy Central.

I’d been aware of Martin since the release of his 2006 album, These Are Jokes, but I’d never actually heard the album, nor had I caught any of his appearances on “The Daily Show.” But perhaps knowing that not everyone in the crowd was familiar with his work, Martin opened by showing a few clips from his new show (“I wanted to show the shittiest stuff so that then everyone would be even more surprised with how excellent it is after that”), then took the stage with a giant sketch pad and offered us a brief introduction to his comedic sensibilities. First, he assured us that the target audience for “Important Things” was no less than the whole world (“I’m not going to discriminate anybody with eyes or a head or ears or anything”), then admitted that his real aim was the United States but that he didn’t even need all of the US to fall in love with him. “I started thinking, okay, we have about 300 million people in the country,” he said. “Look, realistically, if I get a third of those people, that’s a hundred million people watching this show. That takes a lot of pressure off, because that means 200 million people can hate the show and it really doesn’t matter.” Despite his concerns about trying to do comedy at 10:00 AM, he certainly had me in stitches…and, as a result, he earned himself at least one new fan.

Least promising new series that still resulted in a really funny panel: “Osbournes: Reloaded,” Fox.

Oh, my sweet lord, does this look bad. It’s a mixture of hidden camera stuff, wacky shenanigans in front of a live audience, guest stars, and not nearly as much music as you’d like to have from the man who once fronted Black Sabbath. But you’ve got to give them credit: the Osbournes themselves remain a riot. The back and forth between Jack and Kelly still crackles, Sharon still doesn’t take shit from anyone, and although Ozzy had to have virtually every question repeated to him during the panel, he always managed to hear Sharon when she made a smart-arse comment at his expense. (After she quoted someone as saying, “Everybody adores Ozzy,” he snapped, “Why didn’t everybody adore me when I was pissed drunk all the time?”) I wish the Osbournes the best of luck, but on the whole, the clips they showed made me wish they’d cut their losses, throw in the towel on “Reloaded” before it ever gets on the air, and just give them their own talk show a la “The Kumars at No. 42.” Now that I’d watch.

Most intimidating person to talk to:

Male: Conan O’Brien. Damn, he’s tall.

Female: Eliza Dushku. Damn, she’s hot.

Least intimidating person to talk to (and I mean that in the best possible way):

Male: Tom Kenney (“Sit Down, Shut Up,” Fox). He was hanging out at the bar during the Fox party, so I struck up a conversation with him about his life in the world of animation. When he described himself as the equivalent of a session drummer, I said, “So, basically, you’re the Hal Blaine of voiceover work.” His response was to lean into my recorder, embrace me, and say, “You can’t hear it, but I’m hugging Will Harris right now because he knows who Hal Blaine is.” By conversation’s end, he had recorded a message for my 3-year-old daughter in his best SpongeBob Squarepants voice. Good times with a great guy.

Female: Tracey Ullman (“Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union,” Showtime). She was so pleasant from the moment that I approached her, and when I risked bringing up her music from the ’80s, she at least claimed to be amused by asking about it. First, we bonded over our mutual love of the late Kirsty MacColl, and then she proceeded to reveal that her son recently put one of her songs on his iPod when loading up for a road trip…and she responded by accusing him of taking the piss. (He assured her that he really did like the song.) Geez, I guess I’ll have to start watching her Showtime series now, huh?

Coolest person I still haven’t gotten to talk to, even after three tours: Hugh Laurie. The guy’s always so surrounded by people that I never feel up to fighting my way into his proximity, and I’m not sure I’d really want to do so, anyway, because I’d like to have an actual conversation with him, not just score a one-off question.

Cheapest thrill of the tour: It’s a tie between shaking Ozzy Osbourne’s hand (even though I know full well he had forgotten it the moment our hands unclasped) and asking Drew Barrymore a question in the press scrum and, as a result, finding myself close enough to her to see that she has a pierced tongue.

Coolest moment of the tour: Sir Ian McKellen scaring the living hell out of a PBS publicist.

I managed to score a 25-minute one-on-one interview with McKellen in his hotel suite, with the publicist keeping a discrete distance in the background, but as we talked about his appearance on “The Simpsons” and the supposed theatrical curse of speaking the name “Macbeth” aloud, he said, “I’ve suffered no ill effects thus far,” then gasped and clutched his side. The poor woman turned pale, and when he realized her reaction to his actions, he had to assure her, “No, no, I’m only joking…”

The moment that made many of my friends want to punch me in the face: Getting to watch an advance screening of the third episode of the new season of “Lost” (before the first two episodes had even premiered), then having the opportunity ask executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse questions afterwards.

The moment that every 10-year-old girl in American was jealous of me for experiencing: Getting to sit in the same room as the Jonas Brothers as they promoted their new Disney Channel sitcom, “Jonas.” They’re such nice boys.

Most awesome visit to the set of a network show: “The Big Bang Theory.” Just getting to look around the set of Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment was geek bliss. I mean, they’ve got an actual Green Lantern power battery there, for God’s sake. How awesome is that?

Biggest mixed-bag visit to the set of a network show: “CSI.” I’m not saying it wasn’t cool to tour the offices, and the opportunity to get my picture taken with the show’s two resident coroners was undeniably awesome, but there wasn’t nearly enough time or space for us to adequately approach the cast members for one-on-one interviews. I mean, literally, by the time I was able to get anywhere near any of them with my recorder, we were being told that our time was up.

Most awesome visit to the set of a cable show: “Trust Me.” Actually, it wasn’t that the set was all that awesome…it’s an ad agency, and having toured the “Mad Men” set in July, it couldn’t even remotely compare…but, still, I got to talk to Griffin Dunne and ask him about working on “Johnny Dangerously.” Look, I just admitted to getting a thrill out of seeing a Green Lantern power battery; it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m a fan of a movie with a theme song by “Weird Al” Yankovic (“This Is The Life”).

Best off-site visit that was in no way connected to the tour: I finally fulfilled a dream and got to see Jon Brion play at Largo…and – bonus! – Benmont Tench came out and played piano for several songs. When Brion performed a cover of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” on mandolin with Tench accompanying on keys, it took me to some heretofore-unexperienced level of musical nirvana. I couldn’t have asked for a better first Largo experience. (Special thanks go to the West Coast contingent of Popdose writers, with whom I attended the show.)

Best piece of swag: Everything offered up during Fox’s “Simpsons” breakfast. There were Simpsons watches, Pez dispensers, official Lard Lad doughnuts, and I’ll have you know that this entire piece is powered by a can of Duff Energy Drink that I brought home from the tour.

Most interesting way to hype a show which has yet to start filming: The new Amy Poehler sitcom…you know, the one created by Greg Daniels which isn’t a spin-off to “The Office,” even though it co-stars Rashida Jones…doesn’t actually go in front of the cameras until February, but to help get critics excited about the series, Daniels provided each member of the TCA with their very own copy of the script for the show’s pilot episode. And just to make sure nobody would get cheeky and leak it onto the ‘net, each copy has that TCA member’s name sprawled across every single page. If you’re wondering, yes, it IS very funny…not that that should come as a surprise, given the pedigree of the show’s stars and creator. And did we mention that the cast also includes Aziz Ansari from “Human Giant” in it? It just keeps getting awesomer and awesomer.

My best opening line to any interview: I walked up to Jimmy Fallon and asked, “So, are you scared shitless or what?” He looked momentarily shocked, then burst into laughter and said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”

Most obnoxious moment of the tour: Getting once again reminded that, for as incredibly cool as I think this whole thing is and how in awe of the proceedings I’ll probably always be, there are a whole lot of jaded jerks in attendance who think of it as just another day and can barely be bothered to sit through the panels to get to the free food and booze.

Not me, baby. The TCA tour is the greatest opportunity I’ve ever gotten in my career as an entertainment journalist, providing me with unparalleled access to talent both behind and in front of the camera, and it’ll always have my utmost respect.

Does that sound like I’m kissing ass? Probably. But it’s true nonetheless.