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Post-Traumatic 'Tony Danza Show' Disorder Kept James Franco Off Talk Show Circuit For Years
Posted by Seth at 4:54 AM on August 1, 2008
Stopping by Late Show to drum up interest in Pineapple Express, James Franco admitted to David Letterman that this was only his second-ever experience on a talk show. The first was two years ago, when he appeared on The Tony Danza Show: A lightly surreal daytime chatfest hosted by everyone's favourite Who's The Boss-star and guido savante, it relied perhaps a little too heavily on ill-conceived gimmicks and stunts. (The Plinkoesque call-in trivia game Extravadanza immediately pops to mind.) Sure enough, learning that Franco played a boxer in a "horrible movie" he refrains from naming (Annapolis! It was Annapolis!), Danza challenged him first to a push-up contest, and, after Franco politely rejected that offer, a Hook-the-Ring decathalon event that still induces involuntarily facial-twitching and regular nightmares of Danza's "I'm the Lord of the Ring-Hookers!" victory dance.
Stopping by Late Show to drum up interest in Pineapple Express, James Franco admitted to David Letterman that this was only his second-ever experience on a talk show. The first was two years ago, when he appeared on The Tony Danza Show: A lightly surreal daytime chatfest hosted by everyone's favourite Who's The Boss-star and guido savante, it relied perhaps a little too heavily on ill-conceived gimmicks and stunts. (The Plinkoesque call-in trivia game Extravadanza immediately pops to mind.) Sure enough, learning that Franco played a boxer in a "horrible movie" he refrains from naming (Annapolis! It was Annapolis!), Danza challenged him first to a push-up contest, and, after Franco politely rejected that offer, a Hook-the-Ring decathalon event that still induces involuntarily facial-twitching and regular nightmares of Danza's "I'm the Lord of the Ring-Hookers!" victory dance.
A movie set can often be a busy place—so many people! Doing so many different things!—so a hardworking actress like Rosie Perez can be forgiven if she occasionally slips up on a makeup girl or AD's name. But what about, say, shitting the bed when crediting the star of her current movie, who also happens to be to the writer, on a national TV appearance? Wait—we're not done yet. Now, let's say she doesn't just mispronounce it, but replaces it entirely with a popular men's hair-restoration product. What then? We're torn, ourselves. On the one hand, Perez is just about cute enough to get away with it. On the other, did you really think his name is Seth Rogaine, Rosie? Like, really? Are we next to hear about your exciting guest arc on The Bad Mother's Handbook starring Propecia Silverstone?
As the various, cretinous cast members of The Hills took to David Letterman's couch in recent weeks, more than a few of us were left wondering how the entertainment landscape had so quickly devolved from the days when the effortlessly charming and talented likes of Teri Garr would grace his stage—the two trading bon mots and flirting shamelessly, with Paul Shaffer providing a suitably white-funkified musical backdrop to the fizzy proceedings. They say you can't capture lightning in a bottle twice (do they say that? Or are we mixing our metaphors? Where were we? Oh right, Dave and Teri), but you also can't deny chemistry, and it was on abundant display when the two were reunited last night. They're grayer now, and slower—Dave touchingly guided Teri, who is suffering from MS, to her chair—but you can't deny the spark is still there. As Letterman stuck to his, "Did you do it with Elvis?"-line of questioning, Garr shot down the long-standing rumours that the two had once engaged in naked-pretzel antics themselves. But after the jump, we'd invite you to compare and contrast a classic pairing from 1986, in which an amorous Dave opens with, "I'd like to get a can of Windex and go to work." Suddenly, his preoccupation with Elvis makes sense, in a vicarious-thrills-seeking way. It's good to be The King.
David Letterman and Julia Roberts were reunited on last night's Late Show, and it didn't feel so hot. The self-exiled Most Powerful Actress in Show Business seemed to us unnecessarily hard on the host and gushing dad, who was trying to make some point about celebrity baby-math (something about exponential levels of household chaos, not the old adage about knocking $5 mil off the opening weekend for every pregnancy). He was swiftly made to look the buffoon by the Charlie Wilson's War star and her rigidly literal-minded interpretation of family-sizes. And no one makes Dave look the buffoon—well, except maybe Julia. [
Gripped by a paralzying case of Rain Manesque echolalia on her Late Show appearance last night ("OK, so you're going to 
Watching Shia LaBeouf recount for 
Stopping by the 
It's time to salute David Letterman, who continues to do a great service for us, the non-Hills watcher with only a vague idea of what the hell's going on with that inexplicably popular program. Thanks to the Reality TV Catfight Reform Act of 2007, Heidi Montag was granted equal Late Show broadcast time to 
Judy Greer has been orbiting around stardom for the better part of the last 10 years. And although she's had a couple of delicious supporting turns over the years (13 Going On 30, Adaptation, Jawbreaker), she's never quite broken through into the leading lady category ... until now. Ashton Kutcher picked her to be the lead of his new ABC comedy, Miss Guided, and now the lovely and talented Miss Greer is getting her first taste of hitting the promotional circuit as a star. And guess what? She's eating it up. She was as giddy as a school girl during her appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman last night, but also managed to rein in her emotions enough to tell Dave a funny story about how she's still forced to endure some of the humilities that the Hollywood machine puts second fiddles through.
Dave Letterman has a long history of getting flirty with his guests. From Madonna to Drew Barrymore, from Julia Roberts to any one of the countless number of leggy supermodels he's talked to over the years, Diamond Dave has never been one to shy away from batting his proverbial lashes at his guests. Depending on his mood, this flirtatiousness generally takes shape in either a slew of complimentary bon mots or, when he's feeling aggressive, a subtle graze of the knee. But when Gossip Girl Blake Lively showed up on the set on Friday night proclaiming that Dave was one of her "childhood crushes", the sexual tension between the two was not only palpable, it approached the level of David Addison and Maddie Hayes.
