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| Nicole Sullivan: Actress, comedienne, part-time figure-skating judge, and possible execution fetishist. |
Nicole Sullivan appeared
on The Late Show (with David Letterman) on April 26, 2000. The
segment ran for about six minutes. In it, she discussed the following:
Possibly the most interesting element of this appearance is the fact that
Ms. Sullivan was introduced as the star of Mad TV "and the
brand-new situation comedy, Talk to Me." In reality, ABC aired
the last episode of Talk to Me the night before this show was
taped; not too long after the overnight ratings showed another drop in
the ratings for this mid-season replacement, ABC made the decision to
pull Talk to Me from the schedule, and not leaving anything to
chance for May sweeps, even aired a Drew Carey rerun in the
9:30 PM Tuesday time slot a week later. The discussion mostly centered
on the fact that now that both Talk to Me and Mad TV
have wrapped up taping for the season, now Ms. Sullivan is taking a
much-deserved break, and is watching a lot of television - hence, the
discussion of Tivo, a form of "personal video recorder" which records
TV programs but without tapes. Another feature of Tivo is that it incorporates
a crude form of AI in that it tries to determine what shows the end user
likes and will, on its own initiative, tape these shows. But for her, it
taped The Brady Family Reunion and a documentary on the execution
of a Nazi war criminal - neither being a show in which she had any
interest. She also discussed how she judged an ice-skating competition,
and was promptly booed by the audience (consisting mainly of pre-teens)
for giving Nancy Kerrigan a mere 9.6. [Ms. Sullivan cited the fact that
she didn't like Ms. Kerrigan's outfit, actually probably a valid criterion,
given the fact that these ice-skating competitions seem to be beauty
pageants anyway.]
Given Letterman's recent surge in popularity following his heart surgery, it's good publicity for Ms. Sullivan to be on the show. Other than that, the segment was a bit of a disappointment to many fans (including this one). All she talked about was Tivo and an ice-skating competition! But the problems are inherent in Letterman's format, which seems to require second guests to come up with amusing anecdotes rather than allowing them to discuss their careers. Interesting was when Letterman derided Tivo, stating that he likes to make all the decisions about what to watch in his home. Ms. Sullivan replied, "[t]hat's very manly of you, Dave." Funny, he didn't seem very manly when that woman who called herself "Mrs. David Letterman" [now deceased] broke into his house, and he hid in the bathroom and called the police. [Question: is a guest raising the issue of "Mrs. David Letterman" still verboten, even though she is now dead? If not, this may be a possible topic for her next Letterman appearance. If it is prohibited, it still might be a good way to upset the apple cart.] Personally, I would rather see her on a show like Later, which is one of the few network talk shows where non-A list guests are g iven thoughtful treatment. Even so, it was good to see her back on The Late Show again, after an almost two year absence.
* I hate to digress again, but how did that rumor about Julia Roberts being a surprise guest on the show get started?