{"id":465951,"date":"2026-05-29T11:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T11:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/465951\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T11:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T11:01:09","slug":"in-american-on-purpose-craig-ferguson-celebrates-americas-unusualness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/465951\/","title":{"rendered":"In ‘American on Purpose,’ Craig Ferguson celebrates America’s unusualness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Craig Ferguson left CBS\u2019 \u201cThe Late Late Show\u201d in December 2014, fulfilling a pledge made public the previous April, it was assumed by some that it had something to do with not being offered the chair being vacated by his illustrious lead-in, David Letterman. (Stephen Colbert<\/a>, you may be aware, was named the new \u201cLate Show\u201d host.) Others simply couldn\u2019t believe anyone would just walk away from such a job<\/a>, which Ferguson had held for two weeks shy of 10 years, because, even in the less prestigious 12:30 time slot it seemed like a prize \u2014 but mostly because he was so good at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the odd things about that particular genre of television,\u201d he told me in 2016.<\/a> \u201cThe minute I started at 12:30, the question became when and do you want and how are you going to get 11:30? But I never wanted 12:30, never mind 11:30. Why is that a thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferguson went on to other things. He\u2019s hosted game shows (currently the CW\u2019s \u201cScrabble,\u201d with puckish energy); toured as a stand-up (he\u2019s on the road into June); hosted a history-themed panel show, \u201cCraig Ferguson: Join or Die\u201d<\/a>; launched \u201cJoy, a Podcast,\u201d which is as close as he\u2019s come to the confessional freestyling of \u201cThe Late Late Show\u201d; and published \u201cRiding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations & Observations.\u201d<\/p>\n

His latest show, premiering Saturday on CNN, is \u201cAmerican on Purpose,\u201d which shares a title with his first memoir, a reference to the Scottish-born Ferguson becoming an American citizen. Timed generally to the 250th anniversary of the United States, it finds Ferguson in a five-episode crazy quilt of observations, interviews, inquiries, stunts, games and documentary vignettes forming a comical, but not unserious, somewhat wayward look at American ideas and ideals \u2014 freedom of speech, capitalism, patriotism, individualism and immigration. It\u2019s a vision wide enough to include monster trucks, lowriders, underground comedy, Miami street art, Texas barbecue and haggis tacos, dreamed up by Ferguson and executed by celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Ferguson, a Scotsman, having haggis tacos on \u201cAmerican on Purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

(CNN)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know me,\u201d Ferguson said when we spoke over video call recently. \u201cLess format is better for me always.\u201d<\/p>\n

His caveat to the producers was that he wouldn\u2019t \u201cmake an anti-American show. I wouldn\u2019t make a show pointing out everything that\u2019s wrong. I feel that\u2019s a market that\u2019s heavily catered to. I\u2019m not a f\u2014ing idiot, I\u2019m not making propaganda, I won\u2019t make a jingoistic show. But I want to make a show which is celebratory,\u201d Ferguson says. \u201cAnd I want to be clear that the show I make for CNN will be the same as if I was making it for Fox News. It has to be my point of view, which is upbeat without being dumb \u2014 I hope. I feel like we got pretty close.\u201d This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.<\/p>\n

A good friend of mine, an Englishman, recently became an American citizen and had only wonderful things to say about the naturalization ceremony, the diversity of his fellow new Americans, and the graciousness of the people conducting it. What was your experience?<\/p>\n

My ceremony was in Pomona fairgrounds in 2008. And I think it was 2,000 of us; I think it was 1,999 new Mexican Americans and one new Scottish American. And it was f\u2014ing wonderful. And it is moving. I kind of wish it for my friends who are born here, American citizens, because you have to remove your everyday, \u201cOh my God, did you see the news today\u201d cynicism, and remember what this place is about \u2014 freedom, second chances, third chances, escape, representation, individualism, different ideas coexisting in one country, wildly different points of view somehow managing to get along. That is f\u2014ing beautiful. What I still feel as an immigrant American is a certain gratitude that doesn\u2019t leave you. I\u2019m not blind to the faults of the United States. Show me a country that doesn\u2019t have faults. We talk about the bloody past. Show me a country that doesn\u2019t have a bloody past. Humans have a bloody past. I\u2019m not saying there\u2019s nothing wrong, but I\u2019m not looking at that in this show. I\u2019m looking at what makes me feel great about this place, and it is a great place, an aspirational place. To my mind, we are still the big foam finger number one. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anyone can touch us for \u2026 unusualness. We\u2019re really unusual.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very optimistic show. Is that how you feel personally about the future of the country, and humanity?<\/p>\n

Like most people, I have my moods. I got a real boost of optimism [hanging out] with very clever academics who kind of guard the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. And you say to them, \u201cPeople say the country\u2019s never been this divided.\u201d They always laugh. They laugh at the idea it\u2019s never been as bad as this, the rhetoric has never been this hateful. They\u2019re like, \u201cIt\u2019s always been like this. It\u2019s always been an argument. The whole point of this place is that it is an argument.\u201d The guys who started this country, some of them hated each other with just as much venom and outrage and indignance as political players hate each other today. I find that quite encouraging. Like I said, I\u2019m not blind to the fact that there are issues and faults and deep things to worry about. But that\u2019s not what this show\u2019s about. It\u2019s as if I was a musician, and I decided to write a happy song. People say, \u201cWhy aren\u2019t you sad?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWell, I get that sometimes, but this song is a happy song, this is a rock song. I\u2019ll do a power ballad later on.\u201d It\u2019s not terrible to to do something upbeat every now and again.<\/p>\n

What did you discover in the course of making the show?<\/p>\n

There were many things, actually. In L.A., I did a kind of run around with the guys who make the lowrider cars, and the community and the story of how that came about are really fascinating, a kind of parallel run of the rise of the automobile in America, but how it was taken on by the Mexican culture. Another that really stuck with me was in the Everglades, when I was with the Gladesman there, finding out that a large percentage of them [were descended from] displaced Scottish peasants, cleared out of the Highlands to make room for sheep for the landowners; they went to Canada, and they drifted all the way down to the southern tip of the United States. These guys there could trace their ancestry back to 100 miles from where I grew up. Americans would be kicked out of most of the countries of the world. So it makes us awesome. I mean, 40% of this country can trace themselves through Ellis Island, through that administration building in New York. That\u2019s insane.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Ferguson at Venice Beach in a segment on the show.<\/p>\n

(CNN)<\/p>\n

When did you get interested in history?<\/p>\n

In Scotland, we\u2019re surrounded by it all the time. There\u2019s a lot of stuff still lying around from a long time ago. American history became interesting to me because it was so attached to Scotland. The Scottish Enlightenment is really kind of the origin story of the Declaration of Independence. Knowing that the philosophy that was coming out of Edinburgh in the 1700s was directly feeding into what these guys were doing, it felt like the continuation of a certain strain of Scottish history. It didn\u2019t end with \u201cHighlander\u201d or \u201cShrek.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a road movie element to the series. Do you take trips around the country on your own time?<\/p>\n

All the time. I don\u2019t think you can know the United States unless you\u2019ve driven across it at least a couple of times. If you can take a car from New Orleans to Northeastern Maine, Florida to Washington state, it\u2019s worth doing. One of the things that was in the engine for me when I started this [series] was, I\u2019ve seen over the years a lot of \u2014 probably more in Britain than in America \u2014 lazy kind of pseudo-intellectual documentaries where somebody will say, \u201cWell, you know, the thing about America is\u2026\u201d Well, which America are you talking about? And they will go and get some guy that lives on his boat in Fort Lauderdale with a hat that\u2019s got \u201cWho Farted?\u201d written on it and tell you that\u2019s America. That guy\u2019s there and he\u2019s awesome, but it\u2019s not the whole story. You know what I mean? It\u2019s like saying \u201cWell, you know, Hitler was a vegetarian.\u201d That\u2019s true, he was. But it\u2019s not really the whole f\u2014ing story, is it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Craig Ferguson left CBS\u2019 \u201cThe Late Late Show\u201d in December 2014, fulfilling a pledge made public the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3760,5960,216691,12987,134322,146,185100,85,46,2023,216692,1266,51477,35334,9475,762,1032,216693],"class_list":["post-465951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-america","tag-american","tag-anti-american-show","tag-country","tag-craig-ferguson","tag-entertainment","tag-guy","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-kind","tag-late-late-show","tag-people","tag-place","tag-purpose","tag-thing","tag-time","tag-united-states","tag-unusualness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}