This may surprise anyone who considers "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn" TV's longest running bachelor party. For 2 1/2 years, Kilborn has used his plush pulpit to root for sports teams from his home state of Minnesota, flirt with leggy blondes, and boogie to bossa nova music, although his awkward dance steps might remind you of a frat boy worried about getting sweat stains on his silk shirt. In a late-night world of nerdy neurotics hopped up on coffee, he's the cool cat in the corner, sipping on a martini. You either want to hang with him all night or throw your drink in his face.
But in his office, tucked in a corner of CBS' massive Television City Studios complex, 39-year-old Kilborn looks remarkably low-key in his white T-shirt and baseball cap, trying to select about 40 jokes he'll use on tonight's show, which will be taped in just a few hours. He whips through the sheets with a yellow highlighter, yawning every few minutes.
"Terrible. Stupid. Nothing."
Three members of his all-male writing staff are sitting in a room, listening to his rapid fire criticism and answering questions: Are three jokes about Tom Cruise's height too many? Is a joke about Phyllis Diller in a negligee too offensive? What's funnier: ferrets fighting "in my underwear" or up "in my zone"?
The big issue this afternoon is how to handle the first guest, Marlee Matlin, an Oscar winner and frequent "West Wing" guest star, who is deaf. It's the first time she'll be on the show and Kilborn and the writers don't want to cross the line, but they also don't want to be stiffs.
To make matters worse, there's a reporter in the writers' meeting, the first time an outsider has ever been invited into the session, so they're all on their best behavior-for a while.
When it comes time to prepare for "Five Questions"-the segment in which Kilborn will give Matlin his patented trivia test, the gang breaks down with some less than diplomatic suggestions:
"How do you sound when you come back from the dentist with Novocain?"
"What advice to you have for other actesses who want to be deaf and successful?"
"Try talking."
The gang erupts in laughter.
"Well, we waited 10 minutes," Kilborn says. "I can't believe we made it that long."
Of course none of these jokes will make it on the air. In fact, "The Late Late Show" is considerably more conservative than its primary competition, "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," which boasts such characters as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear.
Kilborn's show is reminiscent of "Playboy After Dark," the 1969 variety show in which Hugh Hefner played host to jazz musicians, comics, and soul singers in a fake penthouse apartment.
On any given night, Kilborn is likely to sit down at the piano with Merv Griffin for a rendition of "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" or pit basketball star Bill Walton against Playboy Playmate Victoria Silvstedt in an innocuous parlor game. His idea of a super guest is Kirk Douglas.
"I don't do oral-sex jokes," says Kilborn. "I don't like stuff that's too detailed, too graphic. I'm sick of under-the-desk intern jokes. They bore me. Guess what? I'm here to improve the taste of America!"
Self-interest
That's not the predominant perception, however. Many viewers think the former ESPN anchor is a blowhard, a self-centered jock who'll stop talking about himself only long enough to ask you what you think about him.
His image certainly wasn't helped by an Esquire article in 1998, when he was host of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. In it, he made sexual jokes about one of the show's creators-former Minneapolis comic Lizz Winstead-that lead to his suspension and prompted Winstead to quit.
While that incident has been largely forgotten, he continues to come across as a fairly vain guy, constantly checking his hair in the mirror and serving as his own announcer with over-the-top enthusium. On his office computer, the words "You're so cool, Kilby" scroll across the screen.
Then there's the fact that almost every show features a knockout female guest. For a while he featured a "Dido Countdown" to the singer's appearance on the show.
"He's not afraid to love the models," said Jeremiah Keeh, 19, a University of Minnesota student who spent part of his summer vacation driving out to Los Angeles just to see Kilborn, and wound up attending three tapings in a row. "He's got an obsession with Anna Kournikova like any guy does."
