Larry "Bud" Melman Was Still Alive

Alot of people have soured on the late night talk show thang. They do the fake news thang, or the Adult Swim thang, maybe even the rerun of "Must See TV" from days gone by thang. Not me, I have DVR enough to enjoy all these colors of the rainbow. However a late night pressence even I haven't seen much of these past few years is David Letterman's charming drop in guest Larry "Bud" Melman.

I assumed the octo-generian was dead. Sadly just today that assumption has become a reality. Larry "Bud" Melman was an indicator of one of the most drastic shifts in television programing in history. In his own way a fellow like Malman paved the way for Tom Green and Grandpa Simpson. He will be missed. Seriosuly, I've been missing him for some time.

To add to my shock Larry "Bud" Melman's name is actually Calvert DeForest

Here's some classic Larry:

Larry Get's Change for a ten, in a Bear Suit:


Larry hands out hot towels at Port Authority:

Adendum To Conan's Job Post

Could the world have caught up with talk show visionary Zach Galifianakis' brilliant LAte World with Zach?Probably not but if you're banking on innovation he's the way to go.

Conan O'Brien's Job

A recent article (in Entertainment Weekly I believe though I could be wrong) suggested that Jimmy Fallen might be poised to take over Late Night when Conan moves on to the Tonight Show. Now I've heard some bad ideas but this may be Iraq-like in it's red flags. Let's pretend that Mr. Fallen was funny on SNL during his tenure...

See how hard that is? How do you expect anyone to watch that instead of going to sleep or seeing what Craig Ferguson, Adult Swim, and Comedy Central are offering?
I have a couple of suggestions for who might make an amazing host:

The Longshot

When replacing David Letterman NBC and Lorne Michaels made the interesting choice of going for an unknown who could slag in the ratings for a little while trying to find his show's voice. My Longshot suggestion is pretty much the exact opposite. Take one of our most highly regaurded cultural figures with one of the most well defined comedic voices and make the 12:30am slot an event.

Dave Chappelle's TV come back could be glorious. NBC could use the cool points and the world could use Dave Chappelle.

Traditional Stand-up Worth Trying

Patton Oswald has something alot of comedians lack; stamina. I watched Patton Oswald drunkenly and yet expertly execute one of the finest stand up sets I've ever witnessed. He would probably turn out to be a swell (if somewhat smarmy) interviewer. I am also certain that his monologue would be the best on late night.

Sure you might be apprehensive to hand over your hosting duties to a man who looks like an extra from Lord of the Rings, but looks are barely a thing when it comes to late night TV.

The Buzz Candidate

Mtv may have already scooped up Aziz Ansari for his sketch show Human Giant, but who's to sat the illure of big network bucks and attention won't lure the uber hip superbly skileld stand-up and sketch comedian. What's more he has the hip crowd in the palm of his hands.

I have a few more theories of who could work well. Obviously Andy Richter having played the sidekick role get's the Hillary Clinton style boost, I'm sure there are writers at The Onion deserving of a shot at this sort of position, Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdail who've run their weekly Invite Them Up show for years proving themselves capable of the rigors of being funny over and over again, perhaps SNL would even offer some inspired choices(Amy Poeller, Fred Armisan, the terribly popular Andy Samberg).

Anyway the point is there's a couple hundred people better suited to this job than Jimmy Fallen. Please NBC take this all into account you have a long time to make a decision. As Homer Simpson once asked: "What are you laughing at? And if you say Jimmy Fallen I'll know your lying."