It's Lights Out for Craig Ferguson

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by Gina Serpe | Wed., Oct. 28, 2009 7:30 AM

Nothing like a little natural disaster to bring out the funny.

As high-powered winds wreaked havoc in Los Angeles last night, the lights in Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show studio suddenly went pitch-black during the last few seconds of his interview with Alicia Silverstone—to the surprise of host, guest and stagehands and, thanks to the quick-thinking Ferguson, the amusement of viewers.

"Oh!" the suddenly faceless Ferguson cried out. "Oooh, it's getting close to Halloween. This is awesome. We've gone to radio, everybody!"

When prompted by a producer to "keep going" for the last few seconds before the commercial break, Ferguson had a hard time grasping the notion, but like any obliging cheeky monkey, did as he was told.

"Keep going, keep going what? Keep going?! We'll be right back, everybody."

The power managed to come back for Ferguson's second interview, with Salman Rushdie (not even a force of nature would dare come between a man and his fatwa), but conked back out by the end of the show.

Not that that put a crimp in the enterprising (and flashlight-possessing) host's late-night denouement...

"There's a power outage in the whole building—look, look," he said, before finding the proverbial bright side of things.

"But you know why it's awesome, it's kind of like one of these movies that makes a billion, kazillion dollars now," he said, giving the camera a bit of his best Blair Witch.

"You know what I think is worrying? Let's be honest, the lighting has slightly improved."

As Ferguson fans would agree, so did the comedy.

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Unless you've been living under a rock (or in a power outage of your own) you know that Craig's not been the only late-night host to make headlines lately. Find out who's bashing Letterman now.