Big Picture

Jessica Alba: Colorful Cab Plus, Victoria Beckham struts and Courteney Cox steals a smooch. Get the latest pics!

MORE PHOTOS +

Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.

Fashion Police

Leighton's Valentine's Look Plus, Ashlee Simpson and Cate Blanchett. Rate the highs and lows!

MORE PHOTOS +

Top Galleries

MORE PHOTOS +

Our Partners

Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.

Craig Ferguson: He's One of Us Now

Tue., Jan. 29, 2008 9:17 AM PST by Gina Serpe

Craig Ferguson is no longer just a cheeky little monkey. He's now a cheeky little American monkey.

The Late Late Show host has taken and passed—with a perfect score—his U.S. citizenship test, the Glasgow-born comic announced during Monday night's show.

"Last Friday, I took the test, the citizenship test, and it's very difficult by the way," the 47-year-old said. "All you people born here, if you had to take that test, Canada would be building a fence right now."

Ferguson, like any good late-night host, brought a camera along to the Los Angeles district office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, allowing viewers to be privy not only to his run-up to the Q&A, but his last-minute cram session with his assistant.

Among other patriotic bon mots, Ferguson dropped the knowledge that a green card is actually white—"take that, people who try to know stuff"—and that the first 10 amendments of the Constitution are known as "the Bill of Rights...or the Top 10 list."

Once inside the immigration office for his citizenship review, Ferguson, per standard practice, fielded 10 questions about the country's history and politics.

Asked if he had ever willingly given false information to a U.S. official, Ferguson said that he hadn't "in a government capacity, but if I was in a relationship with a U.S. official I might have lied."

As for his response when asked who penned the "Star-Spangled Banner": "Francis Scott Key. And Puff Daddy."

Ferguson said on his show that he will officially take the oath of citizenship sometime in the next few weeks, and while it may be good news for the Scotland native, it's perhaps bad news for one of his longest-running bits.

David Letterman's gentlemen-in-waiting has been promoting his would-be citizenship on the CBS show for several months—both before and after the strike—after a fluke joke uttered last June, in which Ferguson complimented the town of Ozark, Arkansas, on the quality of their catfish, resulted in the mayor granting the brogued one an honorary citizenship.

Not content with just the one honorific, Ferguson sought—begged for, really—and received honorary citizenships from 16,109 cities, towns and even states across the U.S., which he meticulously logged on both his show and Website.

It was only a matter of time before he nabbed the big kahuna.

Another bonus of naturalization, Ferguson found out Monday night, was greater confidence to skewer the nation's leaders, with slightly less fear of getting kicked out of the country.

Of President George W. Bush's final State of the Union speech Monday night, Ferguson said the address was "like a farewell, special edition of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"

"I'm getting cocky for someone who is not yet a citizen, aren't I?"