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2/2: Martin Short (comedian & author – promoting book “I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend”) 2/3: Bill Browder (author – promoting book “Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice”) 2/4: Wes Moore (author – promoting book “The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters”) 2/5: Bob Odenkirk (actor – promoting TV show “Better Call Saul”)

Tu 1/27: Jim Norton, John Roy, Kurt Braunohler We 1/28: Moshe Kasher, Michelle Wolf, Nikki Glaser Th 1/29: Jason Sklar, Randy Sklar, Matt Walsh Mo 2/2: Nick Kroll, Jon Daly, Seth Morris Tu 2/3: Jesse Joyce, Sarah Tiana, Roy Wood Jr. We 2/4: Matt Braunger, Sara Schaefer, Maz Jobrani Th 2/5: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi (is this going to be an all-Kiwis episode?) Mo 2/9: Greg Proops Tu 2/10: Judah Friedlander, Barry Rothbart We 2/11: Lauren Cohan, Robert Kirkman, Josh McDermitt

"I used to talk for 2 minutes at the top of the show. Lately it's been 4." Well, on a 21-minute show, that extra 2 minutes DOES seem like a lot more time. I wish they'd go back to the shorter segment because I want to see more of the comedians. (OK, maybe Chris can take some extra time when the Sklar brothers are on...) I do feel that it's perfectly fine for the show to be "with Chris Hardwick" since it's in line with "The Daily" and "Nightly" shows. Now, if you want to talk about ego, there's Jimmy Fallon, changing "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" to "The Tonight Show STARRING Jimmy Fallon" after he took over.

Rupert Murdoch hates Mitt Romney. If Fox News goes guns a'blazing against him, there's no way on earth that he will come anywhere close to getting the nomination. Personally, I SO want Trump and Palin to make it as far as the debates (the first one is coming up in August!) just for the side-splitting "Daily Show" content it will generate.

From today's Comedy Central press release: TONIGHT: Judy Gold and Dr. Holly Phillips - Discussing the anti-vaccination debate Does this mean there will only be 2 people? That would be interesting, and prove that this young show is not tied into a rigid formula. Dr. Phillips is is a medical contributor for CBS News, and Judy Gold is a comedian. When I heard tonight's topic was going to be vaccination, I wondered if there would be an anti-vaxxer on, but I can't imagine either of those people are anti-vax.

What's ironic about that is the Republicans have a longstanding talking point about how overly reliant Obama is on teleprompters. You almost have to wonder if there was a Democratic mole in there sabotaging Palin's prompter. (According to this article, "there have been several reports of broken teleprompters during Palin speeches.") I think most of those Republican crazies would have been OK without it, but Palin? She really did seem like she was on something. Since the snowstorm in NYC wasn't as bad as anticipated, I assume it'll be business as usual tonight.

"Live with Kelly and Michael" sent out a press release a couple hours ago that they've scheduled a rerun for tomorrow morning. I assume tonight's TDS is already in the can, but we'll see what happens tomorrow. Doesn't Jon live in the suburbs now? It might be harder for him to get in & out of the city, unless he decides to stay over (I seem to recall seeing that he'd sold his place in Tribeca, but maybe he kept a smaller pied a terre just in case). Tuesday's guest, author Jill Leovy, was on "Fresh Air" today. The book sounds really interesting, so I hope she makes it to the studio!

According to Twitter, it's on. The travel ban goes into effect at 11 PM and I assume TNS has already taped by now. We'll see what happens tomorrow...

Preview of tomorrow night, from Twitter:

Don't know if anyone else is on Comedy Central's mailing list for surveys, but I received one today about TNS. There were some questions about the structure of the show and I put in a big plug for a smaller panel. There was also a long list of adjectives (positive and negative) and you were supposed to pick the ones you felt applied to Larry and then applied to the show. At the end, there was a question about whether you'd like to receive future surveys about "TNS," and I said yes... so I guess they are soliciting feedback from their most loyal viewers. It would be interesting to see the results. If they do go to a smaller panel, I'll feel vindicated!

Charles Schulz was a Met Life policy holder for decades, according to this article. He also allowed Ford to use the Peanuts character in a commercial because he was a Ford driver, as his father had been before him. After Schulz's death, I suspect his heirs like the fact that Met Life's use of the characters keep them in the public eye.

Or, God help us, Herman Cain. I hope he runs again just to see what TNS does with regard to his candidacy. He practically became a featured player on TDS during and immediately after his campaign -- John Oliver interviewed him numerous times. I think Colbert had some fun with him as well. Re: Amy Holmes, the fact that she was hand-picked by Glenn Beck tells you everything you need to know.

I think the second episode was much better. Anyone who thought Larry was going to be all "on the one hand, on the other hand" found out quickly that "TNS" is not gonna bring the false equivalency. He stated his bias in the first 30 seconds of the show. But I agree that the panel NEEDS to shrink -- even Bill Maher only has 3 panelists participating during most of his hour long show, and God knows there's still too much crosstalk. Baratunde Thurston, who is hilarious and spot-on about so many things, got the short shrift last night. He should have been placed on a different panel (and hopefully he'll be back soon). Edited to add tonight's guests: Jon Lovett, David Remnick, Amy Holmes, and Godfrey

I alluded to this in the first post in this thread, but one of the reasons Mike Huckabee may be fat again is because his former position -- you can lose weight by eating healthier foods and exercising! -- is not only extremely difficult (as Sharpie66 pointed out), but since his diet book was published, many right wingers feel that "healthy lifestyles" are now Democratic values and thus bad. Look at all the Fox News ranting about Michelle Obama and how she allegedly wants to separate Americans from their "grits and gravy" (to quote the title of Huck's new book). There was an astute article about this in the NY Times:

1/26: Julian Castro (Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) 1/27: Jill Leovy (author – promoting book “Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America”) 1/28: Oscar Isaac (actor – promoting movie “A Most Violent Year”) 1/29: Sarah Chayes (author – promoting book “Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security”)

I paused the DVR when Larry was holding up the tea bags and they appear to be branded with a "Nightly Show" tag!!! As a diehard tea drinker, I would love to get a "TNS" custom tea bag. Tonight's panel guests, according to the show's Twitter feed, are Kathleen Madigan, Keith Robinson, Baratunde Thurston and Jamilah Lemieux.

Ugh, his point about "Cat Scratch Fever" being a song geared to adults vs. Beyonce's status as a "role model" for young women was SO ridiculous and disingenuous. I grew up in Michigan, Nugent's home state, and that song was played on the radio a lot when I was a kid. It's not like it was restricted to the evening hours. Also, you can't compare what the culture is like now vs. what it was like in the pre-social media, pre-cable/on-demand world when we had much less 24/7 access to celebrities. If Instagram had been around in the 70s I'm sure Ted would have been right there posting photos of groupies and dead animals.

Ha, yeah, I noticed that too and hope future panels will have more women participating. I'm another huge "Totally Biased" fan so I suppose in an ideal world, "TNS" would have a little more of that show's edge, but I've enjoyed Larry's segments on "TDS" so much that I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and continue to watch. Plus seeing the old set kind of made me miss Colbert all over again.

Thursday's TBA has been filled in and I think "Archer" fans are going to be happy... Th 1/22: Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell, Judy Greer

Can we put upcoming panelist info here? Comedy Central just issued a press release announcing who's going to be on Monday's show...

A few more changes/additions... We 1/14: Ari Shaffir, Nick Swardson, Rob Riggle Th 1/15: Whitney Cummings, Neal Brennan, Jeff Ross Mo 1/19: Patton Oswalt, Kyle Kinane, Pete Holmes Tu 1/20: Nick Thune, Ben Kronberg, Ali Wong We 1/21: Rory Scovel, Emily Heller, Rene Gube Th 1/22: TBA Mo 1/26: Ken Marino, John Gemberling, Tymberlee Hill Tu 1/27: Jim Norton, John Roy, Kurt Braunohler We 1/28: Moshe Kasher Th 1/29: Jason Sklar, Randy Sklar, Matt Walsh Mo 2/2: Nick Kroll, Jon Daly, Seth Morris Tu 2/3: TBA We 2/4: Matt Braunger, Sara Schaefer

You live there and I don't, so I bow to your hard-won experience on all things Floridian. I will admit that my parents live in an enclave of mostly transplanted New Yorkers and Canadians, so I haven't experienced the hinterlands. The Obamacare nomenclature confuses me a bit because I KNOW I have heard Obama himself refer to "Obamacare" on multiple occasions (here's a speech I found from 2013 where he says "Obamacare" a dozen times, and he's NOT just quoting the Republicans). I've also seen "Obamacare" used by other Democrats interchangeably with "Affordable Care Act," which leads me to believe the Obamacare label must test well on some level, because I can't imagine they would use it if focus groups said it was a nonstarter. (Yes, I assume everything in modern day politics is focus group tested.) I honestly think an entire book could be written on that subject alone.

I only wish he could have booked Jennifer Lawrence and Jennifer Garner in place of Huckabee and Hathaway so we could have had an entire week of just Jennifers. (Or how about the fab Jennifer Finney Boylan?)

Nice article about TNS from New York Magazine's Vulture.com.