Things that have made me a Craig Ferguson fan:

1) Jimmy Fallon’s first few months as host of Late Night.
2) The above video.

There are actually a lot of things to love about Fallon’s show. The set is classy, the focus on audience participation and internet stunts is fresh and charming, and The Roots are an impossibly cool addition to the show. (Among other things, they actually manage to make the musical guests worth watching.)

Ferguson doesn’t have any of that. His set is tiny, little more than a desk in front of a skyline backdrop, and it often feels empty — most of the time he performs totally alone, without a band or even a sidekick to fill out the space. He also can’t pull nearly the same caliber of guests — on a recent night when Fallon had Steve Martin, Paul Simon and Vanessa Williams on, Ferguson did two segments with Denis Leary, his only guest.

Despite all this, I find myself turning to CBS every night at 12:30. Ferguson seems to prepare for each show by asking himself, “How can I, personally, have as much fun as I possibly can tonight?” This makes him a tremendous amount of fun to watch — and at the end of the day, that’s the only quality that really counts in a late night talk show host. Jimmy has a lot of potential, and maybe in a few months or years he’ll hit his stride. Until then, I’ll take Ferguson’s sloppy, infectious exuberance every night of the week.