Dave is excited to have Terrell Owens on the show tonight. Dave wants to share his idea on how to make football more exciting. Each team, once a quarter, gets to hold up two fingers. This signals to the ref that it’s time for the “2 Plays Simultaneously” rule. How this works is for one play, the offensive team gets to use two balls and run two plays simultaneously. The backup quarterback joins the offense and the 2 balls are snapped at the same time. The offense can run two running plays, two pass plays, or a run and a pass. Which ever play gains the most yardage, that’s the play the offense takes. Again, only once per team per quarter. Dave is hoping Terrell Owens can bring this up to Football commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

Did you hear the Head of NASA is resigning? Dave saw the announcement earlier today.

“After several exciting years as the head of NASA, Sean O’Keefe is resigning. Mr. O’Keefe has accepted a challenging new position as Minister of Intergalactic Travel for the Zardexian race of Alpha Centauri. We wish Mr. O’Keefe the best of luck in his new job.
A Message from NASA.”

The Aviator opened today, starring Leonardo Dicaprio. It was directed by Martin Scorcese and Dave fears that he may be trying too hard to evoke Leonardo’s character in Titanic. Dave shows a clip to show what he means.

It’s Shecky footage! It’s an old black and white clip of a guy wing-walking on a biplane. We hear Leo’s voice, “I’m king of the world!”

To rev up the audience, Dave announces that everyone in the audience tonight will be receiving a gift from under the LATE SHOW Christmas Tree.

WHAT’S ON TELEVISION?
Everybody Loves Raymond – clinic informs everyone who’s been loving Raymond to start taking penicillin.
NYPD Blue – Detectives give all the cases to CSI: New York people, then go on vacation.

Dave takes a moment – “Can you imagine how exciting it would be to see 2 plays at the same time!” Dave’s favorite play in football? The point-after-touchdown.

Joey – Joey calls cops when an unemployed David Schwimmer won’t leave his stoop.

Dave takes a moment, turning to Paul, and says, “You get the feeling we’re outsourcing the material?”

JAG – Jag and his father, Jag Senior, argue over who’s jaggier.
Lost – Weeks after they’re marooned on an island by a plane crash, the survivors’ luggage finally arrives.
Two and a Half Men – Due to a favorable conversion rate, special Canadian episode "Four and Five-Eights Men”
The Apprentice – Oh, just a guess – tells some crazy, bitchy woman, “You’re fired.”

If that’s what’s on television, I think I’ll be reading a book instead.

WILL IT FLOAT? Dave shows off the home game, a perfect stocking stuffer . . . if you have very odd shaped feet. And what are we playing for tonight? Alan announces with vigor, “It’s a cheese log!”
Dave is not pleased. He asked for what we are playing for tonight, not what is tonight’s item.
Dave asks again, “What are we playing for?” Again, Alan bellows, “It’s a cheese log!”
An exasperated Dave gives up and asks, “OK, what is tonight’s Will It Float item?”
Alan whisper, “Dave, it’s a cheese log.”
Now what is going on? What is tonight’s item? A cheese log. And what are we playing for? A cheese log. Dave asks Alan to pick something else that we’ll be playing for. I “Played the Alan” and won. I said “Dave, it’s a brand new monkey!” I wasn’t the only one playing the Alan as the control room had the monkey flash ready to go.

So what happened? Dave and Paul are not told beforehand what the Will It Float? item is. Nor are they told what we are playing for. Tonight, we decided to make the Float item and what we are playing for the same item; a cheese log. It was thought that this would be amusing. Dave thought Alan was screwing up, or somebody was screwing up, when he kept saying “cheese log.” The result was chaotic fun.

JEFF GOLDBLUM: Jeff is a big football fan, having grown up in the Pittsburgh area. Dave runs his “Simultaneous Football Play” by Jeff for his reaction. Jeff doesn’t buy into it as enthusiastically as Dave had hoped. In fact, Jeff looks at Dave with puzzlement and says, “What’s the matter with you? That’s . . . that’s crazy.” Dave doesn’t give up. Like an ace salesman, Dave continues to express all the entertaining possibilities of his dream. Jeff works hard at trying to find some merit to the idea and weakly offers that two plays at once may be OK “ . . . . for fun . . . . for a charity event, perhaps.” Dave is satisfied with at least that much progress in turning Jeff to his side.

Jeff is newly married and he and his wife are contemplating starting a family. He has two names picked out: Rio is it’s a boy. Charlie if it’s a girl. Jeff likes “Charlie” for a girl. He adds, though, “unless she has a mustache. You don’t want her named ‘Charlie’ if she has a mustache. You would want a more feminine name to counterbalance the mustache.” Dave says, “If she has a mustache, no name in the world would be able to offset the mustache.”

You can see Jeff in the film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It opens nationwide on Christmas day.

TERRELL OWENS: He’s the all-star wide receiver for the NFC East champs, Philadelphia Eagles. He came over from San Francisco in the off-season and Terrell has become the big play player the powerful Eagles have been looking for to finally take them to the Super Bowl.

Dave asks about the summer double sessions. Are they as hard as we are led to believe? Terrell says they are and he’s been tempted at times to “do the Ricky Williams.” Dave laughs, confiding to Terrell about Dolphins former running back, “Rumor is he would rather spend his time smoking dope.” Ricky Williams is/was the high-priced running back for the Miami Dolphins who decided to quit just before the season, hinting he would rather smoke the Mary Jane than play football. Dave wonders how he, Dave, would fare if he played in an NFL game. “What if I came into play in an NFL game? Is it likely I would be killed?” Terrell says if Dave did play in a game, he would suggest he be only a decoy. When pressed, Terrell says an NFL game “wouldn’t kill you, but you would have to be taken off on a cart.”

Does Terrell have any enemies in the league? He says he doesn’t, but some guys have a problem with him.

And what’s will all the over-the-top, choreographed celebrations after a touchdown or big play? Terrell says he does it for fun and tries to think of something new each week. He gets lots of help from his teammates. I’m pretty sure his opponents have some suggestions as to what he can do with his celebrations.

To close, Terrell says some very nice words about his grandmother, the woman who raised him growing up.

Act 5: Now it’s time for a LATE SHOW Announcement.

“Earlier in the program, Dave promised to hand out free gifts to the audience. Late Show Production Accountant Joe DeGeorge has unfortunately decided tonight’s comedy was too costly. As a result you will receive nothing.”
This has been a LATE SHOW announcement.

Dang it! I really wanted to build up a good dislike for Terrell Owens, but after the interview, I ended up kind of liking him. I hate when that happens. I wanted him to be a bad guy so it would be easy to root against him and the Eagles. Now, I’m not so sure.

I hate to admit it, but Dave is close to convincing me that his “Two Football Simultaneously” idea is a good idea. The more I think of it, the more I’m leaning towards it being greatly entertaining. Maybe it should be implemented during a tie game following overtime, sort of like deciding a World Cup soccer game on penalty kicks. If after an overtime period and the two football teams are still tied, have them play the entire next overtime period with two balls. I would amend the rules so each team gets a chance to score. I wouldn’t make is sudden death. I’m sure Bud Selig and baseball would do it if it could make the owners another nickel. Football, maybe not.

Sorry this is brief. I’m going out all day Friday to do a shoot. I’m Santa.