Quick Takes: ‘Tonight’ duel at the Emmys?
The “Tonight Show” war between Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien could surface again in this year’s Emmy Awards.
Both versions are entered for consideration as outstanding variety, music or comedy series. O’Brien left the “The Tonight Show” in January after being pushed aside when NBC decided to bring Leno back to late night.
O’Brien’s production company submitted his “Tonight Show” for Emmy consideration to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, while NBC entered Leno’s “Tonight Show” into the race. Nominations will be announced in July.
Also joining the race is BET’S “The Mo’Nique Show,” hosted by the Oscar-winning actress.
All those late-night entries face formidable competition from “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” which has won the award seven consecutive times.
—Greg Braxton and Tom O’Neil
Bowl loses its zoo parking lot
Hollywood Bowl patrons who hate bucking the notorious traffic to and from the Bowl’s parking lot won’t be able to go to the zoo this summer to avoid the zoo-like crush of cars.
Instead of the usual four shuttle lots where people can park and catch a $4 round-trip ride to the bowl, there will be just three. The freeway-friendly one at the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park will be out of commission due to construction to improve drainage, reports the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which operates the Hollywood Bowl.
Two free lots along Ventura Boulevard near Lankershim Boulevard will be operating, and Bowl-goers also can catch a Bowl shuttle at the Hollywood & Highland center, although they’ll have to pay to park in its garage.
—Mike Boehm
Bono has
back surgery
The manager of U2 said Friday that frontman Bono underwent emergency back surgery in a Munich hospital after he was injured while preparing for the group’s tour.
Band manager Paul McGuinness, in an Mp3 posted on the website, said that because of the injury, the band’s “360-Degree” June 3 show in Salt Lake City has been postponed. It was not immediately clear if other dates also were canceled.
—Associated Press
Simon pairing on Old Globe slate
The 2010-11 winter season at the Old Globe in San Diego will open Sept. 14 with Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Broadway Bound” presented in repertory on the mainstage.
Executive producer Lou Spisto knows this pairing — albeit made up of different productions than the Globe’s — didn’t fare well last year in New York, where “Brighton Beach” closed after a week and “Broadway Bound” was canceled before it opened.
“We have to remember the first productions of these shows ran for years,” he says. “And we think in San Diego audiences will respond to them, based on how they’ve responded in the past.”
Other mainstage productions will include the West Coast premiere of Ayub Khan-Din’s comedy “Rafta, Rafta...” and Tracy Letts’ Tony- and Pulitzer-winning “August: Osage County.”
The season at the Globe’s second stage will open Sept. 25 with the hip-hop drama “Welcome to Arroyo’s” by Kristoffer Diaz, to be followed by Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” Ian Bruce’s South African thriller “Groundswell” and the U.S. premiere of Alan Ayckbourn’s oddball comedy “Life of Riley.”
—Karen Wada
Bret Michaels suffers setback
Former Poison frontman Bret Michaels is receiving outpatient care after being hospitalized for what doctors called a warning stroke. His publicist, Joann Mignano, gave no other details Friday.
Mignano previously confirmed that Michaels had been diagnosed with a patent foramen ovale, or hole in the heart. Doctors said the condition is operable and treatable and likely unrelated to the brain hemorrhage he suffered last month.
The 47-year-old rocker and TV reality star was hospitalized this week after experiencing numbness on the left side of his body, particularly in his face and hands.
—Associated Press
‘NewsHour’ veteran exiting
Veteran television producer Lester Crystal, who expanded the “MacNeil/Lehrer Report” into the first hourlong television newscast, will step down from his post as president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions at the end of August.
Crystal served as executive producer of “NBC Nightly News” and president of NBC News before being tapped in 1983 to produce the newscast now known as “PBS NewsHour.” He will stay on with the company as a senior advisor until the end of the year.
—Matea Gold
