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The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, May 19, 2017 4 By Kyla Brewer TV Media N avigating through Los Angeles traffic may seem like the least like- ly situation in which to find joy, but one of late night's big- gest stars has managed to do just that, thanks to music. Fa- mous figures belt out tunes as James Corden takes the wheel in his popular late-night seg- ment "Carpool Karaoke," which has become enormous- ly popular both in his show, "The Late Late Show With James Corden," and on YouTube. For anyone who hasn't ex- perienced the fun in the car- pool lane, Corden presents an all-new segment in "The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special 2017," pre- miering Monday, May 22, on CBS. In addition to Corden's favorite "Late Late Show" mo- ments, the one-hour special also includes Toddlerography, which features celebs trying to follow routines choreo- graphed by toddler instructors. This marks the second such prime-time special — last year's edition won an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Spe- cial, and plans for a stand- alone series are in the works. "The joy of 'Carpool' is the intimacy it creates, and seeing the love our passengers have for music," explained Ben Winston, executive producer of "The Late Late Show With James Corden" when news of a "Carpool Karaoke" series was announced. Inspired by a "Gavin & Stac- ey" sketch he'd performed with George Michael in 2011, the "Carpool Karaoke" bits have been a hit from the very first one, which featured Cord- en with Mariah Carey in March 2015. Other stars who've ridden shotgun with Corden include Bruno Mars, Jennifer Hudson, Justin Bieber, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Lopez, Michelle Obama with Missy Elliot, Britney Spears, Madon- na and Lady Gaga, among others. The edition featuring Adele has garnered the most attention so far, going viral with 42 million views within five days. The clip has earned more than 155 million views and is still climbing. Those are impressive stats, but even more impressive was the story of how Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis helped save a baby's life dur- ing the filming of the band's "Carpool Karaoke" segment. As the story goes, following an unaired dance-off, Kiedis and the other band members no- ticed a woman clutching her baby, saying she couldn't breathe, so they rushed to them to see if they could help. In an interview with Chris Moyles on Radio X, the singer recounted how he rubbed the baby's belly for a short while before the ambulance arrived, which appeared to help get the tyke breathing again. With mind-boggling You- Tube hits and tales of life-sav- ing frontmen, Corden's "Car- pool Karaoke" was bound to land a regular series order eventually, and it has. In July, it was announced that Apple had inked a deal to offer a 16- episode series to its subscrib- ers, making it Apple Music's first show. While it may not al- ways be Corden at the wheel in the stand-alone version, as an official host hasn't been announced, some of the celeb- rities slated to appear in the series include John Legend, Alicia Keys, Blake Shelton and members of Metallica, who sing along to songs from their own playlists. A preview also shows a clip of Corden with actor and rapper Will Smith ("Ali," 2001). Sadly for fans, the series edition of the late-night sketch has been delayed. The show had been scheduled to be re- leased to Apple subscribers in April, but that month it was announced the show would be available later in the year. No reason was given for the postponement. Regardless of when it pre- mieres, given the popularity of the "The Late Late Show's" comedy segment, it has a lot of potential. Nor is it the first series to be inspired by late- night fun. Trendsetter Jimmy Fallon got the party started with his "Lip Sync Battle" sketches, which feature two celebrities who go head-to- head in epic lip sync competi- tions. They began in "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" af- ter creators John Krasinski ("The Office") and Stephen Merchant ("Extras") came up with the idea in anticipation of Krasinski's appearance on the show. The battles take place occasionally in "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," and also in an uber-popular prime-time series, which airs Thursday nights on Spike TV. "Carpool Karaoke" is also not the first show to take place almost exclusively in cars. Jer- ry Seinfeld ("Seinfeld") has been filming conversations between himself and fellow comedians in his web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" since 2012, when the show premiered on the digital network Crackle. Now in its ninth season, the show will move to Netflix next season. Seinfeld's series, however, was hardly the first show to hit the road. The U.K. game show "Cash Cab," which gives un- suspecting passengers the op- portunity to win money by an- swering trivia questions, pre- dates Seinfeld's "Comedians," having premiered in 2005. It has since been licensed to sev- eral other countries across the globe. Another Spike TV series mixes elements of Corden's "Carpool Karaoke" and "Cash Cab." Craig Robinson hosts "Caraoke Showdown," which challenges passengers to sing their favorite songs, finish lyr- ics or act out songs for the chance to win cash. coverstory Bruno Mars and James Corden as seen in "Carpool Karaoke" Fun in the fast lane: James Corden presents 'Carpool Karaoke' special By Adam Thomlison TV Media Q: Who does the voice in the "NCIS: New Orleans" theme song? It sounds to me like Scott Bakula. I have read that he is musical, and he appears to be playing pi- ano in some shows. A: "NCIS: New Orleans" star Scott Bakula is indeed a musi- cian in his own right, but nonetheless they farmed out the intro work to Colorado-based blues band Big Head Todd and the Monsters. The song isn't theirs, though. It's the blues classic "Boom Boom" by the late, great John Lee Hooker. That's the regional connection — Hooker was born in neighboring Mississippi, and is known for helping to update and popularize the Delta blues genre. Bakula certainly could have done it, though. He has a musi- cal theater background (he was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in the musical "Romance/Romance" in 1988), and he does play piano occasionally in the show. He said in an in- terview with "CBS This Morning" — back when he had to work to promote the show, before it became yet another fran- chise smash hit — that the fact that the show actually shoots in New Orleans is inspiring for him. "As a musician, to be in the place where jazz was born, around that environment, is breathtaking to me, all the time." Q: I'm really enjoying the new season of "Archer" for its classic film-noir style. Is the story a reference to any particular old movie? A: As is usual with "Archer," the cultural references are wide-ranging and frequent, and it seems the show's writers could never commit themselves to just one. But it's interesting to watch them restrict themselves to era-appropriate jokes. "Archer: Dreamland" is the eighth season of the animated comedy series. The basic plot is that the show's titular main character is in a coma and dreaming that he's a private detec- tive in the 1940s. The show leads with a fairly obvious main reference: The plot begins when Archer realizes that his partner has been murdered, which automatically reminds noir buffs of Sam Spade in the classic film (and novel) "The Maltese Falcon." The next most obvious one is the character Charlotte Vandertunt (who is the dreamworld version of the regular Cheryl character), who is herself a reference to the Vanderbilts, who made their money in railroads (like Cheryl in the future world). In the dreamworld, she's a publishing heiress, which seems to be a reference to the Hearst family. Indeed, in the sec- ond episode she says that her father "started the Spanish- American war," an accusation that has been directed at the real William Randolph Hearst. It goes on from there. See, for example, Archer's throwaway line to Lana that "1933 called, they want their gold digger back." He's always delivered lines like these so fast and fre- quently that they can go over a viewer's head, which is why it's so impressive that the writers took the time to pick appropri- ate ones. It's a reference to the Busby Berkeley musical "Gold Diggers of 1933," about aspiring actresses, which featured the classic song "We're in the Money." 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