Ron James, Air Farce and Stooges A Perfect New Year‘s Party

It‘s always good to spend New Year`s Eve with friends and that‘s how CBC has set things up tonight.
End of the year specials featuring The Royal Canadian Air Farce and Ron James get things rolling at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. (the Air Farce special repeats at midnight). Spoke with James earlier this week and he was in a reflective mood as he wound down a very hectic year where he launched his CBC series, hosted the Geminis and continued to criss-cross Canada on live comedy tours. He‘ll be watching tonight‘s special from his brother-in-law‘s newly renovated rec room in Halifax. Read the full story here in today‘s Toronto Star.
The return of the Air Farce (featuring Craig Lauzon, special Battle of the Blades guests Craig Simpson and Jamie Sale and Roger Abbott, right) meant another chance to go down to the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto and see six of the seven-member troupe perform one more time live (seventh trouper Jessica Holmes had to skip the reunion due to her on-going Robin Hood panto commitment). Caught up with Abbott on the phone a few days after the taping and got the scoop on the challenge of remounting a show after all the props, costumes and staffers were scattered to the four corners when Air Farce disbanded one year ago.
Read the Air Farce New Year‘s Eve special report in the story I filed last week for The Canadian Press picked up here at MacLeans.ca.
There are the other usual New Year‘s Eve TV diversions on tonight, including NBC’s New Year’s Eve with Carson Daly (10-11 p.m. and 11:35 p.m., NBC), Dick Clark‘s New Year’s Rockin‘ Eve, hosted by Ryan Seacrest, on ABC starting at 11 and Billboard’s New Year’s Eve Live (Dec. 31, 11 p.m., Fox), which counts down the Top 10 hits of 2009 in music, movies and television, live from New York and Las Vegas.
Citytv`s 25th annual New Year’s Eve Bash begins at Nathan Phillips Square starting at 10 p.m. Rock of Ages, Kardinal Offishall, Karl Wolf and Jarvis Church are among the performers.
Beyond that, could there be a more fitting way to close out 2009 than with a Three Stooges marathon? AMC has classic Stooges shorts running all day and night until 12:35 a.m. New Year‘s morning. Watch ‘em or I‘ll squeeze the cider out of your Adam‘s apple! Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!