Caan: NBC Sacrificed "Las Vegas" for the NFL

On this week's episode of "The Strip," actor James Caan confirmed a long-held suspicion of mine that the doom of the successful TV soap "Las Vegas" was the move to Friday nights to sate the NFL. NBC had just paid big bucks for Sunday Night Football, but the NFL nonetheless managed to bar the not-so-mighty network from promoting the show during Sunday's games.

"Their thoughts were that we’re not allowed to even mention Las Vegas according to the NFL," Caan told me. "Like God forbid somebody should gamble. I mean, I didn’t know that people gamble on football! So they put a show there they could promote, Sunday night for Monday and moved us to Friday, which is like a death sentence."

There's much more in that interview, including Caan's complaints about the creative problems with the show and his explanation for why he appeared on it in the first place. Plus, he disses his own new film, "Get Smart," and he offers his thoughts on "Honeymoon in Vegas" co-star Sarah Jessica Parker's status as a star.

Click here to hear it or right-click here to download the show and listen whenever you want. Or subscribe via iTunes here or via Zune here:

Here are this week's show-notes links:

Download the Deutsche Bank look at Vegas building progress here
James Caan's Wikipedia page is here
Watch him make Kathy Bates "eat it!" on YouTube here
Find out all you want to know about CineVegas here
See the site for Xanadu The Musical here
Find our chat with Mel Brooks here
Read the R-J piece on their room tax poll here
Hear the disastrous George Wallace show here
Read about whores giving people gas here
The LV Weekly's take on the Hank Greenspun flick is here
See our coverage of the I-Bar's Microsoft Surface tech here
Read Steve's USA Today piece about Fontainebleau's Apple plans here