Larry King Live

Post 9/11, I watched Larry King every night. He had a panel of political heavyweights talking about the news everyone was talking about. Over time, however, the show regressed into a mediocre Barbara Walters special with most of the guests being three hundred years old and far out of the spotlight, like Art Linkletter. I agree, King still manages to corner the market on topical guests but his knowledge of the topics is limited at best and as a result the interviews often become trite. Case in point, King recently interviewed the woman Roman Polanski supposedly sexually abused umpteen years ago. Having just seen "The Pianist" and knowing very little about the topic, I tuned in. Larry knew so little about the account (despite having unlimited access to relevant court documents and media accounts) that he basically took every word that woman said as the gospel. C'mon, Larry get with the program. And please, stop asking everyone where they were on 9/11?

Larry King, this man in the interview business who is often in a bad mood, not only bent forward, but also almost broken forward, wins with the interviewees and loses with them too. The reason? Larry King is obviously not a good interviewer, but an overconfident man who obviously thinks he can handle every topic off the shelf, but is actually not as informed as he thinks. Always with the same sedate and boring way, without tactics or goal in the interview, he speaks to his guests, often without consciously getting anything out of these conversations. If it ever happens, it's out of luck or the open or careless nature of the interviewee. It's not funny either. All in all a show that is not abysmally bad, but seems to be overrated if you look at the end results of the individual episodes and now also the résumé of the entire show.

I used to watch this show all the time one time he had Ron Popeil on his show to discuss the Showtime Rotisserie and Barbecue. At the beginning of the episode Larry asked Ron to put a chicken in the machine and he wanted to taste the chicken at the end of the show because chickens take about an hour and when he tasted the chicken he said something like This Is The Best Piece Of Chicken You'll Ever Have. And then he asked Ron a question but he interrupted Ron and said I've gotta another piece of chicken and went off for another piece of chicken. Another time he had Bob Barr and Larry Flynt on his show because Bob denied charges of pergniry and condemned Larry for false accusations. Another time he had Brenda Van Dam the mother of Danielle Van Dam on his show and Brenda told Larry how upsetting it was to see David Westerfield kill her daughter they used to end their show with a song they also at times discussed movies.

A very long career . And different guests. The two obvious pieces defining the show and the force of the name of Larry King. But, in essence, you feel be more. In essence, a special form of journalism. Provocative, nuanced, giving to guest the fair position in each edition of the show, proposing the smart way to give soul to the entertainment and to show the other in the right light. Short, unique work, model for many entertainers and great way for define near reality.

Every time I watch Larry King Live, he rolls out the most softball questions for his guests. He rarely gets any useful information because he doesn't ask the hard questions. This comes from his start on radio.

King established himself on the radio and basically has not changed one bit of the format for television except for his talking head being visible. He becomes like a puppy for his guests & the only time he really gets useful information from them is whee they volunteer it or a caller to the show actually asks a hard question.

Larry is a nice, fatherly type of interviewer. This means he should not have a prime time show on a major news network if you consider CNN one. I don't because of the history of CNN.

Copying (ie. Cable) New Network was started by Ted Turner as an alternative to network news in that it could broadcast news 24/7. When it first started, the only TV competition was from NBC,ABC, & CBS. Because of this, CNN Copied the format of their competition & achieved respectable ratings.

This worked fine for CNN until they got competing networks which were innovative & provided better/ fresher news coverage. In response to the heating up of competition, CNN went into denial & panned its competitors who were eating their lunch & ratings because CNN wanted to resist change. This didn't work very long & their ratings began to plummet.

Now the Copying News Network is trying to re mold itself by re-inventing itself by copying the leading news network format. Unfortunately, this show represents a big piece of the problem. It is 21 years old & showing it's age very badly.

Sorry to say, King needs to be moved out of Prime Time or scrapped altogether.