The Arsenio Hall Show

Arsenio Hall was one of the most fascinating events in modern pop culture. In 1989 Arsenio started "The Arsenio Hall" show which was a slick, young, hip talk show aimed at the youth crowd. For a while it seemed like Arsenio was unstoppable, and he was the biggest media event around. Arsenio even had NBC execs quaking in their boots, so much so they that they went behind Johnny Carson's back and pressured him to step down from the "Tonight Show". Johnny was just too old according to NBC, and they wanted the young crowd that Arsenio was getting.

But NBC jumped the gun a little too fast, because just as soon as Arsenio came, he dissappeared from the scene without a trace. No one even noticed Arsenio's exit, and I doubt many people even cared. As Forrest Gump would say back in Arsenio's last year of '94, "for no particular reason, nobody wanted to watch that flat topped funny Black man anymore. And that's all I have to say about that."

The irony is that today Arsenio is the crusty old middle aged man. Today Arsenio is a total has been that is doing B-movies and other low level straight to video nonsense. Johnny's 30 year legacy will be remembered for years to come, while Arsenio was just a minor blimp on the radar.

Oh yeah, Arsenio was also Eddie Murphy's friend. Which obviously helped him out. Maybey Arsenio should try and become Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Tucker, or Chris Rock's new best friend. Lord knows Arsenio needs help with his non-existant career.

I just finished reading some of the comments here about Arsenio's show, and while I agree with some, I heavily disagree with others. First of all, there was no "hip hop backlash" around the time that grunge rock became popular. At the time hip hop began to reach it's commercial peak as well. Furthermore, Arsenio frequently had grunge and rock performers on his show; from Poison to Nirvana to Red Hot Chili Peppers to Radiohead. Many are quick to associate Arsenio's show with hip hop, simply because he is a black man and was the first to really showcase it, but that is not all he ever had on. His musical guests were a mixed bag: pop, urban, country, rock, etc.

What killed Arsenio was that he over time just simply wore thin. In retrospect, it is very true that Arsenio's show was very "1989," and he had a hard time moving forward from that. His interviewing skills were often lacking, and his opening monologues were at times poor. Everything wrong with the show starting out that people dismissed because he was young, hip and someone *new* to watch on late night continued to haunt him, and over time people started to not dismiss it anymore.

Toward 1993-1994, his show became dreadfully stale, painfully slow moving, and annoyingly unfunny. In the meantime, all the hoopla surrounding the Jay/Dave fight over the Tonight Show didn't help matters because it led late night audiences (and sponsors) to focus on them rather than Arsenio.

The generation today probably doesn't know who this man is. Though everybody remembers him as Eddie Murphy's sidekick in the 1988 movie "Coming to America". A few months later he had his own late night talk show. The first 2 years Arsenio was at his best and after that the show became boring and dry. He started having the same usual guest like Bill Cosby,MC Hammer,and Eddie Murphy to name a few. In 1994 maybe a week before his show was canceled he interviewed Minister Louis Farrakhan,and the plug was pulled. Recently he been the host of the newly Star Search,but today many people think this man's show never existed. This is probably because he didn't leave the audience when some interesting and overwhelming interviews with his guest and everything was sugar-coated and a** kissing. Naturally Arsenio Hall seem like a warm-hearted man who just can't cut staying in the limelight.

One of the "highlights" of this show is when Arsenio had then Governor Clinton on his show to badly blow some hot air through his sax and have the host kiss up to him.

Clinton was elected and Bush/Quayle were sent packing. Arsenio got what he wanted - Right?

Arsenio Failed to take into account his heavy reliance on Dan Quayle as the fodder for his monologues. With Dan Quayle out of the spotlight, his jokes seemed old and mean-spirited. Unable to come up with anything fresh or funny, The Arsenio Hall Show died a quiet death.

I admit I have fond memories of the Arsenio Hall show and was a devout viewer, but that was when he first came out and skyrocketed to instant popularity. He was a major hype of the times, an icon for bringing a new, hip and refreshing format to the talk show industry, and checking out his show seemed like the "in" thing to do.

There were funny and memorable moments, like the time Kurt Russell was a guest and a song from an album he recorded as a child star suddenly started blaring on the studio speakers. There were also Arsenio's merciless digs at Roseanne Barr during his opening monologue, most of which were pretty funny. There was also Madonna's hyped up and much publicized appearance (back when she was at a superstar zenith), and after the applause died down and the 'talk' began, all she basically did was throw questions back at him about his alleged romance with Paula Abdul.

Arsenio seemed to revel in his own success too, like showing a clip from "Ghost" where Whoopi Goldberg mentions to two co-stars that his show was on. Or taking note of the news item where a guy got outraged and violent after other people in his household wouldn't let him watch the show.

Yeah, The Arsenio Hall show was a product of the times, unfortunately time wasn't too kind and before long, the fad started to wear out. My interest started to wane in '91 when things weren't making such an impact anymore. Even another appearance from Madonna didn't liven things up. She, looking pale and curiously waxen faced, merely sat quietly while her then-friend Rosie O'Donnell obnoxiously hogged up all the attention.

Yes, Arsenio was a great show, but only at the beginning, afterwards, it became a passing fancy, much like the "Help, I've fallen and can't get up!" commercial and the "Twin Peaks" TV series.