The Arsenio Hall Show

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.

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.

Arsenio Hall's show contained a wide range of ups and downs during its five and a half-year history. There is much to comment, so LET'S GET BUSY!

Firstly, let's focus on the good.

1) This show had a Black person with his own late night talk show. 2) While Carson and Letterman appealed to Whites, Arsenio appealed to the urban sector. 3) Arsenio dressed really well. 4) Arsenio would have guests on his show that appealed to urban culture, but were not considered mainstream enough to appear on Carson or Letterman. 5) Arsenio had an ethnically diverse band. 6) There were several memorable moments in the guest category: · Muhammad Ali was on the show and Sugar Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson made a surprise visit. · Miles Davis' appearance. · Sammy Davis JR's appearance. · Louis Farrakhan's appearance (memorable only because of all the controversy it created). · His shows after the Rodney King acquittals, and riots. · The video collages commemorating highlights of the show. · Bill Clinton playing the saxophone. · Andrew Dice Clay weeping openly to the sympathetic public. · MC Hammer (or Hammer depending on your mindset) and his performances. There are other moments to recognize, but I have to stop here due to space constraints.

Now, let's focus on the bad, which led to its premature cancellation:

1) The constant ass kissing while giving interviews. No one liked that. 2) More often than not, he would have guests on the show that appeared so frequently that they became stale and boring to watch. One popular example was George Wallace. 3) The monologues were terrible. Naturally, some jokes don't work at times. When Arsenio delivered jokes that died, he would attempt to keep it going to make it funny. It didn't work. The material was poorly written, and poorly delivered. 4) The perpetuation of ethnic stereotypes associated with hip-hop culture. Many times, he overdid it to the point that it looked clownish. 5) The fact that he had to maintain his "high-top fade" to let people know that he was still "Black" appeared to be very plastic after awhile. 6) His filler guests. For a little while, there was a show which came on right after Arsenio called "The Party Machine", hosted by Nia Peeples. Why do you need to have Nia Peeples as a guest on Arsenio (at the end of the hour program, in fact), when she is hosting the next program? Filler! 7) The "Master Impressionist" routine. It got old after the first time! Some you could not figure out.

The program got so bad that his guest stars were of greater interest than he was. Towards the end of the series run, I would only watch the beginning of the telecast to see who his guests were and what he was wearing. I would then either turn the channel or turn the TV off.

His timing was very lacking. The audience hollering "WOOF WOOF WOOF" was going to get played out eventually. Though Johnny Carson's approach was conservative, it remained lively enough to last 30 years. Arsenio was not going to last a third of that. He did not keep up. He thought that the same antics were going to keep him on the air. It didn't.

Arsenio originally had a 6-year contract to do his show. That means that his 6 year anniversary would have come in December, 1994. However, his show ended in May, 1994. His show ended 6 months early. Why is that? It's because Paramount wanted to pull the plug. They probably bought out the last 6 months of his contract and ended it. Thank goodness. Thank goodness for Arsenio's sake.

Arsenio's style and format led to an attempt at shows that tried to duplicate his formula: "Vibe", "The Keenan Ivory Wayans Show". "The Chris Rock Show" on HBO was the best.

Arsenio was extremely overrated as a comedian, as a celebrity. There has to be more to him than being a former friend of Eddie Murphy to have a career. Too bad his career is gone. See you in 5,000 hours!

"The Arsenio Hall Show" was the first night show I tuned into (largely because my parents tuned into it and allowed me to watch). I have so many memories from that show like Bill Clinton playing the saxaphone, Woody Harrelson playing basketball to promote the movie "White Men Can't Jump," and the classic intro with the elongated yelling of Arsenio's name: "It's Arseniooooo Hall!"

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.