Night After Night with Allan Havey

Back in the Stone Age of cable television, this was one of the few programs that worked as enjoyable, reliable nightly entertainment. You could depend upon it when you tuned in. Good times.

"Night After Night" aired opposite the "Tonight Show" and snagged a younger (and much smaller) audience. It deserves to be released on DVD. I would gladly pay to see it again. Allan Havey never found a better outlet for his talent.

The Audience of One was a cute bit that worked well. I also thought the running gag with Dave, the weird Weather Guy, was priceless. The banter between Nick Bakay and Allan was comparable to that of Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, or David Lettermen and Paul Shaffer.

"Night After Night" is sorely missed.

I fondly remember watching this program every night while I was in high school. There was something very special and unique about it which I've yet to see recreated. Some of the bits were absolutely brilliant, including "reviews of movies I haven't seen", if memory serves.

The title of the show was apt; you knew that you'd have the same guy who could give you the exact same feeling night after night, every night.

When the last episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson aired, Havey's show had no content; simply a sign telling viewers to watch Carson. I spent an hour laying in front of the TV, expecting him to do something, but to no avail. That he could get people to watch a still screen for an hour, and yet not be disappointed when nothing happened was a testament to the kind of show his was.

Havey is one of those guys who has the "whatever happened to.." title, with people who knew the show back then actually caring what the answer is.

It's a crying shame that this show doesn't occupy its rightful place in the pantheon of late night talk shows. Sometimes, large swaths of the show would go by without a single laugh, but you would still turn off the TV feeling you'd watched something entertaining. It's hard to explain; it was humor as dry as it comes. And when the show was hitting on all cylinders it was an absolute riot. The standout episode to me was the one in which Lily Tomlin came on to promote her movie "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe". Instead of answering the questions as herself, she portrayed a Manhattan socialite who had been a financial backer of the film. To top it off, the character she played despised Lily Tomlin. Yet the interview seemed so real, with Havey appearing to actually get upset at the woman's snootiness. I've not seen a situation like this on any other show (except Tuesday Night Titans). I hope some network rolls out re-runs someday.

This late night talk show aired in Comedy Central. One of the most unusual features was the Audience of One. The host would literally have one person watching the show, and this opened itself up for many inside jokes between the host, guest, and audience member. The night of Johnny Carson's final show, this show went off the air, showing only a sign that directed people to watch the Tonight Show instead. Very off-beat humor, like a Conan O'Brien show with no network limits.

In effect, this was one of the first non-conventional late night shows. Nick Backay went on to be the side kick of Dennis Miller's short lived series which itself was something of a precursor to Conan. It would be interesting to see reruns to be able to judge them from a present perspective.

Night After Night with Allan Havey was simply the funniest, wittiest, and smartest late night program ever. How could this be? How could a show on a network with no ratings, no one watching (not even Allan Havey), and zero budget be good? Because they were out there just having fun. "Shaggin' and baggin'" as it were.

The format of the show changed over its brief lifespan from the old VJ style where Havey would introduce comedy clips--the format of the original Comedy Channel--for over 2 hours. He didn't get much time to be funny, but when he was on it was almost always magic. However, as the original format wore thin, NAN shrank to an hour long talk show. But it was more like a concept piece than a talk show. There was no audience (save the later added Audience of One), and he spoke directly to the camera from his comfy chair. There was no desk in front of him, but rather to the side. This open format has not been tried before or since. And the openness of the stage was reflective of the openness of Havey.

I doubt they ever did a pre-read for interviews. He has the skill of Larry King to get celebrities to talk off-topic without the ingratiating self-congratulatory style. Almost all the conversations came across as two friends hanging out, and we, the audience, got to be there with them.

But, on to the most important part of the show: The funny. Nick Bakay, announcer and co-host, was the perfect foil for Havey. Where Havey was genuine and sincere, Bakay was smarmy and full of himself. Where Havey is, well, not too bright, Bakay is a savant of arcana. And they were at their best when working together and against each other--such as the brilliant Freddy the Frog episode. Imagine an entire show improved around a failed sketch about a stuffed frog. There's nothing I can say that can illustrate just how funny it was, but me and my friends still quote that to this day (over a decade on). "There's no more joy! There's no more frog!" "'Nick's making more than me? How much are you making, Freddy?' 'Twenty grand a week!' 'Twenty..heh [starts laughing]'" Whatever, it's funny.

Maybe someday Allan Havey will be able to return to TV. We need his subtlety and his wit. We need someone to say, "Ten dollar haircut on a ten cent head." We need more shaggin' and baggin'.

Most of all, we need Len Pal.