Returning as a late night talk show host after a 19-year absence, the star of “The Arsenio Hall Show” describes himself as “the same Arsenio.” But he adds: “Less hair, less shoulder pads”
Part of that is time and part of that is fashion. But the new syndicated “Arsenio Hall Show” comes at a time when late night is cluttered on broadcast and cable with Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon as well as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O’Brien and Chelsea Handler on cable.
Arsenio takes that wide stance and prayerful bow to bring back fans of his old show while trying to find new viewers. His announced first night guest is Chris Tucker, though a number of “surprise guests” are also planned this week, in which Mark Harmon, Lisa Kudrow, Ice Cube, Magic Johnson, George Lopez and Angela Bassett are also scheduled. Musical guests include Nas, Mac Miller, Emblem3 and Earth, Wind and Fire.
One thing different about doing a show now is all the competition in late night compared to when he started. But as he reminded reporters at the TV Critics Association summer press tour, when he started his first show, he was happy to “take anything that was leftover on Carson’s plate.”
So he’s set his expectations low this time. Hall says he knows he’s probably not going to get viewers to watch him five nights a week. “You hope for three nights, to get a guy three nights a week to check you out. And two nights they’ll be watching other people. Sometimes you’ll get one night. But you hope you do a good, funny show and you assert a unique personality that’s not there so that you can just be in the game. I’m trying to be in the game. I just got to be better than one guy that’s there.”
But now, like then, he’s trying to cater his show to those currently not served by late night. “There’s a huge audience out there that doesn’t have a late night show. They’re doing other things,” Hall says.
Asked of his proudest moments on the original shows, he mentions the night Magic Johnson announced he had HIV and had to quit basketball. “mostly because he’s my friend and it was the most important night of his life, and I kind of didn’t want to mess it up.”
But he’ll forever be remembered as the guy who brought then-candidate Bill Clinton on to play saxophone with the band in sunglasses. “It kind of changed the way people campaign,” he says.
Overall, he says, he’s glad ” I pushed the envelope a lot more with music the first time I was on.”
That’s despite the fact,he says, “the stats point to the fact that music doesn’t get as good a number as talk. So that’s why there are things that I would do, you know, two numbers the first Friday I was on, Bobby Brown broke ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ and ‘My Prerogative,’ same night, same show. That was unheard of, but I found out that my audience … would let me do two numbers.”
Hall spent a good deal of time talking about his generally forgotten victory on “Celebrity Apprentice” opposite finalist Clay Aiken. It’s certainly something that brought him into the spotlight and prime time after years of floundering. ” I learned a lot, and the victory was the best feeling ever,” he says.
He’ll look for a similar feeling tonight.