Background Hall had been a host on
The Late Show in 1987, another talk show on
Fox, after the dismissal of
Joan Rivers. He was given a 13-week run, during which he became unexpectedly popular. During the
monologue of his final appearance as host, Hall stated that he agreed to only do 13 weeks because he could only stay long as he had plans "to do other things". He subsequently began working on the
Eddie Murphy vehicle Coming to America. He ultimately signed with
Paramount Television before Fox finally decided, after the fact, that it wanted to keep him. Hall had a fairly long connection with Paramount before this, having been the in-house comedian on Paramount's weekly music series
Solid Gold for several years and co-hosting its final two years.
Arsenio, debuting on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 1989, with guests
Brooke Shields,
Leslie Nielsen and
Luther Vandross, was one of two late-night shows to premiere that month. The other was
The Pat Sajak Show on
CBS, hosted by longtime
Wheel of Fortune host
Pat Sajak. Unlike Sajak, Hall benefited from prior experience hosting a late-night program, especially when compared with Sajak's lack of emceeing experience outside of his
Wheel duties. Hall also had a clear demographic to serve (whereas Sajak was targeting the already-taken demographic that was watching
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson), and his show premiered the week before Sajak's, giving him a head start. While Hall's show became a near-instant hit, Sajak's show was a ratings flop and was canceled after little more than a year.
Recurring features and gags Burton Richardson's long intro of the show's host (in which he held the letter
O in "Arsenio" for as long as ten seconds just before Hall came out on stage, and then in the same breath, immediately announced "HALL!") is a staple of the show. In the intro to the final episode, Richardson held his one-breath introduction for exactly twenty seconds, one of the few times he had done so. While being introduced (and as seen on show titles and
promos), Arsenio stood with his head down, hands together and legs apart, in the shape of the letter "A". One of the show's recurrent themes was affixing a humorous label to a section of the studio audience in rows behind/near the band, called the "Dog Pound", based on the
Dawg Pound fan section of
Cleveland Stadium and later
FirstEnergy Stadium of the
Cleveland Browns National Football League team. Members of the original band called "the Posse" included John B. Williams,
Starr Parodi, Peter Maunu,
Terri Lyne Carrington (later replaced by Chuck Morris) who were led by
jazz pianist Michael Wolff, jubilantly interacted with Hall, standing up and making a pumping, whirling motion with their raised fists and howling "Woof, woof, woof". The labeling was a staple of Hall's opening monologue and almost always began with the phrase "Those are people who...." In one variation of Hall ridiculing the "Dog Pound", Hall designated the section as "People who are currently in a
Witness Protection Program", at which point a camera pans over to that section to reveal a digitally
pixelized view of the audience that made it impossible to identify them. A frequent joke in Hall's opening monologue suggested that he still lives in
Cleveland and drives to
Los Angeles every day to host the show. While on these alleged long drives, Hall ponders certain thoughts, referring to them as "things that make you go hmmm...." The running gag inspired a 1991
C+C Music Factory song by the same title. "
Things That Make You Go Hmmm..." reached No. 1 on the
Billboard Dance Club Songs chart and No. 4 on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Cultural influence, increasing viewership and profits The Arsenio Hall Show, which premiered on 135 stations nationwide, was aimed primarily at, although not limited to, the younger
urban audience. and other performers were often featured, such as semi-regular guests including
Andrew Dice Clay and
Paula Abdul. The show quickly appealed to young people of all races and began to attract a wide variety of guests not common on other talk shows. It became the show for entertainers to go to in order to reach the "
MTV Generation". The show was commonly dubbed a "Night Thing" and reflected a party or
nightclub theme. Hall's friend
M.C. Hammer was also a frequent interview and musical guest. Additionally, Hall interviewed "
Jason Voorhees", the main character from the popular
Friday the 13th series of films around the time of the release of
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
Muppets creator
Jim Henson also appeared on the show 12 days before his death in May 1990, marking one of Henson's last public appearances. Hall often featured
World Wrestling Federation wrestlers, like
Hulk Hogan (who first denied using
steroids on the program),
"Ravishing" Rick Rude (who made a special set of tights with Hall's face on the back) with
Bobby Heenan,
Randy Savage,
Roddy Piper,
Bad News Brown, the
Big Bossman, and
Akeem with
Slick and
The Ultimate Warrior. Hall was also well known for his long fingers, which he would often use to point at the audience.
Michael Wolff led the
house band, which Hall called "Posse". With the steadily increasing viewership of
The Arsenio Hall Show throughout the 1990-91 television season, the show had reportedly begun making about
US$1.2 million in profits per week for its syndicator Paramount—adding up to US$62.4 million for the year, more money than the company made from its most popular prime-time TV series at the time,
Cheers, and more than most of its movies generated.
Queer Nation incident During a December 14, 1990 taping, four members of
Queer Nation, seated in the back row in different sections of the audience, interrupted Hall's opening monologue demanding to know why he never had any gay guests on the show. Hall's initial answer was that since most of the guests were not open about their sexuality, neither Hall nor the producers knew whether they were gay or not. When the protesters voiced their offense because the show failed to book filmmaker
Gus Van Sant (whose
My Own Private Idaho was in production at the time) or actor
Harvey Fierstein, Hall defended the show by saying that
Elton John had been a guest. Increasingly infuriated, Hall added that he booked guests due to his interest in what they were working on at the time, not because of their sexual preference. went on for several minutes, and Hall continued to defend himself as both a comedian and a host, pointing out that he also had gay friends, and that a person's sexual preference was really nobody else's business. Fierstein eventually did become a guest on the show months later.
Bill Clinton In June 1992, then-
presidential candidate
Bill Clinton (who was a fan of the show) was a guest on the show, playing "
Heartbreak Hotel" on the
saxophone (causing Arsenio to quip, "It's nice to see a
Democrat blow something besides the election"). The appearance is often considered an important moment in Clinton's political career, helping build his popularity among minority and young voters. Clinton went on to win the
election in November 1992.
Displacement by new network shows, ratings decline and cancellation The program remained popular into 1993, airing on 178 stations throughout America. As the year went on, the
ratings declined due in large part to the premiere of three late-night series before the year was out. At the end of the 1992–93 season one of Hall's strongest bases consisted of
CBS affiliates. At the time, and ever since the 1972 cancellation of
The Merv Griffin Show, CBS did not offer much in the way of late night programming other than its
nightly crime drama rerun block and its overnight newscast
CBS News Nightwatch (later replaced by
Up to the Minute), and had not offered a late-night variety program since
The Pat Sajak Show was cancelled in 1990. Among the reported 44 CBS stations and which would also compete with Hall's program. Unlike the situation that prevailed when he was competing against Sajak, Hall was now up against one of the most popular hosts in late night television. Several CBS stations, including WBBM-TV, dropped Hall's show when
Late Show with David Letterman debuted in August or pushed it back further in the night. Most of the rest dropped Hall when Letterman's show became a runaway hit, even surpassing
The Tonight Show in the Nielsen ratings. WUSA was one of the exceptions, having rebuffed an edict by CBS for all of its affiliates to clear the
Late Show at the normal network time for their respective time zones, while in
Milwaukee,
Arsenio was paired back-to-back by Fox affiliate
WCGV-TV with the
Late Show, which was refused clearance by then-CBS affiliate
WITI (also co-owned with the aforementioned Storer stations that were becoming part of
New World Communications at the time; now a Fox O&O) in favor of syndicated sitcoms. Then-CBS affiliate
WBAL-TV in
Baltimore also retained the show when
The Late Show started, instead being cleared by then-independent
WNUV.
Arsenio also found itself losing some of its audience to cable, as
MTV launched the daily thirty-minute program
The Jon Stewart Show, which became popular in its own right. Subsequently, Fox decided to get back into the late-night television battle after several years, despite
Arsenio drawing solid ratings on many of its affiliates. In September 1993, the network premiered
The Chevy Chase Show running directly against Hall, Leno and Letterman. Despite
Arsenio performing well on many Fox affiliates against his network competitors and ABC's
Nightline (as well as local newscasts), Fox demanded that all of its affiliates air Chase's show at its network-approved 11:00 p.m. ET timeslot, leading the Fox stations airing
Arsenio to either drop the series or relocate it to a less desirable time slot. Although
The Chevy Chase Show was a critical and ratings flop and left the air after only five weeks (being replaced by reruns of
In Living Color and other Fox programs), the damage was done. Stations that
Arsenio had been or was still airing on were not inclined to move it back, which caused more of a dip in the ratings as many of the high-profile guests drawn to
Arsenio, some of whom rarely if at all appeared on
The Tonight Show when Carson was hosting, gravitated increasingly towards Leno and Letterman. On February 7, 1994, Hall announced that he would be featuring controversial
Nation of Islam leader
Louis Farrakhan. He had also booked gospel singer
Kirk Franklin and his singing group The Family for the show as well and promised that he would give them both equal time on the show, which was to air eighteen days following the announcement, as he had drawn criticism for even considering booking Farrakhan as a guest. Instead, nearly the entire show was devoted to Hall interviewing Farrakhan and he received widespread criticism for conducting what was considered too "soft" of an interview. This resulted in a further ratings slide during the fifth season, with the
Los Angeles Times citing a 24% drop from 1992–93 to 1993–94. Although Paramount did say publicly that the show was not in imminent danger of cancellation, Hall announced on April 18, 1994, that he was not going to continue the show, simply saying "it's time". The final episode aired on May 27, 1994.
Aftermath Shortly before
The Arsenio Hall Show was canceled,
Paramount's merger with
Viacom was finalized. Since this now meant that Paramount and MTV were corporate siblings, there was a ready-made replacement for
Arsenio and after a retooling and expansion, a syndicated version of
The Jon Stewart Show was launched in late 1994. Despite being sold to most of the same
Arsenio affiliates,
The Jon Stewart Show was never able to find an audience in syndication as it had on MTV and the show was canceled after its lone season as a syndicated series. After the decline of
Arsenio and the failure of
The Jon Stewart Show, Paramount did not make another attempt at producing a late-night variety show. Nonetheless, they were not willing to give up on the idea fully and in 1998, Paramount developed a daytime variety show for comedian
Howie Mandel.
The Howie Mandel Show premiered in May 1998, but could not find an audience in what was then a syndicated landscape saturated with talk shows, and Paramount canceled the show in early 1999. Paramount subsequently gave up on the variety format altogether and did not attempt it again before its television operations were folded into those of CBS. In the 2000s,
VH1 aired a repacked version of the show called
Arsenio Jams featuring musical performances and select interviews from the show's first run. ==Second series (2013–14)==