The Arsenio Hall Show

Oh hello again. You know I was going to hide out for another month, but my boss has been giving no quarter. Matter of fact, I was going to relax after that last post when he came up to me and slapped the Kool-Aid out of my hands. I'll deal with him later. Anyway, I had the pleasure of watching Arsenio Hall's victorious return to the talk show arena after many years. The Arsenio Hall Show is a bit like the syndicated chat fest that Hall had from 1989-1994 (or 1884-5002.) The show is distributed by Paramount and will be shown on CBS stations as well as others and basically will have more diverse guests than the other talk shows. Sounds easy: The execution? Not so much, well not tonight, anyway.

On his first night back, Hall seemed a bit rusty around the edges. A lot of his jokes didn't land and the skits featuring "where's he's been" didn't have the crowd howling with uncontrollable laughter. At that point, my cat turned away and called it a night. The show wasn't over however. After a silly "time capsule" sketch, Paula Abdul showed up and told Hall how proud she was of him. You know, I did think of the Chevy Chase Show thing when Goldie Hawn appeared and attempted to stop him from chattering like a window pane. Thankfully Hall wasn't that bad.

The first guest was Chris Tucker, another person who's been "away." Hall asked him a bunch of softball questions (seems like old times!) and Tucker answered them and I really didn't give a heck. To make the show seem even more like old home week, Snoop Dogg showed up and performed, "What's My Name." Hilariously, Arsenio Hall introduced him as "Snoop Doggy Dogg." Ha! That made me night/year. At the end of the show, Hall, Tucker, Abdul all stayed on stage and danced while Snoop did, "Drop It Like It's Hot." I love the kids music!
 
Grade ***