The Arsenio Hall Show

face it he's gone,and its not really arsenio's fault.and yeah i agree with the first poster what killed arsenio was the backlash against hip-hop,especially after the LA riots.so arsenio was forced to somewhat change formats.wich caused another backlash amung the urban audiences.and he honestly never recovered.

everybody seems to be convinced that grunge killed arsenio but thats also false. it had absolutley nothing to do with arsenio's ratings.either way this show is sorley missed

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.

I remember watching Arsenio Hall when the show first came on in 1989. Lots of kids these days probably don't remember Arsenio and this show, but back in '89 when I was 13, this was considered the coolest show EVER. People would talk about nearly every show the next day. I remember how everyone in my school were talking about his verbal sparring with Madonna(which always seemed staged to me) back in early 1990.

Unfortunately, only 1989 and 1990 were good to poor Arsenio. The guy and his show stayed true to the old adage, "the quicker you burn, the faster you fade away". The blush went off the rose very quickly, and from 1991-'94, Arsenio limped along with his lame jokes and Eddie Murphy wannabe routines. I remember I stopped watching when I was 15 or 16 sometime in 1991 anyway. During the shows run during the rest of the '90s, people wondered when Arsenio would finally get cancelled, instead of talking about each show like it was an event. I'm not sure, but I think that like M.C. Hammer, Arsenio became very "1989". When the show finally went off the air in 1994, I don't think anyone even cared. I also think this show only receiving only 3 or 4 comments speaks volumes about Arsenio and his show, people have forgotten completely about him. Nevertheless, during 1989 and 1990, Arsenio Hall was a household name.

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.

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.