Night After Night

I thought I was the only one who remembered this show. This pre-Conan show was hilarious! But it kind of went down hill after Nick left. Does anyone remember the Mobley Motel!? God! This show made me laugh! They did an anniversary show one year with an entire audience and Nick came back for the show. He did a skit where he played a gay theater type guy and he made fun of all the late night talk shows. Some of the things that he said in that skit are still a part of my vocabulary to this day! I really wish comedy central would re-run some of the shows. Very, very funny television!

I used to watch this show back when I was in junior high and high school. I still have my free bar of soap from the Mobley Hotel ("Now with soap!"). It was a laid back, unpretentious, funny show. I haven't seen Mr. Havey around much since, and Jon Stewart is filling the late-night slot on Comedy Central admirably, but it would be great if they could bring "Night After Night" back.

That is until it got moved to well past my bedtime. I was a freshman in high school when that happened and I wasn't about to wake up in the middle of every night to see it (I'll go to my grave never knowing how to program a VCR). I did wake up to catch the last episode (no school that week) thought the format changed to a studio audience instead of an audience of one but it turned out to be the crew sitting in for the end.

The show hit all the right notes for quality entertainment. It was sort of intimate like listening to an old Jean Shepherd show on the radio. There was no major audience reactions or show bands led by the Vivino Brothers, it was scaled back (no doubt do to budget issues) but that works to its advantage. The show when I watched never had to compete directly with late night panel shows anyway. The news was usually on when this was. If anything was spent it was on the quality of the writing staff, Nick Bakay and the host Allan Havey who almost seemed to have instinctively perfect timing. Even if he didn't say something outright funny on it's own, he knows when to drop the comment at the right time. The humor also tended to be very dry and often based on strange stories instead of one liners.

On top of that, Havey was an excellent interviewer and got many good guests. I remember Tupac Shakur being interviewed promoting Juice, Bill Hicks looking somewhat sickly and guant but no less funny incorporating some of his jokes into the interview. He was promoting his latest comedy album, even the legendary script writer Dennis Potter was interviewed. Interviews that were thorough and entertaining.

This show is long gone now but it lives on in memory and I've seen the scaled back format used again since (Seth Meyer's show was almost like this during COVID) but the people making Night After Night mattered the most.

I think the only thing I enjoyed about The Informant was seeing Allan Havey playing a role and remembering this TV show while seeing him on the screen. I was remembering a news segment he did from Night After Night about a pet owner passing away suddenly at home and the dogs in the house began eating the corpse. Havey mentioned how guilty the dogs looked in the photo for the article. It's the only laugh I had while sitting through that movie. My date thought I was nuts.

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.

Everything I've read here has made me want to rewatch it even more I still do human slolam when walking in a crowd.

I looked Night After Night up because it isnt even listed in Allan Havey's IMDB credits. (Currently watching Billions for the first time and he's great as always)