The question has now come to a forefront; with The Mo’Nique Show and Lopez Tonight both being cancelled one has to wonder if Arsenio Hall will make a comeback to late night talk.
Let’s look at a couple of facts to see if this even makes sense. The most recent and probably biggest point is recently Hall, who was at the Television Critics Association on a PBS panel about an Ed Sullivan Comedy Special premiering Aug. 6th, was asked whether he’d consider making a comeback. “I’d have to change my name to Nick Cannon and live with Mariah (Carey),” he joked. “But I think it’s a perfect time for that personally. Give me a microphone. My son’s 11 and he can drive himself to school. I’m ready to host!” When a critic pressed if he was serious, Hall acknowledged, “It’s pretty crowded out there. I’m not sure if it’s too crowded for a 55-year-old guy to re-emerge, but if they give me a little daylight I’m gonna slide into it.”
We would say that thanks to Mo’Nique and George Lopez he has a little daylight now, don’t you think?
The other biggest point is Hall has been off the air for 17 years and that there is a whole new generation who has no idea of what watching The Arsenio Hall show even means. Think about it; that show was the ground breaking show for many stars such as Mariah Carey, Bow Wow, MC Hammer, SNoop Doggy Doog, Dr. Dre, just to name a small few and it was also the place that many African American and Latino actors went to to promote their upcoming projects. AND unlike Mo’Nique, he was based in Los Angeles so the star quality was always in quantity.
Since the window is open, and Hall had expressed much interest to coming back to television, the question will be if it happens. We can say that before Conan moved over to TBS (and pushed Lopez out of his coveted time slot) and was in negotitions with several networks at that time, we heard Hall had approached FOX about re-launching his show there. At that time FOX wasn’t interested because they were in too deep in talks with Conan.
Now here we are; Arsenio wants to come back and the late night audience is up for grabs. There are now no urban talk shows on late night television, so lets see how this plays out.
Leave a comment below!
