Get those fists out and prepare to start pumping again, television viewers: Arsenio Hall is on his way back to late-night! The Celebrity Apprentice winner has confirmed to Entertainment Tonight that he has signed a deal with CBS affiliates to once again host a program - Hall won multiple Emmys in the 1990s and chatted up such guests as Bill Clinton and Magic Johnson - starting in 2013. It will run Monday through Friday.
Details are scarce at the moment, but Hall does have some dream guests in mind."First of all, you can't go wrong if you get Jay-Z, Beyonce and the baby," said Arsenio. "Guys like Eminem and Usher and Ne-Yo came right after I left the show, so there are a lot of people like that I'd like to jam with." Two decades after his self-titled show rebuilt the talk genre for a new generation, the 56-year-old comic will attempt a major comeback with a nightly syndicated offering starting in September. “In the end I’m a comic, and nothing fits the talk-show mode like a stand-up comic,” Hall said in an interview Monday. Referring to the crowded field in late-night TV – which includes “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” as well as traditional venues such as “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” – he added: “I know there are a lot of shows, but I think there’s a space for my show".
Hall’s earlier show was a surprise smash when it premiered in 1989, bringing a youthful energy and diversity to a format that had been dominated by Johnny Carson on NBC’s “Tonight” for nearly 30 years. Hall’s studio audience greeted the host by pumping their fists and barking, coming to be known as “The Dog Pound.” His status as the only black host in late-night TV gave him a special access to rappers and African American entertainers, including Eddie Murphy, his costar in the hit comedy film “Coming to America.”
The show reached a peak 20 years ago this month, when Bill Clinton, then a presidential candidate, appeared as a guest, wearing sunglasses and honking a saxophone rendition of “Heartbreak Hotel,” a crucial moment in the crossfade between retail politics and pop culture. But the show suffered after CBS brought David Letterman to host a late-night show that displaced Hall on many local stations, and it went off the air in 1994.
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