Original subtitles

-And now get a grip on yourself.

It's Arsenio-o-o-o-o-o...

-In the '90s, Arsenio Hall changes

what late-night television looks like.

- Hall!

-We were able to see people on there

that we didn't see anywhere else.

[ Audience cheering ]

- All of us at one time! - [ Laughs ]

-How scary is that for Paramount?

-Ooh!

-Arsenio also transforms what it sounds like.

-Not a lot of people would give NWA a chance

to say or express any of their songs.

- "F" the police. - Yeah.

-♪ ...of despair ♪

-Where you gonna see Kid 'n Play?

Where you gonna see Salt-N-Pepa?

Where you gonna see M.C. Hammer?

Where you gonna see Bobby Brown?

-While unconventional bookings

lift Arsenio to late-night stardom...

-Those people over there are people we usually give names to.

That's who those people are. [ Audience cheering ]

-...one controversial guest...

-It was like someone had farted in the room.

- helps bring it all crashing down.

♪♪

[ Dial-up modems screeching ]

♪♪

[ Audience cheering ]

-Hey, hey!

-Early in the decade,

"The Arsenio Hall Show" tops the ratings for late-night TV,

offering American audiences a fresh, new take

on a stale, old concept.

-Watching Arsenio was an event.

-I love that Arsenio is and was different,

and I love that he created space

for you to talk about lots of things.

I was one of these chilies in high school.

♪ Come on, my name's Shanequia ♪

♪ I'm from the Bronx ♪

And the white girls were like, "Super, terrific."

[ Laughter ]

-Arsenio rewrites the rules of late-night television

by hosting a show that speaks directly

to a younger, more diverse audience.

-It was the kind of first time

where we kind of saw ourselves on TV.

-Johnny Carson wasn't putting on hip-hoppers.

Letterman never put us on.

Arsenio put us all on and gave us all an incredible platform,

because the other shows weren't doing it.

-Before Arsenio, Carson and other white comedians

dominated late night with a brand of humor

that alienates rather than embraces Black audiences.

-Last night, we did an affair together

for Sammy Davis Jr. For the Friars,

so I announced an additional surprise for him

from the Friars that Jerry Buss was gonna buy him

and put him on his front lawn at Pickfair.

[ Laughter ]

Those were the kinds of lines we do.

-Wow. The landscape of late night was really white.

-And I tell you, I am a Jew, and you're an Italian.

And here we have what? [ Laughter ]

This is a great Irishman. This is America.

-That's all we were offered,

so that's what we had to accept.

-He-e-e-e-e-ere's Johnny!

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Every weeknight, almost 10 million Americans

are still tuning in to see Johnny's mix of celebrities,

political figures, and sports heroes.

♪♪

-There could be outrageous humor,

and there could be very serious conversations

that Johnny could excel at both.

-And for a generation of mostly white musicians and comics,

Johnny Carson is their St. Peter,

deciding who can pass through his pearly gates

into the paradise of Hollywood celebrity.

-I'm okay now. I'm out here.

Mama, I'm on TV. [ Laughter ]

-He was famous for breaking comics.

Like, Roseanne Barr became a national figure

after she went on his show.

-Have you ever noticed that fat people

don't think like skinny people?

We have our own way of thinking.

'Cause you got up to them on the street

and ask them where something is,

and they tell you like this...

"Well, go down here to Arby's."

[ Laughter and applause ]

-Being on Johnny Carson's show... that made your career.

- "A" camera. - This one?

- [ Speaks indistinctly ] - Okay.

My name's Adrien Sebro. I'm a professor of media studies

at University of Texas at Austin,

and I teach history of media and television and film.

-But Johnny Carson's iron grip on late night

loosens with the arrival of a fourth television network.

-Here comes Fox as this brand-new network

that is trying to pave the way.

So, they had a late night show,

"The Late Show," actually, with Joan Rivers.

-Joan Rivers made famous

from her appearances on "The Tonight Show"

and then as Johnny's fill-in host

will now compete directly against her mentor.

Feeling betrayed, Johnny never speaks to her again

and works to sabotage her show.

-Carson would say to individuals,

"If you went on Joan's show, you can't come on mine."

-When you are doing late-night TV,

talent is your bread and butter.

That's what people tune in for.

They tune in to see who you have on the couch,

who you have performing.

-I wanted to show you pictures

of all of the guests we're gonna have on "The Late Show."

The executive said, "No pictures, just slides.

So here they are. My first week.

Without headline talent, the ratings lag,

so Fox decides to keep "The Late Show"

and lose Joan Rivers.

-Joan was actually kicked off of the show,

but they still had this spot to fill up.

And in comes a slew of guest hosts

to come in "The Late Show" on Fox.

-Including a young Black comic named Arsenio Hall.

[ Laughter ]

-Oh, boy.

-Like Carson and David Letterman,

Hall is from the Midwest.

[ Fans barking ]

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1962,

the son of a preacher

is drawn to the spotlight from a young age.

-He was actually seen on a Black public-affairs show, "Soul,"

as Arsenio the Magician when he was about 12 years old.

-NBC is serving cold beer and guacamole dip outside.

-Arsenio was a born entertainer.

He wanted to be Johnny.

He role-played it at home

with empty chairs in his basement.

-For the very first time in your life.

[ Cheers and applause ] - I'm David Hurwitz,

and I consider "The Arsenio Hall Show"

my grad school.

I spent 5 1/2 years there.

I got out of school in May of '88,

and I was there all the way to the end.

-After college, Arsenio moves to L.A.,

where, like Johnny, he pursues a career in standup.

-Oh, I went to JCPenney's the day they had a white sale.

I bought a Caucasian family, so I feel real good.

[ Laughter ]

-Alan Thicke found him, and he was used as a sidekick

and doing shtick on "Thicke of the Night."

[ Gunshots ]

-That's the sound of the world's dumbest baseball promotion,

Pistol Night.

-Is that the last one?

- No, I think it gets better. - Hmm.

-The "Thick of the Night" talk show is canceled

after its first season,

but Arsenio's time as the show's number two

earns him a chance in the big chair

as a temporary fill-in on Fox's late-night show.

-They started to take people like Arsenio

to do, like, little test runs.

-And so they actually had him do a 13-week stint as the host.

-I'm glad you're here, and a wonderful night.

Of course, every night's wonderful when you're with me.

Thank you very much. [ Cheers and applause ]

-Because it was his boyhood dream,

he was the one who, "Wow.

What a great opportunity. This is my shot."

-And he kills it.

-If I can say one word is flavor.

He brought a certain swag to the late-night scene.

♪♪

-That's where I first saw Arsenio before I ever met him.

[ Basketball dribbling ]

I remember him doing an interview with Elliott Gould,

who was a notorious stiff as an interview.

Arsenio was shooting hoops and talking.

I remember seeing that and going, "God, that's clever.

He actually got that stiff to talk."

I'm Bill Royce and in the '90s,

I was one of the producers of two

of the most talked about late night talk shows there were.

First, "The Arsenio Hall Show,"

and then "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.

And Arsenio was much more fun.

-He delivered.

He was the right man for the job.

My name is Christopher Reid.

I'm known as Kid from the group Kid 'n Play.

And in the '90s...

Ooh! In the '90s, we were dancing.

We were rapping. We were singing.

What a time to be alive.

-I joke about it a lot on the show, you know,

being a Dickerson Ranger.

-Right. I heard you joke about it.

- Yeah. - I heard you joke about this.

-Very relaxed. Maybe because he's just subbing.

Maybe because it's not his show,

and maybe 'cause it doesn't have his name on it,

maybe because he doesn't feel like he has a lot to lose.

-It's a local situation.

So, for those of you who don't know...

Eric, for those of you who don't know,

Eric is heavily involved in a program called Just Say No.

-Having conversations

that nobody else on late night is having.

And it's really relaxed, and it's very informal,

but it's also informative and interesting.

-Something that you don't do, along with drugs,

you don't spike the ball.

You don't, like, throw it in people's face and on the ground.

I ain't never seen you do the Philly dog action.

[ Laughter ]

-Johnny Carson and NBC are still preventing "A" -list talent

from appearing on other shows, but Arsenio flips the script

by inviting young and upcoming talent instead.

-You have a very positive image,

and I hear you live with your grandmother.

Is that the reason? - Yeah.

-I live with my grandmother in St. Albans Queens,

and I'm still the same person.

Still chilling. You know what I'm saying?

[ Cheers and applause ] - Yeah.

-Fox... they realize how much the crowd engaged with him,

how much he brought a new flavor and a new energy to late night

and an entirely new audience.

25% of their viewers were African-American,

so they have to cater to that.

♪♪

-So when Arsenio's temporary hosting deal ends,

Fox executives offer him a midnight talk show of his own.

♪♪

But Hall passes.

Instead, he signs on to play multiple characters

in his close friend Eddie Murphy's new movie,

"Coming to America."

-Pound for pound, Sugar Ray Robinson

the greatest fighter that ever lived.

-Oh, come on, man. What about Joe Louis?

-Nobody in here ever heard of Cassius Clay.

-He got a point. Cassius Clay was a bad mother...

[ Horn honks ]

-After Hall's big-screen success,

Fox approaches him again,

this time offering more money and a better time slot.

But Arsenio wants even more...

Not just a paycheck to host a show,

but a piece of the action and a seat at the table.

Fox turns him down.

It's a decision they will soon regret.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Throughout the '80s and into the '90s,

late-night TV remains hugely profitable,

while also being mostly cut off from the most profound changes

happening in American culture.

-It's time to get real, you know, grow up, you know?

-Black people, we didn't watch late night...

I mean, we did, 'cause it was on.

But it wasn't for us.

♪♪

I'm Naima Cochrane.

I'm a music and culture journalist.

And in the '90s, I was consuming all the music

and all the television and all the movies,

which is why now I can talk about them.

[ Chuckles ] You have this generation of kids

where all we do is watch videos all day long.

That's it... The rise of hip-hop,

the rise of Generation X, and the rise of MTV.

We want to see these acts.

We want to see what they look like,

and we want to see who they are.

- Hit it. - Yo.

-Only one spot is showing performances

by young, hip talent.

-Yo, we getting ready to do an hour

of new videos right here on MTV.

♪♪

-That is, until Arsenio,

who grew up wanting to be Johnny Carson,

gets an offer he can't refuse...

A chance to host and executive produce his own talk show.

-Arsenio had a plan, and part of that plan

was to put hisself into syndication

and to give himself that EP power

so he has control over the show's direction.

-Paramount Television also has a plan

to grab some late-night cash

by getting Arsenio to host a syndicated talk show.

Unlike network programs, syndicated shows are sold

to individual stations across the country.

Paramount even offers Arsenio

the same level of creative control

that Carson was able to acquire at the end of his career.

-Essentially me. Yeah.

-Johnny Carson paved the way

on what power looks like on late-night TV.

-By the time he retires in 1992,

Carson controls every aspect of his program,

from who gets hired to his on-camera image.

-He chose interviewees, and if he wasn't okay

with someone that they were suggested,

they wouldn't be on the show.

♪♪

Arsenio Hall was to have a similar control.

-Along with creative control,

Arsenio will share in the show's profits,

just like Oprah Winfrey does on her show.

-When I went to Paramount, and they said,

[white voice] "So what are you thinking about?"

[ Normal voice ] And I said, "I want an Oprah deal."

[ Laughter and applause ]

-That's a good deal.

-For him to have a syndicated talk show

in his early 30s, as a Black man,

the only Black man on late-night television... massive.

It was massive.

-On January 3, 1989, "The Arsenio Hall Show" debuts.

-And now let the party begin.

It's Arsenio-o-o-o-o-o...

Hall!

[ Cheers and applause ]

-And the second Burton Richardson

bellowed out "Arsenio-o-o Hall,"

boom.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Arsenio hit the floor. The place went nuts.

All different types of people in the audience.

Saw them high-fiving and hugging and having a good time.

♪♪

-From that first show,

Arsenio is determined to revitalize late night.

He knows the formula works. It just needs a facelift.

-I created a show for kids because kids didn't have a show.

I'm going after the children of Johnny's audience.

-From Television City in Hollywood...

-It's a crowded battlefield, as the very next week,

CBS launches its own bid

for those late-night talk-show ad dollars,

starring the hugely popular host of "Wheel of Fortune."

-Now, the big money was on Pat Sajak.

-[ Sighs ] Oh, boy.

-Pat is a lovely guy. Had a lovely show.

But it was a pale imitation of Johnny.

-If it looks like I'm just killing time,

uh, I have a reason here.

In less than one minute, we will officially become

CBS' longest-running show this season.

[ Laughter and applause ]

-Well, we weren't a pale imitation of Johnny by any stretch.

-Arsenio... He said it a million times...

I just want to show people a good time.

You're 16 years old,

and you're seeing Bobby Brown videos

when he broke away from New Edition.

And then the first Friday night,

Bobby Brown is performing "My Prerogative,"

and the camera's up in his face,

and the music of the show was the music of the time.

-♪ It's my prerogative ♪

♪♪

-And the way it was shot... That was part of the show.

That was introducing people

to a new culture, a younger culture,

a culture that's starting to become the hip-hop culture,

and a generation of people who are more accepting

than the generation that came before them.

-I mean, look at that first week of Arsenio.

That tells you everything.

There was Bobby Brown, Luther Vandross,

Brooke Shields, Quincy Jones.

Judd Nelson was in there. Robert Downey Jr. was in there.

Look at the mix there.

Younger than what you were getting at Carson

with Buddy Hackett, Phyllis Diller,

Engelbert Humperdinck.

I can go on and on.

[ Audience cheering ]

-With the financial stakes sky-high,

NBC hopes to bury Arsenio

by doing unto him how they did to Joan Rivers.

-I know for a fact if you did Arsenio first,

you either couldn't do Carson

or you couldn't do Carson for a while.

-So, some of the individuals

that Arsenio Hall brought onto his show

was out of necessity.

He had to figure out how can he make himself different.

-From their first full-length album,

Mecca and the Soul Brother.

From their CD, "The Low End Theory"...

Please welcome Boogie Down Production.

[ Audience cheering ]

-♪ Just like I told you ♪

♪ You must learn! ♪

Come on! ♪ Just like I told you ♪

-Arsenio gives a national audience

a first look at undiscovered talent

not previously welcome on network TV.

-♪ Oh-oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh-oh, oh ♪ - You can't touch this.

-M.C. Hammer performed "U Can't Touch This"

for the first time on Arsenio's Stage 29.

It made him a cultural phenomenon.

-When Hammer is up there jamming with 40 people with him,

that's the thing.

- Can I get a hit? - Hit!

-♪ Hold on to your love ♪

-It's win-win.

Arsenio can book hot new talent shunned by his competitors,

and hip-hop gets national television exposure.

-♪ Kid 'n Play, so let's start it now ♪

-We would go down to Stage 29,

and we wasn't even on the show that day.

You just wanted to be there.

♪♪

-We have a slamming green room. We got hot, catered food.

We got a bar, not only for the stars to come.

It was fun for the publicist.

It was fun for the managers, the agents,

the families, their dogs, everybody.

-It's daytime, but when you come inside the studio,

it feels like nighttime.

The audience is off the chain.

His band was... Bak-dum, bak-dum, bak-dum!

It was the place to be, and it felt like it.

-In the heart of Hollywood...

-It quickly becomes clear that if you're a young Black artist,

appearing on Arsenio can be a professional game changer.

-You know, anything you were promoting on Arsenio,

oh, you got that bounce.

♪♪

-It wasn't Arsenio's ratings

that created a sensation in the beginning.

-It was the demographics that the advertisers liked,

because they wanted young people.

-We shot out like a cannon,

so some of our original local spots were Jimmy Dean sausage.

Within a short time, it was Mercedes-Benz.

-The momentum just started growing and growing and growing.

-Within about six months of the show debuting,

Arsenio got the cover of Time magazine.

-Starting Monday night,

Arsenio moves from his 12:30 time slot

to 11:30 in the New York area.

Now, in TV land, this is a major move,

signifying that Hall is a ratings success.

-I realized...

that we had become a hit on a certain important level

when, believe it or not, Farrah Fawcett did the show.

-What was it that attracted you to doing this role?

-So cute. [ Laughter ]

Okay, I'll be serious.

What attracted me to this role was...

-Farrah Fawcett just called me cute!

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Farrah Fawcett in the early '90s

was a major, major, important star.

Well, the fact that she did it and it came off well...

That was a major turning point.

Then the movie stars... Like shooting fish in a barrel.

-Arsenio starts booking A-listers,

while over at CBS, Pat Sajak can't buy a vowel.

His talk show was canceled

before the end of its first season.

CBS stations across the country

are now able to make a deal with Paramount

to air Arsenio in Sajak's time slot.

-Chuck, give me a beat.

♪♪

You all know what time it is now, right?

- Let's get busy! - Yeah!

-This is my posse.

-His band was The Posse.

-You know who those people over there are... the Dog Pound.

-The audience was the Dog Pound.

-People we usually give names to.

That's who those people are. [ Cheers and applause ]

-They'd bark and pump their fists...

You know, "Woof, woof, woof!"

- Woof, woof, woof! - Woof, woof, woof!

-The twirling of the wrist.

-Yeah. You at home and in your underwear,

"Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof!"

[ Chuckles ] That's the one that gets it popping.

-These aren't jokes. These are thought.

These are things that make you say, "Hmm."

-He had a segment called "Things that Make You Go Hmmm"

that became a song by C&C Music Factory

that was a hit.

-♪ My girl bust' in, caught us creating a boom ♪

♪ She said... ♪ - ♪ Girlfriend ♪

♪ Things that make you go hmm ♪

-Whereas other people go,

"We have a great lineup for you tonight,"

he was like, "Let's get busy!"

It was a party.

-My name is Arsenio Hall, and my philosophy

is, "Do it, do it, do it till you're satisfied."

[ Cheers and applause ] - You know, TV critics

and people who are watching brass at the networks

look and say, "It's not gonna work.

It's too much. It's too extra.

It's too over-the-top. It's too Black."

But it worked. It worked like gangbusters.

-In a first for show business,

Arsenio didn't just book Black performers to put on a show.

He also brought them on to talk business.

-I looked at the numbers.

The movie... you know me. I'm all about getting paid.

You opened on a Wednesday.

You opened in less theaters than "House Party 2,"

and you did better numbers.

And this is a real success midweek for you guys.

-So, I think we were surprised when he brought that up.

But, looking back, I'm just like, "I get what you're doing."

He's saying, "Hey, man, y'all are doing numbers."

Black movies make money.

-From my first meeting with him,

Arsenio talked about inclusivity.

That was important to him.

But shortly after the show became a success,

you started hearing from the Black community,

"The show isn't Black enough.

He doesn't hire enough Black people."

The show did have a number of Black people

on the staff for sure.

But in the key position of producer, showrunner...

No, that was a white woman.

The writers were a mix, Black and white.

The talent department... we had at least one Black woman there.

I know there were other people,

you know, spread throughout the show who were.

-Former president of the Los Angeles chapter

of the NAACP, Willis Edwards,

and film director Spike Lee

publicly take a swing at Arsenio as an Uncle Tom.

In the media, he punches back.

But the attacks sting

and will soon redirect the career trajectory

of the young late-night star.

-[ As Muhammad Ali ] can't whip me.

Look at me. I'm the greatest.

-The world may be less threatening,

but it is also, I believe, at the moment less stable,

and there is a great deal of uncertainty in the world.

-The early '90s saw many firsts for Black Americans.

Colin Powell is named Chairman

of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff,

Art Shell becomes the first Black coach of an NFL team,

and Frederick Drew Gregory is the first Black person

to command the Space Shuttle.

But in Hollywood, being first and being Black

has always been a tricky part to play.

-You come out, and you do your thing,

and you'll deal with the problems of today.

You do it with humor.

I tried to do it with entertaining

to try to get some doors open,

'cause all of them were closed in those days.

All of them were closed.

-And despite claiming to want his show to be inclusive,

Arsenio was attacked for not doing enough.

-When the criticism arose that the show wasn't Black enough,

I know Arsenio was hurt by that to a degree.

-Perhaps in response to the complaints,

Arsenio sets up an internship program

for young people of color.

One of his first interns

is a headstrong USC film student named John Singleton.

-He may have been asked at one point

to xerox some stuff.

And he went, "No. That's not what I do."

It became a famous story right then within the show.

And then when he did "Boyz N The Hood,"

it became an even more famous story.

Good for him, and God bless him.

-It's on Arsenio's Stage 29 that Singleton meets Ice Cube,

who he will one day cast as the up-and-coming rapper

in his groundbreaking debut film "Boyz N The Hood."

♪♪

-But Arsenio has ambitions

that exceed facilitating careers in Hollywood.

He wants to make a difference

in the greater Black communities of L.A.,

which in the late '80s and '90s

were confronting a deadly gang war

between the Crips and the Bloods.

Arsenio brings on the West Coast All-Stars,

a collective of California rappers

who are united in an effort to end gang violence

in the City of Angels.

-Mike Concepcion was a former gang member

who conceived the idea of a weekend of peace,

and Arsenio was a huge supporter of this entire effort.

What was great about Arsenio

is that you might see a side of these artists

that you would not have seen somewhere else.

-Including rapper Tone Loc,

who had a hit with the song "Funky Cold Medina."

-Which is a song that would not be okay in 2021, by the way,

but it was a smash hit at the time.

-Tone, you're from L.A.

Can this weekend expand to something larger?

-It's like baking a cake. You know, you have...

This is like one ingredient.

I had never been on a talk show before.

My favorite show is, of course, when we came out

and did the "All In The Same Gang" video.

My name is Tone Loc or Tony Smith or Tone or Loc.

Depends on how you know me or where you know me from.

You know what I'm saying?

♪ ...upon a time for me was no joke, though ♪

♪ They knew I was crazy, so they labelled me Loco ♪

-Well, again, Tone Loc talking

from a place of his community and who he is,

not just performing a hit song.

-For Arsenio, it's not just about leveraging Black culture

to grow his audience.

He understands the unique messages being communicated

by Black music groups the other shows refused to book.

-Not a lot of people would give NWA a chance to come on TV

and say or express any of their songs.

You know what I mean?

-We can use the initial of the first word.

- "F" the police. - Yeah.

-Once in everybody's lifetime, you know,

they get harassed by the police for no reason.

And then everybody wants to say it, you know,

but they can't say it on the spot,

because something will happen to them, you know?

And then you get harassed by the police

just because of what you wear.

-In the fall of 1990, NWA is fighting the FBI

over what they can and cannot say in their music.

Arsenio hires actors to play officers

trying to shut down the performance.

-♪ 100 miles and runnin', MC Ren I hold the gun and... ♪

♪ You want me to deal with the situation and it's done in ♪

-Do it!

-In the late '80s and the early '90s,

the police violence in L.A. was ridiculous.

And it was something that was very common knowledge

if you were a person of color,

maybe not so much if you weren't.

So to have them seated and talking eloquently,

coherently, thoughtfully about their music,

about their position, about their experience,

I think that was groundbreaking at the time.

-You're not saying that all police are bad?

- Nah. 90% of them are. - Not all police.

-Arsenio's commitment and authenticity gets noticed

by the Black community in Hollywood.

Suddenly, he's booking guests that no one else can get.

-Arsenio loved Prince.

He said to Sharon Olson, the music booker,

"Get me Prince on the show. I want Prince."

So she tried and tried.

So, finally, he'll do the show.

The only thing is, he won't talk.

"Let's take it to Arsenio."

He says, "That's okay.

We'll talk to people who have worked with Prince,

and they'll talk about him."

-Prince, if I'm lying, come out here and slap me,

'cause I don't remember everything.

I think he said just, "Well, you want to lay one down?"

And we went out there, and I started singing.

And he said, "Gosh."

And he was happy about what he was hearing,

so he called George Clinton in.

- Yeah. - George was in the other room.

George. Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]

-That was a great show.

-♪ Come on, baby ♪

♪ Let's get nice ♪

♪ Yeah! Ow! ♪

-Again, how smart Arsenio was.

-Smart enough to weather efforts by his competitors

to keep big-name celebrities off his show

and become the exclusive destination for A-listers

with something difficult to talk about.

-Arsenio called me into his office and said, "Bill,

Magic Johnson's going to announce that he has HIV.

What do I do?"

I said, "You get in the car, and you go to your friend.

The show.

If you don't tape today, you don't tape today."

♪♪

In those days, having HIV was like a death sentence.

-Because of the HIV virus that I have attained,

I will have to retire from the Lakers.

-Watching him play in the NBA, especially the Lakers,

especially in Los Angeles, he is a hero to everyone.

[ Cheers and applause ] - Whenever you're ready.

-It humanizes him being on this show,

because a lot of folks,

it's something that you don't talk about.

-I'm here to say, "Hey, I got it,"

but I'm gonna live on.

And you don't have to run from me like,

"Oh, here come Magic! Uh-oh!"

[ Laughter ] You know?

You don't have to do all that.

You know, just you can be you.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Magic Johnson's appearance on Arsenio

is a '90s cultural milestone

and help set the stage for possibly the most iconic moment

in late-night TV history.

-So many people in the presidential race,

"Who's Bill Clinton?"

-Before this episode,

Bill Clinton was probably third in the running.

After this episode, he shot up completely.

-Him being comfortable enough to put on the sunglasses,

getting one of Arsenio's ties, putting it on,

and playing the sax...

-That was unheard of.

-We're coming out of the Reagan era.

♪♪

He was reaching out to the MTV generation heavy,

and I think it really made a difference.

-You know, Bill Clinton's like,

[as Bill Clinton] "Hey, Arsenio. Alright."

[ Chuckles ] "Gonna get these Black voters."

[ Cheers and applause ] - What do we do about the gangs,

and what do we do about the violence in our inner cities,

the Black on Black crime?

-Long-running joke was Bill Clinton

was, like, the first Black president.

Everyone always kind of makes that joke around that.

And it's because he was the one

that talked directly to Black culture

in a way that you hadn't seen any other president do.

-Why would you vote for Clinton?

-Well, it seemed like he got more going

than the rest of them.

-There's no question that this ticket

is going to get the overwhelming majority of the Black vote.

-Politics, film, music...

Arsenio is the kingmaker with the golden touch,

perhaps due to one famously long finger.

He'd go over and take that very long "E.T." -type finger

and tap Michael Wolff.

-Keenen Ivory Wayans on "In Living Color"

would do a parody of it.

-You've ruined my career!

-Strive to be the best you can be.

Michael Wolff, take us home

with some of that nasty, booger-nose funk.

-Sometimes guests would want to do it,

because it was his thing.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

-Johnny Carson might disagree

after seeing a "Saturday Night Live"

Johnny/Arsenio mash-up.

-It's Carsenio!

[ Audience cheering ]

-The "SNL" clip "Carsenio"

still is a very important clip in popular culture.

-Yes! Alright!

- "SNL" is making that clear through comedy

that Carson is a kind of an old way.

-You just do this. You go, "Whoop, whoop, whoop."

- Whoop, whoop, whoop! - Whoop, whoop, whoop!

-And they, uh... they go crazy.

It's just wild, weird stuff.

-You are correct, sir. Yes.

-The sketch's suggestion that Carson is a has-been

is particularly insulting to Johnny

coming from a show on NBC, his same network.

-Welcome, oh, sage.

-And it reveals an uncomfortable reality.

-Are you finished?

-Four days after the sketch airs, Carson announces

he's the one finished with "The Tonight Show."

The news will spark one of the most contentious battles

in the history of broadcast television.

In the spring of 1991,

"The Arsenio Hall Show" was on the rise

when the news of Carson's retirement

shifts the tension, then sparks controversy

over who will take over "The Tonight Show."

-You can't talk about, you know, the '90s and late-night talk

without talking about the late-night wars.

The battle centers on who will replace Johnny

on "The Tonight Show"...

Host of his own talk show on NBC David Letterman

or Johnny's regular stand-in host, Jay Leno.

-Meanwhile, we're just toiling away.

[ Audience cheering ]

-Publicists were like, "You know what?

Nobody knows what's going on over there.

Do Arsenio, do Arsenio, do Arsenio.

He's getting numbers. It's fun."

He's attracting a different demo.

Who knows what's gonna happen over here?

-What's happening is an increasingly contentious battle

for "The Tonight Show."

-You're gonna be staying out here long or just...

-I'm leaving tonight. I got to drop

the audition tape off over at CBS,

and then I'm going. [ Laughter ]

-Throughout the 1980s, Letterman's "Late Night" show

directly follows Carson on NBC.

-And it was assumed that when Johnny stepped down

that Letterman would have that spot.

And then the whole face of late night changed.

-And now Jay Leno. [ Cheers and applause ]

-May 25, 1992, marks the beginning of Jay Leno's run

as host of "The Tonight Show."

-We still don't know where the candidates stand on the issues.

I mean, all we know for sure

is that Ross Perot hasn't said anything,

Bush hasn't done anything,

and Clinton hasn't inhaled anything.

That's all we know.

-Like much of Hollywood,

Arsenio is unhappy with the decision.

He doesn't think Leno has earned the job and speaks out publicly.

-Arsenio gave an interview, and on the cover it says,

"I'm gonna whip Jay Leno's ass."

A mistake. You know, they had been friends.

They had come up the same way at the same time.

And I think he felt that Jay

was perhaps poaching on his territory.

-While Arsenio focuses on battling Leno,

David Letterman makes a move

that will prove to be a devastating blow

to Arsenio's future in late night.

-Listen to this.

Earlier today, for the first time,

NBC named me Employee of the Month.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Dave Letterman, in his great angst and anger

that he was passed over for the job,

goes to CBS.

-They wanted a hit show at 11:30,

and they got one with Letterman.

-The move to CBS means more money for Letterman

and less television stations for Arsenio.

-With Arsenio being syndicated,

some of the people who were picking him up

and putting him against "The Tonight Show"

were CBS affiliates.

When it's a choice between Letterman,

who is a very well-established brand,

and Arsenio, they chose Letterman.

-Not wanting to be left behind,

Fox decides to produce its own late night program.

-Chevy Chase is getting his act together

at the new Chevy Chase Theater.

-Chevy is the man!

-To make room for Chevy,

Arsenio's syndicated show is pushed to late, late night.

-Now you have these competing late-night shows

who are all vying not for the same audience,

but for the same talent.

-By then, because of Arsenio, some of these other shows

we're starting to book hip-hop artists and artists of color.

-Please welcome Public Enemy.

- ♪ Yeah, boy ♪ - What's up, New York?

-And I'm real happy for the memories.

-We're gonna do this for Dave.

-With ratings in free fall,

the grind of a nightly show begins to wear Arsenio down.

-After three years, Arsenio...

was tired.

When for the third or fourth time,

you're going to interview Brooke Shields,

I can't blame you if your mind goes on automatic.

- Let's talk about... - Do your best. [ Laughs ]

-What should we talk about?

-You could just see the eyes glazing over.

What was on the air was not great.

-Perhaps with an eye to revitalize the struggling show,

Arsenio decides to have on

one of the most controversial figures of the 1990s.

I got called down to Arsenio's office.

There's Arsenio.

And he says to me, "Bill, I've got great news."

♪♪

"I booked Minister Louis Farrakhan."

I looked at him, and I said,

"Every Jew in Hollywood is gonna hate your guts."

-He says, "Then he'll expose the real corruption in America."

-Of how many senators

are honorary members of the Israeli Knesset!

-"It's a huge mistake. Don't do that."

-In early 1994, with his ratings down 24%

amidst a crowded late-night landscape,

Arsenio writes a letter to Paramount,

informing them that this will be his last season.

It's assumed that the sinking ratings

are why Arsenio ends the show,

but that's only part of the story.

And it takes 18 years for Arsenio

to finally reveal his true motivation.

-There is a point where you say, "I can't please anybody."

Spike Lee saying I'm an Uncle Tom,

and white people saying I'm too Black.

Who am I doing this for? - Yeah.

So there's a point where... - Of trying to please everybody.

-Not being able to please anyone.

-He probably could have eked a little bit more out of it

had he wanted to fight,

but it would have been really sad, right?

So he was gonna end it how he wanted to end it.

-And how he wanted it to end

was by booking Louis Farrakhan on the show.

-Arsenio Hall is assaulting the Jewish community.

-Louis Farrakhan...

Recently, his aide, Khalid Abdul Muhammad,

called Jewish people...

-To say that Farrakhan is a racist is to put it mildly.

-Louis Farrakhan... He is controversial.

He often says things that are misogynistic,

that can be anti-Semitic, sexist.

- Thank you. - You name it, right?

-It was definitely a shock to television history

having Louis Farrakhan on television.

That fell right in line with what Arsenio has always done.

It's just the individual

happening to be a bit more disliked than most.

-Agree with necessarily everything he says,

but he is a Black man,

and he has done a lot of good for a lot of Black people.

And if they don't like it, the hell with it.

-The thing about the Nation of Islam, though,

especially in the early '90s,

is they offered education, they offered food programs.

And honestly, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone

who was of age during that time

who can't speak to a family member

or them themselves who went through a period

of following Farrakhan or at least listening.

-But for one of Arsenio's producers,

having Farrakhan on the show

was a professional do-or-die decision.

-I said, "Not only will I not produce it,

I can't be a part of not only that show,

then I can't be part of this show if you do it."

He said, "No. I'm going to do Minister Louis Farrakhan."

Literally went upstairs, got on the phone,

and started talking to my friends in the industry,

said, "This train is gonna crash.

I got to get another gig. Help me."

And that is how I got to be the co-producer

on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.

-Everybody talks about how you beat up on the white man,

but you beat up on us more than you beat up on anybody.

-To rebuke a person,

to admonish or to correct the sins

does not mean hate them.

When someone will correct you,

that is the greatest sign of their love for you.

-Arsenio gives Farrakhan the entire TV hour

and neglects to challenge the Nation of Islam leader

on any of his more controversial statements.

-That was probably the biggest thing

he was criticized for, for sure,

folks saying that he was too casual in conversation with him,

he didn't ask the hard questions for him.

Arsenio's the type of person

that always asks the hard questions,

and in this case, I'll kind of agree he didn't.

-Afterwards,

it was like someone had farted in the room.

You just don't discuss it.

-On April 18, two months after the Farrakhan episode airs,

Arsenio Hall publicly announces

he's not going to continue the show.

-Yo! Yo Yo is in the house.

-What follows is one of the most star-studded send-offs

in late-night history.

The climax is during Arsenio's last week on air,

with a segment produced

by the matriarch of hip-hop, Queen Latifah.

-♪ Yes, KRS, Arsenio, you are the better man ♪

♪ We could never, ever check David Letterman ♪

♪ So we comin' in the place right now ♪

♪ Yo, Mad Lion, show 'em how ♪

-♪ Arsenio, there's no need to worry ♪

[ Audience cheering ]

-On April 27, 1994, Arsenio does his last fist-pump

as host of "The Arsenio Hall Show."

-We felt like he left proudly, but we were still upset.

You know, we were losing Arsenio,

and we were not getting a comparable replacement.

- "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

-Late night went again to be a space

for white men to control our late night.

-The attempts to establish Black hosts on late night...

And there have been several.

They just have not panned out, for whatever reason.

-In 2022, audiences get a brief look

at what they've been missing.

-I just don't think that it's been until recently

that people have really looked back and said,

"Oh, there was something to that..."

a zeitgeist moment, you know,

that I think only could have happened,

like, in that space and time.

-It was an entertainment show,

and it entertained a lot of people

for 5 1/2 years.

-Man, he had a hell of a run.