Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Today, Arsenio Hall. He grew up in Cleveland, dreaming of being the next Johnny Carson. Kind of.
I wanted to do this show that didn't exist when I was a kid, and I knew the talent was out there. You know, I found Bruno Mars and put him on the show when he was two feet tall. I wanted those things that Johnny didn't do.
And we hear from Jeff Ross, comedian, producer, and the man behind some of the most savage celebrity roasts on television. But before all of that, he was a kid growing up in his family's kosher catering hall in New Jersey, serving weddings and bar mitzvahs, one of which was his own.
My bar mitzvah was like something between a Super Bowl halftime show and like something Saddam Hussein would throw for one of his kids.
He gets personal and vulnerable in his new Netflix comedy special, Take a Banana for the Ride. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. That's how America was welcomed into the party that was known as the Arsenio Hall Show. His name stretched out the way his mother used to call him into the house when he was a kid growing up in Cleveland.
During its run in the late 80s and early 90s, Time magazine called Arsenio hip, brash, and the new generation. And some of the most important moments in American culture happened on Arsenio's couch. Magic Johnson chose the show as the first place to speak after announcing his HIV diagnosis.
When Los Angeles burned after the Rodney King verdict, executives wanted the show to go dark, but Arsenio went on anyway. And one night, a charming governor from Arkansas, running for president, showed up with a saxophone.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Arsenio Hall to create his groundbreaking talk show?
But here's what I never knew until I read Arsenio's new memoir. The show wasn't canceled. Arsenio quit, walking away from a dream he'd been rehearsing since he was 12 years old. The reasons were distinctly American. White audiences thought the show was too Black, and Black audiences thought it wasn't Black enough. And it wore him down in ways he's never told fully until now.
His new memoir is simply called Arsenio. And Arsenio Hall, welcome to Fresh Air.
Well, thank you very much. Wow, what an intro.
Oh, Arsenio, you know, you have talked about the decision to leave the show before, but this book, it really names things I haven't seen you name before. You say this thing that was really poignant to me. You said you felt insatiably black and profoundly alone. Take me inside of that to be 100 percent yourself and still that self be rejected. Yeah.
Yeah, you know, when I came up, I could watch a show like Johnny Carson or Merv Griffin and for weeks at a time, maybe never see a minority perform. And you know they're out there. So my dream was to one day grow up and show the other side of show business. Unfortunately... You can't get the kind of numbers doing my show like to be on a network.
You know, you can't be on CBS, ABC, or replace the king when he leaves on NBC. Johnny Carson. Yes, yes. So I created this show in syndication, which did very well, and often Paramount thought it was too black because they wanted to kind of dangle a carrot in front of me and say, if you do the right show... You could be the guy to get Johnny's audience when he leaves.
But one of the reasons Johnny liked me is I didn't want Johnny's audience, and I didn't want to do his show.
When you launched, there were essentially three players.
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Chapter 3: How did Jeff Ross's upbringing influence his comedy career?
There was Johnny Carson, who was the king, and then Letterman, who was tucked away after midnight. And then you were this scrappy, syndicated show with no network. What was Paramount actually asking you to be that you weren't?
I guess, you know, the example I like to give people is when Michael Bivens of New Edition first called me and told me he found this group and they're called Boyz II Men. And I said, what are they like? He says, they're like The Temptations, but it's four of them. And I said, hey, I got The Temptations coming on this week. Bring the guys by.
If their album's not finished, they can just come on now and do something with The Temptations. So now there are nine black men performing in the center of my stage. And I don't know how to describe it other than there's You know, one black person in the mix makes it look too black. We've had research that points to that in our society.
And I wanted to do a lot of Busta Rhymes and I had Hammer on a lot. I had everybody in the culture on Hammer. And unfortunately, in America, you're never going to be number one if you have this insatiable desire to do Toni Braxton instead of Dolly Parton. And by the way, I try. By the way, I tried to do both. I would put I would I tried to mix it up.
I would put Dolly Parton on and then have something for the culture after it. I wanted to do this show that didn't exist when I was a kid and I knew the talent was out there. You know, I found Bruno Mars and put him on the show when he was two feet tall. I wanted those things that Johnny didn't do.
And the things that you did, I mean, while you weren't number one, I mean, you were a close number two. And in many instances over those years, you over-indexed on an audience under 35. And one of the
One of the things that you write about in the book is as you are receiving these messages from Paramount that you were too black, that you needed to have different type of guests on and you were competing against this growing late night ecosystem. It eventually broke through on air.
There's a moment on the show when activists from Queer Nation heckle you during your monologue and they yell, why don't you have any gay guests on your show? And at first, you answer politely. You say, like, I have a lot of gay guests. Maybe they just aren't out. Maybe you just don't know their orientation.
But then they continue to push, and then you become more agitated, and then something in you just snaps. And I want to play a clip from it. Let's listen.
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Chapter 4: What significant cultural moments occurred on The Arsenio Hall Show?
Many of my guests were gay. But it was at a time when you didn't always know it. So the gay people on my show couldn't even come to my defense. Ellen couldn't come and say, oh, wait a minute. You guys don't know. Because she hadn't come out yet. Right. And Rosie was on the show a lot. And a lot of people that may be still in the closet, so I won't mention their names, but
It wasn't my job to say, ladies and gentlemen, balladeer and homosexual, put your hands together. You know, it wasn't my job to introduce a singer that way. And I think part of my anger was at that point. I'm being told by the black community that it ain't black enough. I'm being told by the Paramount executives that it ain't white enough.
And now the gay community is going to attack me during the show. You're going to take money out of my wallet and food off my family's plate in the middle of my job here when you don't know what you're talking about. You're going to blame me for something that is absolutely not true. And I think I was sick of of being criticized by everyone because everyone wanted it to be something else.
It's hard being the first Black anything in late night.
My guest is talk show host, actor, and author Arsenio Hall. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
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Chapter 5: What personal challenges did Jeff Ross face in his life?
You know, you mentioned about holding a guest's hand and something that kept coming up in the book were guests who were nervous in ways that surprised me. You tell the story of Maya Angelou coming to your dressing room before the show. She needed like two shots of Crown Royale just to walk out there. And Patti LaBelle, yeah, the night you introduced Prince, she was gripping your hand so hard.
Yeah, and she has these nails. I still have a mark in my hand from Patti LaBelle.
I mean, that stuck out to me because it comes up so often in the book. These are people who had performed for thousands and had been performing for a long time at that point. What was it about your stage or you?
First of all, I mean, one of the things that Paramount hated is my audience would be predominantly black and young. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but it was a different kind of show. Maya Angelou came to my room to talk to me and she came down and she told me how nervous she was. And I offered her, I said, I got a bar and I opened this cabinet.
And she says, oh baby, I wouldn't mind having a little bit of that. And so we had a drink and I think it was the time that we talked about and how it was poetry set to music, but it was poetry of different poets.
You know, the thing about the nerves, I mean, maybe that's just something that happens and we just don't see it, but there's something about that that I think... Maybe there was an environment that you were providing that allowed these guests to show a more truer or fuller version of themselves. And I want to play another clip from an interview you did with Tupac in 1993.
At the time, he was promoting his new album and the film Poetic Justice with Janet Jackson. And you ask him about promoting violence. Let's listen.
When we were talking at the top of the show, first of all, you did a little rap, and it contained the word nine. Now, on the street, that's nine millimeters. Right. You're going to get some letters. Yeah, yeah. And I'm wondering, are you concerned that possibly it'll affect box office or record sales because you're too close to the edge or too hard?
It's like this. The masses, the hungry people, they outweigh the rich. So as long as I appeal to the hungry people, And the poverty-stricken people, it's all good. I'm going to have a job for life. It's these rich people who are worried about the fooling the poor people. Everybody knows crime out there. Everybody knows what type of situation we're in.
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Chapter 6: Why did Arsenio Hall decide to end his successful show?
The first time I met Tupac, he was with Jada Pinkett. It was way, way back. And he was a dancer. The next time he came, he came as a rapper. The next time he came, he came as an actor. I remember him calling me and wanting to come and just talk once because he said that he was about to do poetic justice and they wanted him to take an AIDS test. And he said, Arsenio, am I wrong?
I shouldn't have to take an AIDS test unless I'm going to really have sex with Janet. Being Janet Jackson. And it was funny because now when I look back now, you may go on Instagram live or you may tweet something. Back then, we didn't have the Internet. We didn't have the blue bird. We had the black bird. That was me. I was the place you come from.
and talk and air out your grievances and say what's on your mind. And I think people knew it was that place. So you get that boy joy, you get that other side that you've never seen. Maybe it's those guys knew we were kindred spirits. I remember ice tea coming on when he had an album out called cop killer. And I really wanted him to explain it because when I use those two words together, it's,
It sounds horrible. And the 9mm conversation with Tupac. But these were poets from the inner city trying to give you a poem a little different than E.E. Cummings. And I remember Ice-T saying... You watch a Schwarzenegger movie, but you don't think he's really the Terminator. You don't think he's really killing people, right? I am like that. This is art.
I'm telling you about a problem that my people have in the inner city with cops. And that's one thing I loved about the show is the masses. White America, let's say. in the safety of their home, could look in this box and hear people talk and hear thoughts that they didn't hear in their homes. And that's why I thought the show was important.
I want to talk a bit about just how purpose-driven you were as a young person from a very young age, even in the single digits. You hosted your first talk show in your apartment building basement when you were 12. And your musical guest was a kid from down the street singing along to a Temptations record. Yeah, Junior Brown. Yeah. And seven kids showed up as your audience.
Yeah.
Absolutely. And I used a folding card table as my desk. And, you know, I had a little record player. So I was like, Junior's going to sing Get Ready. And I put the needle on the record and it started playing. And Junior sang Get Ready. And then I interviewed him. And I had seen a comedian open for Al Green when I was a kid. And All he had was a towel on a stool and a glass of water.
And I was like, God, I think I could be a stand up because sometimes when I would talk during my magic act, I could get laughs. And one time my dad was preaching a wedding. My dad was a Baptist preacher. And I said something during the wedding and got a laugh from the audience. But my dad was mad at me because we were there. He brought his son to do a wedding. And I'm trying to get laughs.
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Chapter 7: What themes are explored in Jeff Ross's Netflix special, Take a Banana for the Ride?
What was your bar mitzvah like? Was it lavish?
My bar mitzvah was like something between a Super Bowl halftime show and something Saddam Hussein would throw for one of his kids. Every favorite in New Jersey was called in. The best band, the best florist, the best of everything. It was like... My dad, my mom, they really went all out for my bar mitzvah. It's a core memory for me. And, you know, talk about a Viennese table.
People are still talking about it. The desserts, the cheesecake, the babka. It was, you know, it was a beautiful bar mitzvah. I remember the first three words of my Haftorah. So religion, it was not... the focus for us. It was always cultural, like Jewish pride, Jewish strength, Jewish food, Jewish music, Jewish laughter. That was sort of my upbringing.
When you were 12, your mother was diagnosed with leukemia. She died when you were 15. Were you very close?
We were. We were.
What was it like watching her suffer when you were so young and you probably hadn't seen someone suffer like that before?
It was hard. It was hard. It was hard to see somebody so tough and so full of laughter, such a positive person, suffer. And it made me realize that life is very unpredictable. And we were responsible. All of us are responsible for our own happiness.
What caregiving responsibilities filled to you? Your father was really busy with the catering business.
Besides the having to take care of yourself for her, you know, she wanted to make sure while she was in the hospital that I was, my sister and I, you know, I was playing football. I was washing my uniform every night and making my own dinner and just being a good boy. We couldn't visit her very often because the hospital was in New York and we lived in New Jersey.
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Chapter 8: How did Jeff Ross's family dynamics shape his perspective on humor?
I would never watch because it was late. But I remember hearing Buddy Hackett and Don Rickles on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I would sit at the top of the stairs where my parents couldn't see me and I would listen. I could hear them laughing at comedians on TV. So I think it rubbed off on me.
You knew some of those old school comics. You knew Buddy Hackett. And you knew Don Rickles. You joined the Friars Club when you were how old?
Oh, boy. I was probably in my early 30s. And... That was the coolest. I would play poker there with Greg Fitzsimmons and Elon Gold, and they had a poker room, the George Burns poker room, where we could order lunch and play poker.
And then they had a billiards room, and then they had a steam room and a gym, and then they had a dining room where you might see Milton Berle or Buddy Hackett sitting under their own portrait.
So we have to wrap up soon, I regret to say, but I have a request.
Anything.
Okay. You might be sorry that you said yes. Here's what I'd like you to do. I want you now to roast me and go hard. You've listened to the show, so you know something about the show and about me. And then I, in turn, will let you know how it made me feel.
Oh, wow.
On a scale from really grateful for the hilarity to I will be self-conscious for the rest of my life. And if I really hate it, I can insist that we edit it out.
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