Latest / The Breakfast Club / Breakfast Club Classic: Arsenio Hall On Capturing Culture, Breaking Boundaries, Life's Lesson

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Breakfast Club Classic: Arsenio Hall On Capturing Culture, Breaking Boundaries, Life's Lesson · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Every day. I waiting click yours up the Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm finished for y'all. Done morning everybody.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: It's the dj n V Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne, the gud
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: we are the Breakfast Club. Lon La Ros is here
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: with us as well. Now we got a special guest,
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: a legend icon and og a legend in this game,
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, City of Hall.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, sir, how are you feeling? I'm feeling great.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: I'm thanking God for the day that Charlemagne called me
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: because I wouldn't have done this without the voice of
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: respect on the other end of the phone. I mean,
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: I'm seventy years old, could have written a book many times,
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: but that's adult work. It's a really hard thing to do.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: And he talked me into it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: And I'm so glad I did for my son and
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: for my legacy.
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: Man, I'm so glad you did too, because I want
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: to talk about your legacy today.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: You know, I always say that I got four entertainment icons, right,
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: jay Z, Clarence Avon, P. D.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Green, and Arsenio Hall.
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: And I feel like people don't truly understand the risk
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: you took to put black culture at the forefront at
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: a time when nobody was putting black culture at the forefront.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was hard.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: I was coming along at a time when you go
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: to Paramount and say, let's book Bobby Brown the first
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Friday night because people won't have to work on Saturday,
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: and really showing what show this is? He has this song,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: don't be cruel in my prerogative, Let's let him break
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: one at the top and one at the bottle. Oh,
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Johnny Carson only does three minutes of a song at
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: the end of the show.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, but.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: I'm not fucking Johnny. I'm not Johnny Carson. So let's
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: try this. But what was crazier is one of the
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: ladies in the room said, and why would we give
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: a model that much time? And I didn't realize that
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: there was a Bobby Brown in the modeling world. Yeah,
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: so I didn't know her, and I realized. My battle
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: is that they have no idea what I'm about to do.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: You know, you say, Michael Bivens called me and he
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: got these four dudes they're called boys to men, and
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: or Doctor Drake called me and this kid, Calvin, he
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: wants him to come on and do this thing and
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: this is.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: How you know. I was not him to it, but
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: he wants to freestyle.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: You'll just give him a beat and he'll just come
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: out of his head with whatever is in the environment.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: And when his album is ready, then you can have
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: him on to do one, two, three and the voar
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: with Dre, you know. And I'm like, okay, we call
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: Snoop and he doesn't want to do the show, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: like why he says, you know, he's talking about the streets.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Of Long Beach.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: I have respect and I don't want to, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: I don't want to lose the respect of the streets
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: to do this late night television type stuff, you know.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: To go to the studio and uh talk him into it.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: This is a guy who Snoop Dog is more popular
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: than last see now.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Popular and did not want to.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Be on television.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: But I'll never forget he walked in the door with
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: a blue hockey jersey, remember, and we gave him a beat.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And I don't think we'd ever seen freestyle on television,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: you know, but those kinds of things I wanted to.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: I saw a little kid on a tape do an
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: Elvis impression, and I tell Paramount I want to put
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: this kid on. They say, well, you need tune in
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: numbers names. If you put Prince, you get a tune
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: in number. You can put it in TV Guy two
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: weeks ahead of time. That was a game back then.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: And if you put some unknown you know, this is
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: not Star Search. You can't put an unknown kid on
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: until you maybe in the fifth year. And so I
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: would put people on in a monologue, and I created
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: this little spot where put people on. But the kid
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: was Bruno Monomore and stuff like that. They didn't want
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Eddie Griffin because he's too edgy. So during the monologue,
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: I said, oh, Eddie Griffin. Because Aunt Sullivan used to
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: point in the audience when I was a kid, there's
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Diana Rosh. Then up it is rash, you know, And
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: so I'm like, Eddie Griffin, what's something? Hey come in
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: for a minute, and it's not on the booking sheet.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: Paramount don't know what's gonna happen. Now, that one backfired
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: on me because Eddie Griffin did Michael Jackson's Norton cocaine.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: He does and you know, because he used to be
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: a dancer, so he does that, you know, he does
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: all this little step and the lawyers had a hard
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: time that next day at Paramount because basically he had
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: done a routine on television about Michael Jackson's Norton cocaine
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: and then dancing.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Really it was hilarious.
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, we'll.
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: Never have that kind of monoculture again when everybody is
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: tuned in watching one thing at once, because I remember
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: all old moments. We had no DVRs back now on man,
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: you couldn't go back and watch it on YouTube.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: You had you had to, you had, you had to
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: turn it on before we go back to because I
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: like to go back to the beginning so people understand
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: the story.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: That's why you bought the book.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: But that's why you're in this business.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: But you know what, one thing I've noticed, I've watched
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of your interviews in the last week or
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: so to mine, when I look at your face, I
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: see a light that comes on like it's almost either
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: a surprise light, like I'm surprised they really fuck with me,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: like you, like you look amazed when these guys like
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: like I'm thinking myself, I say no, no, no, he's the
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: motherfucking And then another thing that popped in my head
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: is I know you retired. Maybe he's ready for that comeback,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: because it's just the feeling, the energy.
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: When I watch you come out and just the light
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: and you're pointing.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: At people and you're pointing at the bed, I'm like, God,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: damn it, bring on senior back. What so what is
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: going through your mind when you are doing these press
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: runs and you're doing TV.
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: What's going through a senior's mind?
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: The light you saw, I mean that was the light
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: of a fan, the l of a kid from Cleveland
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: who did a talk show in his basement and I
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: had a little record player. I put the record player on.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: There was a Temptation's Greatest Hits album. I'd play get Ready,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: I'd come out, I do a magic trick, I'd do
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: a joke after taking the needle off the record, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: I would entertain the kids in my neighborhood with this
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: talk show.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: So you see a.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Guy who's dreamed it all his life and can't believe
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: that I've dreamed it into existence. My mother used to say,
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: if you get good grades, you can go to Detroit
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: and watch the.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Motown Review with your cousins. For five dollars.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: You could see Stevie Wonder you could see the Temptations
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: and they give you two pips, well sometimes for five hours,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: what you want and that kind of stuff, and you
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: grow up and then you tour with the Temptations. When
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: they had to stand on the top touring, James wrote
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: them that track. Then one day Michael Bivens calls you
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: and says, hey, I got four guys that idolized the Temptations.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: They're from Philly called Boys to Men. But their album's
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: not ready yet, and when it's ready, I want to come.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: I say, Oh, I got an idea. If they love
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: the Temptations, I got the Temptations on Thursday, let them
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: come and blend in with the Temptations and you can
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: imagine a paramount every night. It was a nightmare because
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: they wanted less black. Now I got fifteen niggas man
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: and but my thing was like, I'd rather do six
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: years my way than twenty years Johnny's way. And Johnny
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: dug the show because I wasn't trying to be him.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: There was never a competition. I was looking for friends
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: of the show. I remember Alan King, a legendary old comic,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: called me and he says, your show put out an
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: offer to me. And I just want you to know
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I love what you're doing, but I'm a Johnny guy.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: And that's when it hit me, you got to get
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: your guys. And so that's when I started trying to
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: go for the audience that didn't have a talk show.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: And that made it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Work, you know, cause I had been the Ed McMahon
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: figure on a thing called Thick of the Night, you.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Know where I was, oh in Thick, and so I
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: got to.
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: Watch it go on and I got to learn from
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: Alan's experience. Don't try to be Johnny. Try to come
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: up with an alternative. By the way, when I was
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: working for Alan Thick, there was a little boy. I
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: brought Johnny Gill on Alan Thick show. I met Johnny
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Gill in Cleveland with Gerald LeVert. I bring Johnny Gill
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: on the show and he gets numbers, and that let
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: me know, Hey, it's not that black people don't get numbers,
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: it's that we ain't trying it. He came on with
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: Stacy Lattisaw and they did perfect combination. On the side,
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: there's a little white boy with a cub's cap on.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: It's Alan Thick's son who always surfaced when there was
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: r and B on the show, and that was Robin Thick.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: That's another example of how we know who we are,
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: we know who we want to be, and that kid
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: then knew he was the white Marvin Gay.
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Is this book? Is your memoir closure for you? Or
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: is it correction?
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: A lot of correction, I don't know if.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: I Yeah, a little closure too, because I loved putting
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: that letter of resignation. A lot of people barbershop journalists
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: would say, well, you know, one night he snuck fair
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: Con in there. The amount didn't know about it, you know,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: and interview fair Con and you know, when the fact
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: is paramount has to green like that, they have to
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: approve that. And so all the barbershop journalism you get.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Because basically studios.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: People think studios are above the fray and the bullshit,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: and what they don't understand is that studios just like
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: a relationship. You have a breakup with somebody and then
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: you hear that he said I left her because I
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: was sick of her bush.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: And he's like, no, no, no, that nigga's lying.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately business is like that too. They want to
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: position it sexy their way, and they said, well, we'll
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: come over Tuesday, and we'll talk about crafting a release
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: to the press of.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: What we're going to do from here on.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: And then Monday some shit come out and you're like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: you motherfuckers, you know, But I get to correct those
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: kinds of things.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: And yeah, and have closure too, because.
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: I said, you actually quit the show, and I remember
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: when you first told me that.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: In my mind, I'm like, yeah.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: Really And when I heard when I heard that that
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: that little thing, that that dental.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Tongular thing.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: You did, I had my woman going the garage and
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: I said, you got to find that let letter and
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: she found it.
• 10:49
  Speaker 7: Because there were so many people that believed that though
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: that that you didn't quit the show. If you had
• 10:53
  Speaker 7: never written this book, how would you have ever like
• 10:56
  Speaker 7: try to clear it up any other place? Like was
• 10:58
  Speaker 7: that something that was sitting with you for a while.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I had a lawyer say, why do you care?
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Look at your bank account? Why do you care?
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, because truth matters, And I mean, forget television.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: We as a people, uh a Puerto Rican gentleman also, uh.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: We're talking about if.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: We as a people have to be careful not to
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: let truth be buried.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Mine is insignificant.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: How about the history of our people in the way
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: it's being changed, buried and hidden from future children.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Truth is important.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: It's important when it's on y'all side, So let it
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: be important for us to.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: By the way, either way, you left his gangster walking
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: away because hey, man, I want to do my black stuff.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: If it ain't working for y'all, it ain't gonna work
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: for me. I'm out. Or yeah, I bought a farra
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: con on. Yeah, that way it works.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, you get a free bean path for
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: that second. Brothers be very very supportive of you. But
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: you know, here's the deal. Here's how you can understand it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: At the end of the day. Entertainment is cool.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: But Quincy used to tell me the word business is
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: larger than the word show. And my ratings and my
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: income were attached. The higher the number, the more money
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: I get. When Letterman gets CBS, because I'm in syndication now,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: I'm on bullshit stations most places, but my CBS stations
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: helped me succeed. When Letterman comes into the game and
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: all my CBS stations leave at the end of their term.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what am I going to do now?
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: And so basically, and the money goes down, and now
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: you're like, well, I have to look at a movie
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: every night and read a Jackie Collins book. I'm like,
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's worth it for a million
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: a year, you know. And the bottom line is I
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: dashed when the money. Also, I'm from Cleveland. I grew
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: up down the street from Jim Brown, and I watched
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: him leave on Top. I watched him start doing movies
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: when they still calling him to the locker room. I
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: always wanted to leave on Top. So the bottom line
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: when the money changed a little bit, and the numbers
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: change a little bit, and I didn't see a future
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: for syndication because I'm like, they're gonna put somebody at ABC,
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna lose those affiliates too.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So eventually there's a Kimmel.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: And there's a Letterman And the bottom line is the
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: money changed, Let's do something else.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I've gotten six years out of this.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I've been on the cover of Time magazine. I spent
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: two years knowing I was leaving and building a house
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: on the beach. And bottom line is I'm cool with
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: how it all went down.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: I was always shocked that Foxes didn't get into the
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: late night game.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It's funny.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: I just sat with Conan O'Brien and he told me
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: a cool story. He says he was in a lunch
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: room a cafeteria at Fox, and he says, you were
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: very nice to me. You won't remember me, but I
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: was getting coffee and you showed me where other stuff was.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: What I didn't realize is while I was taking over
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: for Jones Rivers and doing the Late Show because she
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: eventually got fired, her husband killed himself. You remember all
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: that stuff. I'm doing the Late Show. I'm doing the
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: last eleven weeks of her contract. Before I go to
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: do Coming to America, Conan had been hired to create
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: a show to replace me.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: So while I was there, they had decided that.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I wasn't the guy wow, and they created a thing
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: called The Wilton North Report. I went and did Coming
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: to America, and Paramount was like, when we finished this,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: if you want a talk show, let's try it in syndication. Now,
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: something in syndication will never work again other than Byron
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: All and no one's gonna ever be able to make
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: syndication money because the network's got it, you know it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: When I came into it. CBS and ABC didn't want
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: to be in the late night game, so they bought
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: my show. You know, it was a perfect time. Life
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: is all about timing an effort.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Now, you mentioned Coming to America, my favorite movie of all. Yes,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: let's talk about that movie and how it came together
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: and whose decision.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: In here?
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: Any kind of beverage that's memoirs out right now.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate you.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: When I walked in and saw the monitor and this
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: and there was a shot from this way, so it
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: was the book with Lauren's beautiful eyes behind.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, yes, I appreciate that. I thank you
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: because they'll see it and they'll buy it.
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: That's right.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: Coming to America. How did that movie come about?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: And what was the decision to play so many different
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: characters for both you and Eddie?
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: Wow, the decision for me to play characters was Eddie saying, yeah,
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: him too, that's cool, you.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Know, because he's the king, you know. But the movie,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: the movie.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: Was all hinged on the fact that America missed Eddie
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: doing characters.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: They wanted that again. And yeah, and I.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Remember his manager saying to me, they want Eddie to
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: do character. So when you guys go to America, he'll
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: be some of the people that you meet. And I'm like,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: that's really cool. Now, I'm just a straight out stand
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: up I'm not an impressionist and I'm not an actor.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I was honored when he asked me to also do
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: some characters, but that movie was supposed to be me
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: as you know, like a personal assistant or an undersized
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: bodyguard coming to America from Zamunda with Eddie. He saw
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: me do stand up and I did this bit about
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: going to church in Chicago and going to the South Side.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: So I do this preacher character and he's like, that's
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: all it is, man.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: You know, we do the prosthetics and you do that,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: and you're a preacher, you know. And of course my
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: dad was a Baptist preacher, and so at any moment,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: I'm ready to preach.
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: I was laughing another niggas I thought all you posted video.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: He was like, I'm walking like the preaching and coming
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: to America. But not because I'm pretending.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Life is crazy, Because you know, at one point you're
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: in your twenties and you're standing in front of a mirror. Jess,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: you've been through they stand in front of a mirror.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: You're practicing a character. You're looking at how Red Fox walks,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: and you're breaking it down. And then one day you
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: turned seventy and you realize, now that's my walk.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: But if loving you is wrong, I don't want you.
• 17:29
  Speaker 7: I was going to coming to America. I've read somewhere.
• 17:31
  Speaker 7: I think it was one of an interviews.
• 17:32
  Speaker 8: You did something.
• 17:33
  Speaker 7: It almost didn't happen though a couple of times, at
• 17:35
  Speaker 7: first because of the pitch, and then there was an
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: issue with Eddie Murphy and somebody on set.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, they wanted him to do characters
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: and that made the treatment perfection, and he decided different
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: things I can do when we come to America. And
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: the other thing you reference is he had a conflict
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: with Landis, and Landis is a brilliant director, and.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: They work that out. Thank God, Thank God, my business manager,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Thanks God every day for me.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Resid not not as crazy as one might think. Okay,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: you know, but because you see it all the time
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: on v H one and on things owned by sky Dance,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: I guess it is.
• 18:22
  Speaker 8: Now.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: By the way, the checks Eddie get are probably what
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: you just described, you know, But the bottom line is
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: I was a lucky actor to be involved, and mine
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: sometimes will be thirteen cents.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: What did you think about this book? Did you let
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: any read it?
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: Not yet?
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, but when the And that's another bit of
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: advice you gave me.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I think you said.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Kevin Hart also agreed with you that in this culture,
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: in this day and age, the book on tape, the
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: audible book is very, very important. And that's when I
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: was like, well, let me call you back, because I've
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: talked to George Lopez, different people who have done this.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: And to sit every day for eight hours and keep
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: it consistent in front of the mic and read this book.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: I mean I used to read to my son before bed,
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: but it was like good Night Moon, and the book
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: was like eight pages.
• 19:17
  Speaker 8: You have a and I just did my audio book Arsen.
• 19:20
  Speaker 9: I'm so glad that you said that, because they say
• 19:22
  Speaker 9: I can't read in here all the time, because the
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: first day I went to read my book only read
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: like seventy pages and five hours. But it's voice acting
• 19:29
  Speaker 9: is not just reading like you're reading six Night Moon.
• 19:33
  Speaker 8: He's a goddamn he is lying, but.
• 19:41
  Speaker 9: Four pages and you were struggling, But it was you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 9: it's a copath to memoirs.
• 19:45
  Speaker 8: So on some of the parts I had to be emotional.
• 19:48
  Speaker 8: Then they had to relive some of the stuff. And
• 19:50
  Speaker 8: you know, it's not just like regularly reading.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to sit there. I would sit there
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: for eight hours a day.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: And and you almost want to do it like when
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: you read to your kid. You want to have this
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: intimate moment with the audience on the other side of
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: that speaker and they think you're actually reading to them
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: and talking to them and telling them this story. So
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of care and performance. I saw Charlie Sheen
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: talk about you know, I was just going to read it,
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: you know, and then I realized, wait, let me step
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: up the actor part of and I listened to an
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: interview he did, and so I put great care into it.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: And I'm glad you told me how important it was,
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: because I didn't want to do that shit.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: Now you want to hear you Hall like that voice
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: is very familiar to us.
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: I literally bought the audiobook just because I wanted to
• 20:32
  Speaker 7: hear how you went in and out of things. Yeah.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's you, and you nearly bought it. I'm
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: gonna send you one.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: No, I want the audiobook.
• 20:42
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean we had this book as well too,
• 20:43
  Speaker 7: but I went and bought the audiobook because I was like,
• 20:45
  Speaker 7: I want to hear him, like get into it and
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: you know, like all the emotion and just hearing your
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: voice again just was you know, you.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Know, emotion. It did take me back.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: There are interviews, not interviews. There are parts of the
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: book based on interviews on the show. Meeting Sammy. You know,
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: Sammy came in three waves in my life. There was
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: a night he invited me to his house. Sammy used
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: to have a gun collection. He showed me all his guns,
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: and I love guns. My dad was a marksman and
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: a former serviceman and Sammy d yes, yes, And so
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: he had a theater in his house and he would
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: have movie night and he invited us to movie nights.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: So you go see a movie and it's surreal to
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: knock at somebody's door and here, I'll get it, I'll
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: tell you know.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: And Sammy comes to the door.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: And then I have him on the talk show later
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: and of course he has cancer, but he sings anyway.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: And I don't want to give away everything, but that
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: story conjured up so many emotions because as a kid.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: I watched Sammy, this versatile man, this person you know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: people like Ali and Sammy was so important to me
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: to see these talented positive images. To see Ali doing
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: an interview after a fight comb his hands.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I'm so pretty gone. How I do it? You know?
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: And and those people were so important to me. So
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: to have that moment at the end of his life
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: and him to say, I'm gonna sing for you, man,
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: because I would sing for Johnny and gets up and
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: goes over spontaneously and says, time after time.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: In d and my band, young people start playing Cyndy Lapper's.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Song time after time and no, no, no, no, you
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: know it's a time after time.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I tell myself that.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: And and I realized how sick he was weeks later
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: when he started to transition from this earth. And so
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: so that was emotional.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Had to be emotional too, right now, Oh yeah, man.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: The Richard Pryor stuff emotional also because he's the first
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: person I learned from comedy was insignificant. I was gonna
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: get there one way or the other. It's a life
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: that Richard taught me about. And it's watching his life
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: near the end when you realize those lawyers and agents,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: and a lot of hanger ons aren't around anymore when
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: you're sick, when they can't make money on you anymore.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: And it taught me to find someone you love and
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: build your own bubble, because these people who get a
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: commission aren't going to be here when they can no
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: longer get a commission.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: And I remember near the end of.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: His life, I used to go visit him, and there
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: weren't a lot of people around like there were in
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: the early days at the comedy store.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: I could guess. It's funny how those two things look alike.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: Of fart and tears kind of manifested itself on your
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: face in the same way.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: I wanted to know about coming to America too, when
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: y'all shot that to see, Well, what were your thoughts
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: on it? Because it's so hard to top America, the
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: first original version. It feels like some things just shouldn't
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: be touched.
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: What was your thoughts on that?
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: I need this check, No, no, but my thoughts on it, God,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: it was it was going back to this wonderful time
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: in my life, you know, and and doing the characters
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: again and hanging with Ed. We didn't get to do
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: it here like the first one. The second one, Zamunda
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: is Atlanta. Here's what's interesting. Zamunda the Palace is Rick
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: Ross's house, and that was kind of interesting. But I
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I enjoyed doing it, but I also knew that it
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: was like trying to write a better song than Thriller.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: You know, it's very complicated. So winning has its traps too.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a bar that can't be set again.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know if for my life, I don't
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: know a higher bar than coming to America one.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Did you feel like that when you came back with
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: your your talk show again?
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: You know that was to do the talk show reboot
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: was an interesting time because I initially wanted to do
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: a show that was scripted about a guy trying to
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: get back in the game at a time because it
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: had changed. You know, when I was doing research in
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: the nineties, there was no cell phone, no Google, no search.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: We had a file cabinet and so see if there's
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: an article on mel Gibson, I'm trying to find out
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: how old he is. You know, that was a different time.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: So when I came back, I wanted to do a
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: scripted version of our senior Hall. Coming back to television
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: and basically, you know, they say no to us a lot.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Because I don't know if that'll work, and then they
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: do hacks. But because that's what it would.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: It would have been black hacks, you know, and they
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: talked me into because people don't people.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: On how he would. They're not very imaginative. They go
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: with what's worked before. You know, if you have.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Different strokes. Gary Coleman and it's working, and Envy pitches.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: A show about him and his wife.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: You know, you know, you pitch them something, they'll say,
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: we don't know because that's new to them. But what
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: they're looking for in that moment is another little black
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: man that don't grow, you know.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: And they you know, because they know that works. So
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: what do they do?
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: They find Webster and that's how this town works. They
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: want to be safe. No one wants to have I mean,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: you can say no and not get fired to a pitch,
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: but if you say yes, it better work. So executives
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: try to keep it safe and.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Nobody thinks about what Emmanuel Lewis and Gary Coleman did
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: from talks about that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know, but Tall Bridges wasn't to mention.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Not Todd you mean, you don't mean Todd no, because.
• 27:06
  Speaker 9: He's said Gary Coban and to our bridges Lewis.
• 27:10
  Speaker 8: Oh, my man, my man, I'm.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Sorry, but.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: You know they don't.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Basically, what they said is let's let's just do the
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: talk show again like you. And unfortunately the reason I
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: left is the reason it can't work in syndication. Now
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: it's even harder because there's Kimmel and all these guys.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: So you want me to compete against them on Channel
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: twenty nine in Phoenix, you know, and that's not gonna work,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: and you don't have as much budget as the networks.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: I remember I wanted to book Will Smith and they said, well,
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Will Smith is not gonna do it. He's gonna do
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: Fallon and he can't do he can't do another show
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: after he does Fallon for two weeks. So there's something
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: of But basically I couldn't even compete with the offer
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: because Fallon offered him the the opportunity to ride into
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: the Tonight show on a white horse.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, gosh, my first time around, Prince wanted
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: a purple piano and it took a week for me
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: to get it approved, you know, So you know, budget
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: wise when I came back and did the re you
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: can't compete against Kimmel and Fallon and James Corden was
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: riding around in a car singing with Famous and I'm like,
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't have that kind of budget, and.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: You just can't do it. Now.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: You can't do a syndicated show now. I snuck in
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: at a time when people didn't have product and I
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: could sell them mine. But now everyone, every network has product,
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: you know. And the reason I did syndication the first
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: time around is I knew a brother was never gonna
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: get the NBC, ABC or CBS job. But I was like,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: I've been doing this in my basement since I was twelve.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna get something that's right.
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: And they said that.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: You know, at first, it was hard for you to
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: get guessed that you would actually have a security guard
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: call you and be like so and so saying.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would chase because thank goodness, the show was
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: on the paramount lot on a film lot, versus like
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Colbert here is at the Ed Sullivan Theater right on
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: the street.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I was on a film lot where you.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: Could find out what was being shot on the lot,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: and there was a dude at the gate who would
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: let me know when certain people arrived, and I could
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: be in front of Andy Garcia's trailer when he got
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: there and ask.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Him to come on. You know, I mean many guests would.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: I would actually get the Paramount executives to let me
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: come over and meet people. It's like, I hear Harrison
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Ford's having a meeting. Can I just come say hello?
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: And you know, like me and Charlamagne are in business
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: on this book. Paramount was like, yeah, but just don't
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: act like we invited you.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Just pop by, mister Ford. Yeah.
• 29:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah, your life is very eventful.
• 29:52
  Speaker 9: You got so much that you've done, you know what
• 29:55
  Speaker 9: I mean? How could you fit all of that into
• 29:57
  Speaker 9: one book?
• 29:57
  Speaker 8: What are I know? With some things that did not
• 29:59
  Speaker 8: make the book?
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Absolutely that? Oh man, Jess.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: It was so hard because I looked at books to
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: find out what length they were. I looked at Barack
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Obama's book, like, oh, that's big, but I know Barack Obamas,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: so let me let me try to give him as
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: much as they can handle of this kid from Cleveland.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Barbara Streisand's book is huge.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: I got a I got two great Barbara Streisand stories
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: didn't put in the book.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I had to cut things down.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: I have a great New Kids on the Block story
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: where they flew from Australia to come on the s. See,
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: we didn't have Twitter. You couldn't go on Twitter and
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: say what you have to say. You had to if
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: there was some shit that jumped off you. Donnie Wahlberg
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: and the whole group flew back to America because they
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: were being accused of lip synci and Donnie was like, arsenial,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: We're gonna fly home.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: They may not like how we sound, but it's us,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: And the milli evnilly thing it happened, so they wanted
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: to come and defend themselves. I met Tommy Mottola in
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: an ivy and he had a cassette tape with Vision
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: of Love written on it, and he gave it to me,
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: and he was with this young lady, you know. I
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: joked with him, I said, who is at the star
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: of the young and the breastless?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Who is She's fine? You know?
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: And it was Mariah And I called him the next morning.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I couldn't believe that light.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: That envy talked about dog When you first hear Mariah
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: Carey and you realize she's not famous, and this ain't
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: this ain't what Johnny does, and you are going to
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: be able to present this woman to the world.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: That light is shining while you sleep through your eyelids.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: So we might need to do like Charlie Murphy had
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: the True Hollywood Stories, you might need to do the
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: Arsenio Hall Truth. Put that out as a podcast, something
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: animated or something.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Animated would be really cool. It would be really.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Cool because then you can imagine Bobby Brown performing my
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: prerogative as an animated character.
• 31:56
  Speaker 8: This use me for one of the voices. I'm real
• 31:58
  Speaker 8: good at voice acting.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I hear you.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: I did Ghostbusters when I was young. I paid the
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: rent as because the Winston Zmore character.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: There's one black Ghostbuster. It's like back in the day.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: They hired comics voice acting me and Dave Coolier.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: It was a comic and fool house.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, so you know I used to make my
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: living doing that kind of Did you.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Mind the spool when people used to spoofy? I remember
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: like the super long finger. Did you mind the spoof
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: from back then?
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: By the way, all that's in the book ar Senio
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: The Memoir, which is available everywhere you buy books now, sir.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: You know, here's the deal.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: First of all, if you're a comic, and I think
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Jess would agree with this, if you're a comic, you
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: can't be sensitive to jokes about you. Most comics are sensitive, though, yeah,
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: I mean as humans, I think we're sensitive. But dude,
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: there's an upside in the downside to every punchline. It's like,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: I have extremely long fingers. But I remember as a
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: little boy, as the pastor's son, I'd be standing next
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: to my dad and old sisters in the church would
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: shake my hand and they would hold on a little
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: long and how you doing, baby, And it's like, you say,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: these fingers are gonna have an upside to you know,
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: people are responding to these long ass fingers.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: But the fingers the one thing? What about the ass pause?
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Remember when.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: About That's another book?
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: But going to.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, I have a predominant dairy air.
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: And uh, you know, a if you're gonna do jokes,
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: you got to be able to listen to jokes and
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: and and sometimes say well, first sometimes you just said that's funny,
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: that's a funny shit. Then other times, like Dana Carvey,
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: it was a sign of the times. That I was
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: going through. This guy created a character at SNL called Carcinio,
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: and the essence of the sketch was that Johnny was
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: gonna get a high top fade and start wearing bright,
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: double breasted suits. And so for me, you can always
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: flip something into a positive. Now they're making fun of me,
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: but at the same time, what they're really saying is
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Johnny's gonna have to find a younger audience somehow, because
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: that's what's up. And so there's an up and a
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: down to punchlines. But yeah, you gotta be able to
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: take it.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: You can't be too sensitive.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: How you gonna be sensitive and then go to the
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: comedy store and do five minutes on Tiger Woods.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: You know when you talk about the Dana Carvey right
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: when you were at your peak, do you think people
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: were loving Arsenio Hall or the idea of what you represented,
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: the youthfulness, the hip hop.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: The black.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: My ego. Won't let me think that it was me.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: I think it was what I was doing and what
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: it represented. But you know, it's like when I talk
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: about talking Alan Thicke into putting on Johnny Gill. My
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: thing in the meeting was I think it'll get numbers,
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: why not try it?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Third guest, I'll tried it.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: And what I loved that relates to that question is
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: I was showing that there was a value that you
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: all haven't looked at. You know, I know you think
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: it won't get numbers, but that proved for thick of
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: the night in a syndicated situation, there are people checking
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: for black people and being from Cleveland, when I met
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Johnny and Gerald LeVert, then Gerald calls me a certain
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: pointment that show was on the air, and he has
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: this track Casanova. He plays over the phone, can't send
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: it to me on the link, plays it.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: On the phone.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: I'm like, that shit sound good even through the telephone,
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: you know. And he flies out with his cousin and
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: his brother and LeVert does Casanova and that was the
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: late show.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: You know, Ll cool J.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: That's another reason why I'm shocked that Fox didn't want
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: to do a show, because it was apparent there that
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: something was going on, that the viewing audience was fucking
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: with us.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: And because there are a few Llo cool J was
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: a first rapper.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: Llo COOLJ and Houdini first hip hop things I ever did,
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: way back on the Late Show when I took over
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: for Jones, Rivers and Ll got big numbers, you know,
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: and he did I'm Bad and Houdini did the Freaks
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: come out at Night and they did numbers. But at
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: that point, Paramount was sneaking around Fox coming to my
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: dressing room. You know, you would think it was fans,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: but it was guys that taking off their suits and
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: put on T shirts and come over to say, do
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: this at Paramount. If they don't get it, do this
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: at Paramount because they were seeing the numbers on a
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: show where they had fired the host and now they're
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: getting these numbers. You know, people watched me to see
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: me talk to Mike Tyson.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: That's right, man.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: There was a debate on the bag Fuel podcast Lough
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: the Bagfuel and they were happy. They were saying, it's
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: our senior hall hip hop, and I'm like, not only
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: was ar senior hall hip hop, Arsenio was black culture.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: From eighty nine to ninety four.
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: I don't even know if black culture in entertainment wise,
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: and especially hip hop could grow as much as it
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: did without the Arsenio Hall Show. What else would we
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: have seen it to that level?
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: You know, we would have found a way, just like now.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: The problem with a late night talk show is what
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: you all are doing in a for a cheaper budget podcasts,
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: radio shows. It's like, you can't do those giant shows
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: anymore with all that staff and a band.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: And the lights.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Now you put theo von in front of a fake plant,
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: you know, and it's really inexpensive to do. And so
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: that's what's happened to late night. You know, it's it's
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: hard to do it the other way.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: But I'm saying hip hop and black culture, Yeah, there
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: was no platform for that.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Right from eighty nine to ninety four.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: We ran it was our Sineo, your MTV raps.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: And we all grew up waking up on Saturday.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: To watch that.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: Rolph McDaniels had the thing that was New York daniels
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: all around the country.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Soul trained was what I had. You know, even when
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: I saw a white person, it was so trained. I
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: remember seeing Elton John play a crylic clear piano and
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: do Benny and the Jets for Don Cornel.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Don wasn't crazy about hip hop, and neither was Oprah.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: And that's a good point that also was part of
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the history of this. I saw a vacancy. I saw
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: a void.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: And the best way to make money, whether you're creating
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: a product or scope and show business is to find
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: the void and fit into it. You know what Lauren does?
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: You know she saw a void. You know, they need
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: a competent black journalist to jump into this infotainment Hollywood news,
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: and she filled it, you know, with with an accuracy
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: and hard work effort that she found herself.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: A place.
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: Accuracycy who taught you the business? You just knew so much?
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: Like the syndication, Like that's nothing that you can read about.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: So how did you learn and understand the business and depth.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: Well, whether it's sitting to like I would if Don Cornelius,
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: if Don Cornelius would go to lunch with me, I
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: would take that lunch.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: You know, I'll buy you know, he took me to
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: lunch one day.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: I've sat with Quincy in front of a board and
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: listen to all the off the wall stuff before anybody
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: heard it. And he said, you're from Ohio, right, He said,
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: let me play this for you and put it up
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: on big reels, you know, And he played a song
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: called just Once. He said, this kid is from Ohio
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: and it was James Ingram. I would sit and talk
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: to legends and try to learn everything I could, and
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: I would take jobs. We've all taken jobs just to
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: get education. We go to college and we pay to go.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: So I would do things just to learn, like the
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: Thick of the Night job. It probably looked real corny
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: and me sitting next to Alan Thick.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: And saying we'll be right back. You know.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I was that guy.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: But I was.
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: Learning syndication in Late Night, and a couple of the
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: people in that show when it failed, I hired them,
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: you know. But I did everything I could to learn
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: any place I could go. Richard Pryor invited me to
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: the set of Jojo Dancer once, and I wanted to
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: be in the movie, but Richard said, just stand around
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: and learn because I'm going direct and cool and go everywhere.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: You can do everything you can because knowledge is keen.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Clarence Clarence ava. Yeah. I can say a million times
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: during this interview, but wow.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Other than Donnie Wahlburg, ain't nobody alive. Clarence.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: He was the man. He was special.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: And the thing about Clarence there was a stealth element
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: of his business where I wouldn't even know how something happened,
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: and later on they would say, well, Clarence got him
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: to talk to him, and that's how it happened. I
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: love the way he did business. He wasn't messy and
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: he wasn't always there, but you knew it happened because
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: of him, you know, good day, good times.
• 41:57
  Speaker 7: I was going to ask, did you ever feel alone
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: in your fight? Like just story about n WA and
• 42:01
  Speaker 7: trying to push for that, and I don't know. I
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: guess with the Clarence Abot thing though you had the support,
• 42:07
  Speaker 7: but it just feels like you were always like fighting,
• 42:10
  Speaker 7: And I wonder if you ever felt like internally more support.
• 42:13
  Speaker 7: Externally you had it was divided, but internally who was there?
• 42:18
  Speaker 7: And did you feel lonely?
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: And you know it was hard, even the situation where
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: the queer nation came after me.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: First of all, you fight hard when you know you're right.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And the bottom line is to say I don't
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: I'm homophobic and I don't put on enough gay guess
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: that's bullshit. And we're at a time when everybody ain't
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: gonna tell you that gay. Ellen would come on and
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: do jokes and Rosie would come on and do jokes,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: but they weren't gonna talk about their dates with women.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: They would probably make their dating bit about a man.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: Everybody on my staff was gay except me. That's an exaggeration,
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: but but the bottom line is it was a time
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: when you just didn't know who was gay and they
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: were in a trap of you know, there were people
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: who were.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Gay and they knew.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: If I say I'm gay and women, no, I'm not
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: singing to them, it could ruin my career.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: Thank god times have changed and people can be themselves
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: and still survive. But yeah, there were some very lonely times.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: And when you when you have this battle with the
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: queer nation and no one defends you and say, oh
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: no that's wrong about him, you know, you feel alone
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: or the.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Nw A situation.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: I had to wait, and that's a patience was the
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: lesson there because at first they fought me, you can't
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: do NWA and I was mad because eventually the group
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: broke up and I had to do Dre and ice
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: Cube and Easy separately. And that's what God meant for
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: it to be, I guess, but initially I wanted to
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: do n w A and Paramount. I wasn't big enough,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: successful enough yet to say I'm doing it, you know,
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: and later I was. But what you have to go
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: through is you're fighting for n w A and then
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: you hear a track where ice Cube is rhyming your
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: name with the word bi centennial and dogging you, and
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: you're like, fuck does brother, No, I'm in here fighting
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: for him.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: But sometimes because I couldn't.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: Get them on the show, then oh yeah, yeah, because
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: he wanted me to get them on to do fuck
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: the Police, and I wanted to get them on, but
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: Paramount didn't wasn't.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Ready yet, you know, and and and.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: Down the road, I got to call more shots. And
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: in life that's the way it is. The more successful
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: you get, then you get to take some chances and
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: do what you want to do. But initially you gotta
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: do what Paramount says, do call between a rock and
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: a hard places off.
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: I was gonna ask chance, did you try it? I
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: didn't work.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Chances. I took that that didn't work. Well.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Paramount was right about what they were saying. If you
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: want to maybe be in the position to be considered
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: the king when Johnny leaves, do this show. So when
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: Johnny leaves, people know, you know, the show I was doing.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: I could have been a lot more successful and made
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: a lot more money if I was a little more
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: commercial and if I listened a little more. But I
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: was hard hitded and I had a love for hip
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: hop and black music. And my thing was, I've said
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: this many times. I did the show I loved, and
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: I knew that I needed to do more Steve and Edie,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: But I wanted to get Q tip sitting in with
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: the posse.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: And the bottom line is, I wouldn't change a thing.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: I loved being in that position and being that guy.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately they were right. If I wanted bigger numbers.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: You know, you can get a huge number if you
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: do share.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: But I wanted Tony Braxton.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: But the problem with that is there's no reward for that.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Ain't no reward for being'.
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: Real right like, So you do all of that, but
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: then when the rent do you know, with everybody that
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: loves you, when they see you and experience, boy, you'd
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: be keeping it really kept the real lattineo.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you just That's why when you look in the
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: mirror and you're happy and satisfied with who you are,
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: that has to be your That has to be your
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: barometer of success, failure and happiness. I was loving what
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: I was doing. Two Bobby Brown numbers that night made
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: me happy.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: That's a jewel, old man. And that's the thing.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: Like even with you and Eddie, right, I always felt
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: like y'all never let fame confuse your sense of self worth,
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like, in regardless of how
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: famous y'all were, y'all, y'all didn't run into the cameras.
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: You know, y'all, y'all, y'all coming in out the spotlight
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: when y'all want to, And it feels like y'all know
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: exactly who y'all are, regardless of if all of this
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: goes away tomorrow.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think sometimes if you have that,
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: you have to thank God and thank your parents because
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: that's usually based on your foundation and how you're raised,
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: how you're taught, and maybe, like I talked about seeing
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: certain heroes when you're young and how they carry themselves.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: You know, before we had the term cancel culture, we
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: all remember Sammy Davis Junior hugging Richard Nixon, right, and
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: you're like, oh, okay, So you learn about pr marketing
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: and positioning and things like that. I was a student
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: of show business. You know, if you want to play basketball,
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: you're watching somebody crossover in the science of putting your
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: weight here and shifting it back this way. And you know,
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: if you're Chris Mullen, you go to the ghetto and
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: play basketball where the best start. All my life, I've
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: wanted this, and I've watched the people who were successful
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: at it and studied it so that one day I
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: could apply all those things.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I knew who I was.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: I would go see Al Green because my mother loved
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: Al Green, and I would take her. But I was
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: there early when the house lights were still on and
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: everybody was filing in and there was.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: A stand up comic on the stage. Because I knew
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: who I was, and I was a magician as a kid,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: so I had birds and doves.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: And when I go to a bar mitzvah or birthday
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: party to make money, I had all this shit. My
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: mother would have to rent a station wagon to take me.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: I was a musician. I was a drummer, so I
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: had tom toms and cymbals. That night, I watched Al
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Green and the stand up open for him. The dude
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: just walked out with a juice little glass. He put
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: it on the stool and everything was from the neck up,
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: and I'm like, that's what I want to do. And
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: be careful what you say in your life, what you
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: manifest verbally, because my house burned down and I lost
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: the boxes, the doves, the symbols, the drums. And then
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: it was like I graduated and I'm like, I'm gonna
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: be a stand up because I.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Don't have nothing else.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: And by the way, in my junior year, I'm playing
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: ball every day after classes with Steve Harvey, so we're dreaming,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: we're talking about it. And then Steve left Kent in
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: his junior year and we didn't have cell phones, so
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: I'm like, if you don't get Steve mama's number, we's Steve,
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: And he didn't come back. You know.
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: But in our junior year we did a lot of dreaming.
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: We went to see Franklin JII perform. We went to
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: see Dick Gregory perform. And that's my biggest message. Dream
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: because you can manifest a dream into reality.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: I know this. It's not a coincidence. It's not just me.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: I was on the campus of Kent State with Steve Harvey.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: We were dreaming and right now Steve is fine on Time.
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: Was there a moment where fame ever, did confuse your
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: sense of self worth?
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Like, how do you mean that?
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Like when you were at your like.
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: The height of everything, then you're all cultural everywhere, Like
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: in just.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: The cover of Time magazine that did you walk.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Into Paramont say I need ten million dollars a season.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: The bottom line is envy, and I have to keep
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: reprising his thought about that light.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Dude.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: I was just always maybe God, maybe I have low
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: self esteem as a black man, but I was glad
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: to be in the game. I was glad to have
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: an opportunity. I felt blessed every day. I prayed before
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: that screen flew every night because I thanked God every
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: night before when that motherfucker was holding the old ursineo
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: and you see the silhouette behind that screen, that screen
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: flew right before you saw that silhouette light go on.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: I was praying and thanking God for all these moments,
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: for these things because I'm a kid from Cleveland. The
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: closest I got to fame was my uncle used to
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: run numbers with Don King. That's the first time I
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: saw Rose Royce Don King was in town with Ali,
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: and you know, I was a dreamer and now I
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: was living my dream. So I was always grateful, and
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: it sometimes can keep you from becoming arrogant.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: Gratitude turns what we have into enough. So that's what
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: you had. You had extreme gratitude, so what you had
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: was enough.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I got to Hollywood, man, I used to
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: I used to go to the supermarket.
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: And there's days when I would walk around the supermarket
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: and pretend to shop, putting stuff in my car.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: But the stuff in the.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: Little baby part of the cart, the little baby seat,
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: I had stuff in there. That stuff was what I.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Was eating, you know.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: So I was eating in the supermarket and pushing it around,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: and when I got full, left the cart and run
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: out the store, or walk.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Fast out the store.
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: I would go there on the I knew a day
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: when the Jimmy Deans lady would cook sausages in a
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: little electric fryar and she put toothpicks in them on
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: the plate. I would go in there and talk to
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: her and eat ten sausages and make her laugh.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: And that was breakfast, you know.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: So when things took off from me, I was just
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: grateful to to have a meal.
• 52:42
  Speaker 8: What about that in your show?
• 52:45
  Speaker 9: In your show, right, has there ever been anybody that
• 52:48
  Speaker 9: would talk shit about you but then one come on
• 52:51
  Speaker 9: your show and you let it happen.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: Once, yeah, at one time, but for the most part,
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: you know what, Oh.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: I forgot her name. But it was somebody.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: Who you know now that I think maybe there are
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: jokes that weren't too much, but.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: I forgot it.
• 53:21
  Speaker 8: But she was a comic, another comedian.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: It was a young comic and I was like, no,
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: not now, keep that same energy when you was calling
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: me the F word.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: On stage, you know.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, which is rough on a black man,
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: because you know.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: You know that whole history.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: I was one of those guys that would put the
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: business before my personal feelings. I've had Spike Lee call
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: me and uncle tom mm hmm. But when it's time
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: for Spike.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Lee to promote his ship, I'm like, dude, I'm here,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: come on. You know.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, Spike was mad at me
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: because I probably didn't give him the date.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: I think he wanted a certain date and it sweeps
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: and all that date's taken.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: That Friday night date and he got mad at me
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: and you know, call me and Uncle Tom, and it's
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: like you would think that we would never speak. But
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: I walked up to him at a Laker game, a
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: Laker Knicks game, grabbed him, dude, come on through some
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: time next price.
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: I never understood that though, Like how could Spike Lee
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: called call Arsenio Hall on Uncle Tom, like like like
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: you was doing do the right thing every night, the
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: way he was fighting for black Yeah.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know he was, like I said, he people,
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: you make mistakes, you say stuff a lot of times.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: By the fact when I hugged him, we talked and
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: it was over.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: You realize in the moment he said that because he
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: didn't get the date he wanted to promote, you know whatever,
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: the Muncle Tom is wrong, especially.
• 54:58
  Speaker 7: When you already had people that were feeling like that
• 55:00
  Speaker 7: about you. So for him to echo it, it made it,
• 55:02
  Speaker 7: you know, bigger.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's probably why he went for that Achilles
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: heel or that spot you know in the world. But
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: I think sometimes to hold a grudge, you have to
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: keep that ugly thing with you. Sometimes it's it's easier
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: for you to let it.
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: Gold guys.
• 55:22
  Speaker 7: Okay, wait, I was trying. I've been trying to get
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: this in. You got really personal just about like a
• 55:26
  Speaker 7: dating life as well too. In this book, you talk
• 55:29
  Speaker 7: about Pamela Anderson and Paula Abdul and what.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: By the way, one of the reasons I wanted to
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: tell that Pamela Anderson story is because I don't know
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: if it's.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Changed, but the older comics that was that was the
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: kind of advice.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: It's like, Yo, Johnny Witherspoon in this book, he stayed
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: away from white women, you know, and you're a young
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: kind You're like, okay, you know, because there were no
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: white women in my neighborhood and I didn't know why.
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: And of course the night I walked into the comedy
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: store with Pamela Anderson, Johnny Witherspoon looked at me and
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: did that tungular thing that you what I tell you,
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: you know, And just I wanted to take people through
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: that growth process of what the ogs told.
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: You and you're.
• 56:15
  Speaker 8: Talking about like.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: That.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: And had an argument because Tupac in an article said,
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: uh something about Quincy and our Sineo and some of
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: these brothers and these white women you see with white
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: you know, it's like back then that was a no
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: no to the older brothers who were talking to you,
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: and and they were trying to tell you, that's a
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: problem you know that you know, And and it was
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: some people in your demo will not like you if
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: they see you in Jet magazine with a playmate, you know,
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: So he was trying to protect me.
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: Was she the first white celebrity that you had dated
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: or that just the one that we know about.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Now before her? I and I think I talk about
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: this in the book.
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: I was at an ABC function and met Emma Sam's
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: who was about they were about to replace Luke and
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: Laura on the soap opera with Luke and Holly. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: I met her the day she got the role and
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: we went out.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: For a minute.
• 57:15
  Speaker 8: And was that why it ended?
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: Because you in the book, but also just whenever you
• 57:19
  Speaker 7: have mentioned it, you always make it like it just
• 57:21
  Speaker 7: was like a quick thing. But what did it end
• 57:23
  Speaker 7: because you were like, all right, I can't do this
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: like career, Why is it not gonna.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: Well, everything ended back then because I was young and
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: I was busy the woman in your life at that
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: time in your career. I don't know if it's like
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: this for everybody. But she's always going to be on
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: the be the chick on the side. You know, show
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: business has to be your woman, or you have to
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: be a man who's probably not doing the right thing
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: in your relationship because you I was on the road.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: That's all that was important to me, So relationships weren't
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: gonna work. Thank God. Actually, thank god.
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: My life worked out the way it did because my woman,
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: who I've been with for twenty years, I can't imagine
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: my life without her. That's the only thing that's important
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: to me. She's my best friend. The only reason I
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: want to get on a plane and go home.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Is because she's there, you know.
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: And to eventually become famous, get your paper, and find
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: a successful relationship of that nature. You're like, God knew
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: what he was doing, because you know, I could have
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: had somebody pregnant or been married, you know, when I
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: was a guest on MERV Griffin. You know that, and
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: I never would have been in the situation I'm in
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: now and I have an incredible woman in my life.
• 58:52
  Speaker 7: Now, I was just gonna say, you've always protected that.
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: Oh yeah, so, but and now you're talking more about it.
• 58:57
  Speaker 7: Is it just because of the book, or are you
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: at a place where you just want people to see
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: that love that you're asked.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: Well, when Charlemagne and I talked, I knew that was
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: That's why I wanted to think think about it, you know,
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: because I've always been a very private person. I'm a
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: loner and I'm very private because i know the more
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: you give people, the more they have to hurt you with.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: So I'm very private about my life and I knew
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: this book would make me talk about.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: You know, I also protect.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: The one I love.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: I don't put my woman out there because you put
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: your woman out there, you put your child out there.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: I remember as far back as Kathy Lee Gifford and
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: she put Cody out there, and we do jokes about Cody.
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: We talk about Cody.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: And everything that's ever gone on in my life. I've
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: learned something from it.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: So I get to this point where I'm famous, and
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm not gonna give them the stuff they
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: can hurt me with.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna give them show business. That's all I'm giving them.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and if that because a lot of times there
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: are people famous for their personal life. We know people
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: we don't we don't know what their art is or
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: we don't. We haven't seen heard a record, but we're
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: talking about their girlfriend or their boyfriend. And uh, I've
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: always said, if show business ain't enough, if my performance
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: ain't enough, fuck y'all. I'm not giving y'all the personal stuff.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I got two quick questions, where you go there?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: Writing this book force you to confront any lies you
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: might have been telling yourself.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Hmm, any lies that I might have been telling myself. No, because.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: Part of who I am is is dealing with dealing
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: with the fact that, you know, my ass is big,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: my fingers along, and.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: I'm from Cleveland.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: You know, I've heard people call my hometown the mistake
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: on the Lake.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, So the bottom line is, I'm pretty real.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: I know it's it's weird, but it can help you
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: to look in the mirror and tell yourself the truth.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: First.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: Last, what do you want people to unlearn about you
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: after reading this?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: You know what.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: I'm not trying to educate or teach people anything. I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: see the book as another form of entertainment. It's a
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: story that can motivate you. It's about a kid who
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: dreamed you can manifest success. I think, and like I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: told you, about Robin think. I think we know inside
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: if we look at our kids and we listen to them,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: there's a dream in there, and we can help them
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: make that dream come true.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: I remember one of my last images of Kobe Bryant
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: was him taking Gigi to a Connecticut game or something.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: I watched him seeing what she loved, seeing what she did,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: and trying to nurture that and help with that. And
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: that's what we always want to do with our kids.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: And so I don't know.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: This book is just another project for me and and uh,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: it's entertainment, you know in a sense, and sharing my
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: story and hopefully somebody will say, I'm not going to
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: give up, because the day you give up your blessing
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: might be tomorrow.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: It's definitely the real story of our senior Hall. It's
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: not just about it, you know, a guy with a
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: late night show man. Go get our Senio a memoir
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: available everywhere you buy books now, and just salute to you,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: my brother.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: I don't even know how you got my number.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: We had just come out of the pandemic and I
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: didn't know what you stand up.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: You go to clubs and people were wearing masks and
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: we were.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: In the parking lot of the venues performing, and it
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: was a depressing time.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: And I think you and I have the same lawyer.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I think so.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. I remember I was trying to get
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: you to do the podcast.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, so I was thinking that's how you
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: got my number.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: But probably I don't remember.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe on a bathroom wall somewhere, but.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: I think we exchanged numbers when I did your show,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: when you when you brought the show back.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, yep, oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: I forgot about the reboot.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, but thank you for the call because you gave
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: me something to do.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: For a couple of years. Man, it was a lot
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: of fun, and I think I did it well.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you did. No.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: This is one of the best entertainment memoirs I've ever
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: read in my life. That it said with no bias,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: not just biased for publishing it, not biased because I
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: look at you as an inspiration. But this is actually
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: one of the best entertainment memoirs I ever read in
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: my life.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: You could I just add one more thing.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: When you talk about dreaming and teaching and what the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: book does and all that kind of stuff. What you
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: just said is important. A black man saying to me
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: on the phone, I want to do this because I
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: want more black office. I want more books in the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: hands of Nubian people. Of what you did calling me
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: was so important and to do it with you, because
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: that's what I told Nina, and that's what I told
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: my publicist. I gotta do it because he's trying to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: do something and I believe in what he's trying to do.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: And I knew your history and your parents being educators,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: and it was so it's so important for us. Sometimes
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: we don't work together, we will. We will work with
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: anybody but our own.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know why, And then you know.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: And there's a lot of that in us, even when
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: we don't say it. But I foxed with this nigga
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: and got a book.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: And you'll read me A long time ago, because you know,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: I used to want to do late night television because
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: ur senior house. You know, you do radio and you
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: get a talk show and you think, like, I gotta
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: make it into the late night hosts. Got to make
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: it into the late night host And when you was
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: on press for coming to America Too, somebody asked you
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: they said, you know, who do you think is like
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: the closest to you in this generation? And you said,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: I would say somebody like Charlamagne, but he does radio
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: and you watch it on YouTube, and you know that's
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: like where people go to get I guess that's so
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: called late night fixed.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I remember you said that.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: I was like, yo, hey, that song. Everything must change.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: The business is that way too, that late night format
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: that Johnny created. He was the king, but for budget
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: reasons and for the advancement of technology, this shit has
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: to change. And what you're doing now when Tupac would
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: call me on the landline and say, I need to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: come on the show Man because they trying to make
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: me take an age test before I do poetic justice.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: And I ain't gonna really fuck Janet, right, okay, so
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: why should I have to take an age test? And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: back then, we didn't have the word twitter, we didn't
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: have that. It wasn't a bluebird, it was a blackbird.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: I was the guy you called and came in, talked
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: about your problems of the business, of what you were
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: going through, iced Tea coming on and explaining cop killer, explaining,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm not really killing cops Arnold Schwarzen.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: They gain't really determinator. This is a piece of art
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: trying to give a message.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: And so what I was doing when I watch you,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: when I listen to you, I'm like, he's doing it
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: and the medium has come to a different place. You know,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: there's no curtain, there's no a McMann, there's no Doc Severnson.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: But what Charlamagne is doing is what I did.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: For this time, for this culture. And look how it's evolved. Yeah,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean it got the two ladies now
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: and of course envy.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: It was just free for me because it just teaches
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: you you don't always have to be chasing something. And
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: it goes back to gratitude. Gratitude turns what we have
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: into enough.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: Hello, there you having Citio Hall ladies and gentlemen, thank
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: you so much for joining us. The memoir is out
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: right now and make sure you pick it up.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 6: And we appreciate you. O G so much.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you man, I appreciate y'all.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: Glad to finally meet the other three of the foursome
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: in person.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Thing and the perto rican do with the Boss.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 6: Breakfast Club is all Citior Halls.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Hold up every day.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: A week ago clake your glass up the breakfast club
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: You'll finish for y'all done,