Word: host
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Well, at least they seem nice so far. Pat Sajak is the low-key, dryly sardonic host of TV's most popular game show, Wheel of Fortune. Starting next Monday, he will appear, bereft of Vanna White and those fabulous prizes, as host of the Pat Sajak Show, CBS's first late-night talk program in 17 years. Arsenio Hall, who co-starred with Eddie Murphy in the movie Coming to America, made his own TV splash as Joan Rivers' boyishly enthusiastic replacement on the Fox network's Late Show. This week he will rejoin the late-night fray...
Sajak and Hall will compete against each other in many cities, but their main target is that unyielding edifice of late night, the Tonight show, starring Johnny Carson. The mission might seem suicidal. A gaggle of talk hosts, from Joey Bishop to Alan Thicke, have emerged over the years to challenge Carson, only to slink away in failure. But Sajak and Hall have one potential advantage: they could simply outlast Carson. After 26 years behind the desk, the NBC veteran may be nearing retirement, though neither he nor NBC will comment on whether he expects to continue beyond September. Even...
...right credentials. While growing up in Chicago, he used to sneak out of bed to watch Jack Paar and decided that doing a talk show "would be a fun way to earn a living." He became a radio disk jockey, TV weatherman and local talk-show host; then in 1981 he replaced Chuck Woolery on Wheel of Fortune. Part of the show's success can be traced to his laid-back, let's-not-take-this-seriously attitude. Indeed, Sajak has trouble taking even himself seriously. "No matter how charming and delightful I am," he says, "I knew that people...
...week stint on the Late Show was a ratings success and ended only because Fox had previously committed itself to the Wilton North Report (yet another late-night failure). A Cleveland native, Hall started his show-biz career as a stand-up comic and became host of the TV series Solid Gold. But he claims he has wanted to do a talk show since age twelve: he calls Carson his "idol" and, like Johnny, was a child magician. When Paramount TV initially offered him his own show, Hall was reluctant, but he had a vision as a guest with Carson...
...what? Has the Chicago Bulls' star been traded to the host New York Knickerbockers? Nice dream, if you're a New Yorker; nightmare, if a Chicagoan. Is he retiring and, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, making his farewell appearances? Maybe he'll hang up the Air Jordans in a decade or two, but certainly not now. So what's all the fuss about? Simply that this is the first time during the 1988-89 season that the world's most exciting basketball player is visiting New York. A JORDAN FOR PRESIDENT sign even appears in the stands, a semiserious calling...