Word: would
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...drop in their listenership when Hall is on the air. The inevitable TV imitators are starting to appear, notably The Byron Allen Show on CBS, a Saturday-night talk show with another black comic as host. Even fuddy-duddies like Carson and Sajak seem to be feeling the heat. Would rock acts like Simply Red and Stevie B. have been booked in the days before Hall...
Complacency would be a mistake, however: Hall's popularity may signal a geologic shift in late-night TV. The rise and fall of potential rivals to Carson -- from Alan Thicke to Joan Rivers -- has become an industry joke. But Hall is the first to catch on, and he has done it by reaching out to a new group of viewers. It is not Carson's audience, Hall likes to point out, but Carson's audience's children. "The Tonight show is an institution," says Steve Allen, who started it all back in 1954. "But with each tick of the clock...
When he was five, his mother walked out, taking Hall and moving in with his grandmother, who lived around the corner. Thereafter Hall's childhood was a disjointed and lonely one. "Teachers would write on my report card, 'Arsenio needs attention. Is there anything you can do about it?' " Yet his grades were good, and he avoided drugs in high school -- though he admits to a rebellious period as a senior. "You couldn't get close to him," remembers Marjorie Banks, his old Sunday school teacher and the wife of former Chicago Cubs star Ernie Banks. "When you talked...
...better one was in the offing. Last year Paramount proposed another late-night talk show; Hall would be executive producer as well as star, and he would be guaranteed time off to make movies. He was still reluctant. But a guest appearance with Carson on Tonight got his talk-show juices flowing again, and he finally agreed...
Which pretty much leaves work. In addition to the five-day-a-week grind of his show, Hall has taped some antidrug commercials and is working with Reebok to promote a shoe that would "pay tribute to antiapartheid awareness." He co-wrote and co-produced his new Chunky A record album. Its cuts include a comic rap number, a satire of raunch rock ("Let me check your oil with my dipstick") and a straight-faced antidrug anthem titled Dope...