Page 10 DTII Omnibus
Thursday September 19, 1991
itfetgMtoftfci I Who will he thp Idno- nf late nicrVit?
NFL Football: Redskins vs
Cowboys, ABC
18.9. 17.4 million homes
2.(X) Miss America Pageant, NBC.
1 8.4, 1 6.9 million homes
2.(2) WMinutes.CBS
1 8.4, 1 6.9 million homes
4. (4) Roseanne,ABC
17.7,16.3 million homes
5. (47) Murder, She Wrote.CBS
16.6, 15.3 million homes ', -.m
6. (11) Coach, ABC
16.3, 15.0million homes
7. (X) Nurses, NBC
16.1. 14.8 million homes
8. (X) P.S.ILuvU.CBS
15.7. 14.5 million homes
9. (64) 4S Hours, CBS
15.4, 14J2million homes
10. (50) Marrled...WmiChlldrenfox
15.1. 13.9 million homes
LisSngs include Oie week's ranking, with lull season-
til-dale ranking in pareniheses, rating lor the week, and
total homes. An T in pareniheses denotes one-lime-only
preseniation. A rating measures the percentage of
Ihe nation's 9(M million TV homes. .
w
hen a king abdicates his
throne, there are always
pretenders and contend
ers who vie with each
other to take his place.
With Johnny Carson set tostepdown
next year, such is the situation with
late night television. But just because
Jay Leno has already been named as
the new host of The Tonight Shew, he
isn't necessarily the new king. There's
mcga-compctition in late night TV
now, and Lcno won't have success
handed to him.
First of all, let's get Rick Dees and
his inane show, Into the Night, out of
the way. The saddest thing about this
show is that Dees tries really hard to
be funny. He should have stuck with
radio where no one could see him,
'cause, let's face it, the man looks like
a chipmunk. Talk show hosts need to
have some kind of distinguishing
physical characteristics ( 1 ike Pat Sajak
didn't ), but fat cheeks and protruding
front teeth make one more apt to
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laugh at the host than to laugh with
him.
He rarely gets guests anywhere near
the caliber of those on Tonight and
The Arsenio Hall Show, and he refuses
to rag on them without qualifying it
with an "I'm just kidding." It's almost
impossible to get by in late night
without being at least occasionally
confrontational, in at least a humor
ous way, but Rick just can't do it.
He'll neverreplacejohnny.ohviously,
and the most that can be hoped for is
that IntothcNight willkeep on going,
preferably to the 3 a.m. time slot.
Now for the real contenders: Jay
Leno, Carson's present guest host,
has already been appointed to fill the
C-man'sshoes next year. Whether he
goes all the way to become the bona
fide King of Late Night remains to be
seen, but he does have a few advan
tages. For one, Tonight is already a tradi
tion, a show with a proven formula.
However, just because something
works for Johnny doesn't mean it will
for Jay. It was probably a good idea for
Leno not to choose a sidekick a la Ed
McMahon. McMahon basically de
fines the word "sidekick." No matter
what he does, he makes the host look
good. Leno would have a tough time
trying to find someone to fit the same
role.
Leno is also mainstream he has
the potential to appeal to most every
body. Besides, some people are going
to watch for a while after he takes
over just because it's The Tonight Show
and they've been watching it for 30
years.
If Leno doesn't replace Johnny as
the new king, Arsenio Hall probably
will. As everyone knows, he stole
viewers galore from Carson, mostly
those in the under-35 age bracket.
Arsenio's show is hot right now,
but will it last? Probably so, unless he
gets tired of it and decides to concen
trate on doing more films with Eddie
Murphy. It's hard to imagine Hall
doing his high-energy show 20 years
from now, but people would have
thought the same about the Rolling
Stones.
Hall gets some of the best guests in
the business, and while he will do a
great deal of fawning, he isn't afraid to
poke fun at certain guests (those who
can take it). His biggest drawback is
that he's one of those people whom
you either hate or you love. There
fore, there are lots of people that
really hate him. His show also doesn't
appeal to many people over 40.
If David Letterman doesn't pull
rank and jump to ABC, the biggest
battle over the next few years will be
between Hall and Leno.
Speaking of Dave, he'll probably
never be King of Late N ight unless he
takes his show elsewhere. But that
wouldn't be the best of ideas, as there
are too many people out there who
don't like his off-the-wall style of hu
mor. Late Night would probably fail mis
erably in the 11:30 p.m. time slot,
unless the American viewing public
is way more intelligent than I think it
is. Not that his jokes aren't often
stupid, but they're generally more
subtle than anyone else's on TV.
Dave should stay right where he is
and let Hall and Leno battle it out.
He's too iconoclastic to be univer
sally loved like Johnny.
Who's going to win the throne?
Prediction: Jay Leno becomes King of
Late Night (if he can stay on his
motorcycle from now on) when
Arsenio Hall gets a multi-billion dol
lar contract to do movies. Don't count
Hall out, though; there's not much he
can't do if he puts his mind to it.
Cosby announces final season
T
he Cosby Show, armed with a
new executive producer and
new writers, starts its eighth
NBC season with an engage
ment announcement that
shocks the Huxtable household. .
It will be the final season for the
show, Cosby's fourth and most suc
cessful series, one that's made the
former Navy corpsman, Temple Uni
versity student and comedian one of
the richest stars in television.
Next season, Cosby and his truncheon-sized
cigar are going into game
show country to co-host a new syndi
cated version of NBC's old You Bet
Your Life, hosted circa 1950-1961 by
that noted stogie man Groucho Marx.
Cosby already has taped several
installments of the new daily series in
Philadelphia, which he says will be its
home base. Why Philadelphia?
"lt'smyhometown,"hesaid."And
it's time Philadelphia got back on the
map." There was a pause. He chuck
led. "Ask me that question again,
'Why Philadelphia?'" The question
was asked. '"Cause there ain't ...
nothin ... wrong with it," he said.
"1 have other things to do," Cosby
said simply, when asked why he's clos
ing his hit family sitcom, in which he
plays an obstetrician and Phylicia
Rashad plays his wife, an attorney.
He'd like to produce a new sitcom
starring his TV son, Makolm-Jamal
Warner, he said. He gave no details,
but puckishly added he'd also like to
do a sitcom starring 4-year-old Cosby
Show cast member Raven-Simone.
"And I can't do those things doing
the Huxtables every week," he said.
Cosby has been hailed for its
warmth and ability toescape the traps
of the usual family sitcom, in which
Old Dad almost always is a boob. Its
awards include the Peabody and a
Humanitas prize, in addition to the
usual Emmys.
But it initially was rejected by ABC
when offered without a pilot or script
by Cosby and colleagues Marcia
Carsey and Tom Werner. Poor ABC.
The show's arrival in fall 1984
became one of the main causes of
NBC's rise to first in the ratings. It is
usually in the Nielsen Top Five and
frequently atop the weekly ratings
lists in past years.
The show probably could go on for
several more years, and "still get re
spectable numbers," said Richard
Kostyra, executive vice president of
the J. Walter Thompson USA adver-
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tising agency. "Unfortunately, it may
no longer be able to support the cost
of what NBC has to pay for it," he
said, referring to the millions NBC
pays Cosby and Carsey-Werner Pro
ductions in licensing fees for each
season's shows.
But Kostyra said he thinks money
isn't the main reason the show is
ending: "I think primarily he wanted
out."
Still, other stars have made vows
of a final season. After that, popular
demand in the form of network offers
of less work and more dough have
been known to make them say, "On
second thought ... "
Not Cosby. "I'm tellingyou, this is
it ... it is the last season," he said. He
spoke by phone from the New York
City borough of Queens, where he
tapes the show.
He'd recently undergone success
ful minor surgery to remove a tiny
glasssliver that doctors found remain
ing five years after a light bulb ex
ploded near his face.
"They washed the eye (then), but
didn't get it all,"hesaid, commencing
a funny, free-form discourse on eye
doctors and a Waring blender. "It
could have been worse," he said. "It
could have gone to the heart."
Cosby's previous roles were as co
star of the successful Spy, then as star
of the not-so-successful The Bill Cosby
Shouand The New BiRCosby Show. In
the future, maybe another series?
"Three years from now, I would
like, first of all, to be able to see," he
drawled. "No. 2, I would like to be
alive with very minor joint pains."
Associated Press