BET.com--HE'S READY, you guys. 17 years after quitting his talk show, Arsenio Hall seems to be primed for a comeback. In his own mind. Whether America's ready to re-embrace Arsenio seems up to the Greek gods. During a PBS comedy panel about an Ed Sullivan special, which will premiere August 6th, he was asked about returning to TV and establishing himself once more as the premiere talk show host.
"I'd have to change my name to Nick Cannon and live with Mariah (Carey)," he joked. "But I think it's a perfect time for that personally. Give me a microphone. My son's 11 and he can drive himself to school. I'm ready to host!" However, Hall acknowledged that it would be tough to assert himself again as a baby boomer in the post-Apatow comedy world: "It's pretty crowded out there. I'm not sure if it's too crowded for a 55-year-old guy to re-emerge, but if they give me a little daylight I'm gonna slide into it."
The Arsenio Hall Show originally started to replace Joan Rivers' failing talk program, and though it hit with urban audiences in the early 1990s, it fell out of vogue by February of 1994, due in part to Hall's inviting controversial Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on the show and eschewing his other guests to allow Farrakhan an uninterrupted sixty minutes.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, August 7th 2011 at 6:28PM
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