Arsenio Hall Coming Back With A Late Night Show

The Dog Pound is officially back in business.

After a lengthy sabbatical from the spotlight, the man who shifted late-night guest lists from names like Liberace to Prince and President Clinton is returning to the airwaves this fall with a new talk show.

Arsenio Hall has spent the last two years prepping his comeback, showing up all over the tube and even winning “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2012.

“I’ve spent the last 13 years making turkey bacon for my son for breakfast and raising him on my own,” says Hall, who revamped the late-night landscape back in the ’80s and early ’90s. “Let’s face it: I’d become Arsenio Who?”

“The Apprentice” gave the 58-year-old former urban and youth icon a shortcut to reestablishing his name. His new show has been picked up by stations serving 95% of the country, including WPIX/Ch.11.

Not bad for a guy who last signed off when the only Kardashian anyone knew of was doing some legal blocking for O.J. Simpson.



“ ‘The Apprentice’ was a huge boost for me,” he says. “I had been on a whistle-stop tour filling in for everyone from Piers Morgan to Billy Bush, and been on Leno and Chelsea. I even considered “Dancing With the Stars,” but I’m the only black guy in America that can’t dance.”

So “The Apprentice” gave the wonder from another era a platform to reintroduce himself into the wilds of pop culture. It provided training on handling the backstabbing shark tank that late-night TV has become

“It was like boot camp for any craziness that people can throw at you,” he says of the surreal celebrity competition show. “It got so bad that I took to leaving the bathroom door open, so I knew what people were saying about me at all times.”

While hygienically challenged, the strategy worked.

Arsenio beat out other rebooted big names such as Gary Busey, Dennis Rodman and Clay Aiken. He emerged as the season’s winner, and the experience not only put him back on the map, it helped him realize who his friends are … especially those in the late-night landscape.

“Nobody could have been nicer to me than [Jimmy] Fallon, and Jay [Leno] and I are buddies. [Jimmy] Kimmel sent me a check and told me I had to watch his show in return,” says Hall. “You know who your friends are when you do this show. A lot of people pretended they weren’t home when I called.”

Despite the love he got from future competitors, he’s not really getting why all those nice boys can’t seem to play nice together. “Jimmy [Kimmel] said something like, ‘Jay hasn’t been funny in 20 years, which isn’t fair, because I’ve seen this guy hit the clubs and do standup and just kill it,” he says. “Toe to toe and pound for pound, Jay is still a bad man with a microphone.”

Hall says he can’t fathom how Leno got benched after consistently scoring the highest ratings in the game, but he figures he’ll have his own problems avoiding the crossfire when he kicks off his own show.

“The bottom line is that when Jay goes, they’re gonna come for me,” he says. “I’m like a tan version of Leno meets Fallon. Fire away, folks!”








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