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Review:
The Martin Short Show
Written
By Rick Ellis, September 13, 1999
It's not easy
being a talk show host. It requires a special sort of talent,
an off-kilter energy that's hard to define ahead of time. David
Letterman was a mediocre stand-up, but a great talk show host.
The same with Conan O'Brien and Jon Stewart.
And sometimes,
it's easy to see a performer in one venue and think that talent
might translate into the talk show arena. After watching Pat Sajak
host Wheel Of Fortune, I can see how someone might think
he'd thrive on a talk show. He's glib, likeable and not bad looking
in a tv sort of way.
But what has
always stumped me are the celebrities that everyone should know
are genetically incapable of cranking out quality shows day after
day. Chevy Chase is a cranky, generally unfunny interview. The
reasons why anyone thought he'd be a great talk show host always
eluded me.
And unfortunately
for Martin Short, he falls into the Chevy Chase category of hosts.
While he's certainly capable of the occassional entertaining impression,
even at his best he's always struck me as a performer who's swimming
in the shallow end of the talent pool.
For whatever
reason, King World Productions thought he'd be just the guy to
host their next new daytime talk show. Guys, you might want to
reconsider this one.
Now, granted,
it's tough to write off a show after just the premiere episode.
But when the host is a veteran performer, and the show is pretaped,
it's difficult to write a positive review about a show that is
astoundingly tame and ponderous.
I knew it
was going to be a long hour when the show's first segment was
one of those hackneyed, host-and-guest-meet-backstage bits. It's
the kind of thing you'd expect to see from Leno, and it doesn't
help matters that the premise--being able to hear the grumbling
thoughts of both Short and first guest Billy Crystal--is about
as funny as The Brady Brides get Married.
Things don't
improve much once the show actually starts. Short doesn't do a
monologue exactly, he just talks aimlessly, then strolls out into
the audience to sing a song. Fairly straight, I might add. Hell,
even Kathi Lee Gifford doesn't have that tin of an ear when it
comes to entertainment.
Billy Crystal
gets a huge roar from the audience when he walks out, but it could
just be that they're just happy Short won't have time for another
song. Crystal and Short reminesce about their days together on
Saturday Night Live, and in fact, run clip after endless clip
from their tenure on the show. This isn't a great idea, since,
to be blunt, neither one of them were exactly hitting on all creative
cylinders while they were there.
The rest of
the show moved along quickly and vapidly. Rebecca Stamos made
a quick appearance, and was a pleasant guest. There was also a
segment with a woman who had written a book about how to surivive
the Y2K crises. This apparently involves a lot of cooking food
on the hot engine block of your car, and starting fires with nails
and car batteries. In other words, it was a segment that Johnny
Carson could have done in his sleep. But with Short, he just tended
to make most viewers a bit groggy.
In fact, the
only laughs in the show come from a fake news segment (geez, there's
an intellectual groundbreaker), where Short plays Jeanane Garafolo
in an interview segment.
And that short
glimpse of humor may help explain the ultimate flaw in this show.
Short is best when he's pretaped, rehearsed and has a clear cut
mission in the sketch. None of which are likely to hapen while
he's hosting a daily talk show.
I suspect
King World is hoping that he'll do more pre-taped segments, which
would be an unusual feature for daytime television. And it 's
certainly something Short can do. Now if they just had a host
for the show, they'd be in great shape.
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