The Pat Sajak Show
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| The Pat Sajak Show | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Talk show |
| Starring | Pat Sajak Dan Miller |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Production | |
| Running time | 90/60 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | January 9, 1989 – April 13, 1990 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Pat Sajak Weekend |
| Links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
The Pat Sajak Show was an American late-night television talk show which aired on CBS from January 9, 1989 to April 13, 1990.
Contents |
[edit] Cast
The show was hosted by Pat Sajak, who became a pop culture phenomenon earlier in the decade as the host of the wildly popular game show Wheel of Fortune. In order to do the talk show, Sajak left the NBC daytime version of Wheel, but remained the host of the syndicated nighttime version.
Sajak's announcer and sidekick on the show was Dan Miller, his friend and former colleague from their time working together on weekend newscasts at WSM-TV in Nashville, Tennessee, in the mid-1970s.
The in-studio band was led by jazz musician Tom Scott, who was also the bandleader on Chevy Chase's failed late-night talk show three years later. Coincidentally, Chase was Sajak's first guest.[1]
[edit] Format
The show's set (inside Studio 41 at CBS Television City in Los Angeles) was strikingly similar to that of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, with which Sajak's show was launched to compete. Its format also emulated Johnny Carson's model, featuring a monologue, comedy bits, interviews with celebrities, and performances by musicians and comedians. The Pat Sajak Show began as a ninety-minute talk show, but was reduced to sixty minutes in October 1989 after performing poorly over its first ten months. CBS executives said the show was shortened because the late-night talk show format was better suited for a sixty-minute time slot[2].
[edit] Rush Limbaugh incident
Two weeks before The Pat Sajak Show was canceled, on March 30, 1990, Rush Limbaugh (whose radio show had just recently been syndicated and was still largely unknown) made headlines when he guest-hosted the program, and in a departure from its regular format, entered the audience to get its response about a bill in Idaho allowing for abortion on which he had just commented. After a verbal confrontation with an angry woman in the audience, Limbaugh addressed the camera and suggested that he went into the audience in an attempt to show the viewing public that there was an underlying prejudice against him.
After a commercial break, Limbaugh attempted to address the topic of affirmative action, but was heckled again by several male audience members calling him a "murderer" before he could make a point. Limbaugh sat silently with the camera focused on him for nearly a minute while audience members continued shouting phrases such as "You want people to die!" Limbaugh responded with, "I am not responsible for your behavior," and got an ovation from the remainder of the crowd, as the few dissident audience members continued to shout.
After another break, Limbaugh returned and conducted the final segment from an empty studio after the audience had been cleared. He stated that the audience was not "evicted from the studio" or "forcibly restrained from doing anything they did" and gave CBS credit for handling the situation in the manner it did.[3]
Limbaugh later publicly suspected the dissident audience members were planted by the show's producers as a publicity stunt, but that he was not informed in advance or after the fact, if that were indeed the case[4].
[edit] Cancellation
During its final weeks, Sajak worked only four days per week, while guest hosts took the reins on Fridays. Sajak, while interviewing Limbaugh a decade later on Larry King Live, facetiously said the show "was going so well that they actually auditioned replacements for me on the air." Limbaugh all but confirmed Sajak's suspicion when he responded with, "I don't know if it was necessarily an audition for that slot, by the way, but I know that they were auditioning talent for various things."[5]
On April 9, 1990, CBS announced the cancellation of The Pat Sajak Show due to low ratings, which were generally half the level of Carson's[6], and were further divided by the popular Arsenio Hall Show, which had been launched in syndication the same month as Sajak's show. Sajak was on vacation when the show was pulled from the lineup, and did not get the chance to host the final show and say goodbye to his audience. The final show was instead hosted by comedian Paul Rodríguez.
CBS filled its newly-available late-night airtime with movies (though some affiliates chose to carry other programming, notably The Arsenio Hall Show) and would not program another late-night talk show for three and a half years, when it premiered Late Show with David Letterman in September 1993.
Sajak's talk show days were not done; he frequently guest-hosted for Larry King on Larry King Live in the early 2000s and hosted a one-on-one interview program, Pat Sajak Weekend, on Fox News Channel in 2003.
[edit] References
- ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7DE173AF932A25752C0A96F948260
- ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE5DF143DF936A25753C1A96F948260
- ^ The Pat Sajak Show, 30 March 1990
- ^ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0105/03/lkl.00.html
- ^ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0105/03/lkl.00.html
- ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2DA163FF933A25757C0A966958260
[edit] External links
Categories: 1989 television program debuts | 1990 television program series endings | 1980s American television series | 1990s American television series | CBS network shows | Television flops | Eponymous television series | Television series by CBS Paramount Television | Television talk shows | Variety television series
