The Wilton North Report
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The Wilton North Report was the Fox Broadcasting Company's second attempt at a regular late night show, replacing The Late Show.
As first conceived, Wilton North's opening segment, which was planned to be its signature segment, would review the day's news, using actual footage, and comment on it in a funny, hard-hitting fashion.[1] Shows that follow a similar premise today include Comedy Central staple The Daily Show and the CBC-produced This Hour Has 22 Minutes. However, less than a week before the show was to debut, producer Barry Sand cut that opening segment. [1]
What was left was an unqualified disaster, due mainly to content that was either unfunny, offensive, or both. It landed at #60 in the David Hofstede book, What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History. [2]
For Conan O'Brien, The Wilton North Report represented his first experience in network television. A writer and warmup comic on the show, he later said, "The show was so hated and did so badly that when, four weeks later, news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into applause." [2]
Behind the scenes, creative differences occurred between the show's hosts (Phil Cowan and Paul Robins, morning drive-time deejays from Sacramento with no television experience), Sand, and the writers. Cowan and Robins thought the writers' material was too sophisticated for mass audiences; Sand, a former producer for Late Night with David Letterman, wanted Cowan and Robins to stop sounding so shrill. Also, the writers were never comfortable writing for Cowan and Robins, who insisted on changing the material and then demanding writer credits afterwards. [3]
Even naming the show in the first place was difficult. For example, Fox wasn't thrilled with Nightcap, a take on the name of the ABC late-night newsmagazine Nightline. So the writers came up with a couple of hundred more possible names. One writer, Lane Sarasohn, noting that the show was taped in the Wilton North Building, submitted "The Wilton North Report" because it sounded like The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. [4]
The Wilton North Report was cancelled after only four weeks. Sand, Cowan and Robins would never work in television again. However, it was not Fox's final stab at late night TV--it re-entered the fray in the fall of 1993 with The Chevy Chase Show, another turkey that lasted just six weeks.
This show might not have even existed if Fox had recognized Arsenio Hall's potential as a late night talk show host. Earlier in 1987, he had a 13-week stint as host of The Late Show and had been the most successful of Joan Rivers' replacements after Rivers left the show. But Fox had committed to Wilton North, [5] and Paramount Pictures subsequently signed Hall to a movie deal. He would later host his own syndicated late night talk show, The Arsenio Hall Show, which ran from 1989 to 1994.
[edit] References
- ^ Hofstede, David: "What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History", page 79. VNU, Inc., 2004
- ^ Hofstede, David: "What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History", pages 78-80. VNU, Inc., 2004
[edit] External links
- Part 1 of Paul Krassner's February 14, 1988 Los Angeles Times article on the Wilton North Report
- Part 2 of Paul Krassner's February 14, 1988 Los Angeles Times article on the Wilton North Report
- Part 3 of Paul Krassner's February 14, 1988 Los Angeles Times article on the Wilton North Report
- Part 4 of Paul Krassner's February 14, 1988 Los Angeles Times article on the Wilton North Report
- The Wilton North Report entry on the Internet Movie Database
