For the Jon English character, see All Together Now (TV series).
Bobby Rivers was the host of the now-defunct Top 5 show on the Food Network, and Watch Bobby Rivers, a critically acclaimed prime-time celebrity talk show on VH1. He was the first African-American to get his own talk show on VH1.
Rivers, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, graduated from Marquette University in Wisconsin. After working in Milwaukee radio, he made his professional television debut in 1979 on Milwaukee's ABC affiliate, WISN TV, as the city's first African-American film critic on TV. He did this as a contributor on Milwaukee's edition of "PM Magazine", a syndicated show that had such national hosts as Matt Lauer, Mary Hart and Leeza Gibbons. During that time, he was tapped to audition as a possible movie critic replacement when Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert left Chicago PBS for Disney syndication. In 1984, he'd moved up to co-host and associate producer of a live weekday show on WISN.
In 1985, after the show was cancelled, he was offered a job as an entertainment reporter for New York television station WPIX. In 1987, Rivers was hired as a veejay by the American cable television channel VH1, where executives utilized his comic and interviewer skills which led to his own show on the network (Watch Bobby Rivers) the following year. Stephen Holden of the New York Times called him "...a master interviewer with a gift for banter." On VH1, he interviewed Paul McCartney, Kirk Douglas, Meryl Streep, Mel Gibson, Carlos Santana, Raul Julia, Michael Caine, Mel Blanc, Jodie Foster, Liza Minnelli, Marlo Thomas, and Norman Mailer, among others. He did veejay segments with the network's new addition, Rosie O'Donnell until 1990.
Rivers hosted two short-lived syndicated game shows. One was called "Bedroom Buddies". In 1992, he was approached to be a lifestyles and entertainment reporter on local New York morning news programs—WNBC's "Weekend Today in New York" and WNYW's "Good Day New York." For the latter, he was hired as a replacement for Australian personality Gordon Elliott who had left. Rivers performed onstage, and appeared on the television show The Sopranos. In 2000, he was the Entertainment Editor on "Lifetime Live", an ABC News/Lifetime TV weekday magazine hour. He worked on camera with its hosts, Deborah Roberts and the late Dana Reeve. After the cancellation of "Lifetime Live" came Food Network's "Top 5" in 2002. Production ended in 2004 but the show aired in weekly repeats until 2008.
Whoopi Goldberg, a one-time guest on Rivers' VH1 talk show, picked him to be the weekly film critic/entertainment reporter on her national weekday morning show for Premiere Radio, "Wake Up With Whoopi". The show lasted from 2006 to 2008. Director Stephen Soderbergh requested permission to use footage of Rivers' VH1 interview of Spalding Gray in his documentary on the late monologist/actor. The 2010 release was entitled "And Everything Is Going Fine".
Rivers went on to comic acting work playing "Professor Robert Haige" in "In The Know", a satirical round-table news segment in The Onion News Network video podcast. Rivers' first television appearance was on a 1970 syndicated classic film trivia game show. He was a high school student. At that time on "The Movie Game", shot in Hollywood with hosts Army Archerd and Sonny Fox, he was the program's first African-American contestant and its youngest winner.