Favourite interviewees/talk show guests, and why

Cafe Society
1

Anyone, regardless of medium (tv, radio, i-net, print).

To prevent posts from getting too tl;dr - keep it to four.

Kevin Nealon - Couldn’t stand him in SNL (alright alright I’ll throw him maybe a couple scraps of month-old carrion for his "Weekend Update"s), but as a talk show guest he’s making me constantly laugh for simply being awkward, impish, self-deprecating and sarcastic all at the same time. He doesn’t have what one would call an A-list career (this means he probably has some free time, now and then), allowing him to go off on disarmingly mundane shit that, for all I now, I might be the only one who totally howls at him.

Meg Mulally - Outside of i-views I’ve only seen her in “Parks and Recreation”, as a very interesting librarian (I hope this works)… http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/3611/4051/original.gif).
In talk shows she’s just so gull-darned squeaky vivacious awesome, almost pep-rally upbeat, with this spunky, immediate sensuality that makes it understandable that Mr. Offerman’s been happily married to her for the past, oh, 86 years. And funny as shit, especially when reacting to a crazy comment from the i-viewer - she’s very quick.

Christopher Hitchens - increasingly curmudgeonly as he got older, this man of letters could be edifying, droll, intellectually intimidating, and peevish. I’ve seen him in i-views in only the last 15 years or so of his life, so unfortunately I don’t have a much-needed frame of reference of what he might have been like when he was younger. Maybe the same? As in - the way he’d sometimes glower down an i-viewer if CH doesn’t quite jive with the proceedings, like fielding a question that he found boring. poorly articulated or unchallenging. (trivia tidbit - apparently his final words on his deathbed were “capitalism…downfall”)

Patton Oswalt - a raconteur of the first order, every time he comes on, he always has some crazy situation that he’s been in that he’ll recount in that downbeat, sad-sack way that always kills me. Must be interesting getting into all the strange situations he’s been in - certainly makes for good i-view fodder. The way he just takes his time, going into some meager diatribe about dealing with his kid’s birthday party, or his obsession with film.

There’s more I could post but I’ll wait a bit to see if this gets any traction first.

2

Any time GWAR (specifically Oderus Urungus) was interviewed or on a show was awesome. I haven’t the time to post links at the moment tho.

Look for Jerry Springer, and a few other talk shows. Plus, on the rare occasion he appeared, the only reason ever to watch Fox News.

3

Haven’t seen him for a while but Bob Uecker was really good on the talk shows. He never stopped his mediocre ballplayer routine, carrying it forward into his career as an announcer and actor.

Orson Welles had a good combination of quick wit and pompous assery.

Tim Conway was a great interview too, he always had funny stories from his life to tell, breaking into his screen characters just enough to turn the mundane hilarious.

4

Jewel is probably tops for me.

5

Jim Parsons. He always seems so genuinely sweet and friendly, but he can be really funny as well.

Sometimes it’s a combination of guest and host. I don’t usually watch Conan, but when Paul Rudd is on I try to catch his segment, because you know he’s going to show that “Mac and Me” clip. And even though you know it’s coming, it’s still hilarious.

6

Back on good ole Johnny Carson, I’ll have to go with Dom Deluise.

7

Billy Connolly interviewed by Michael Parkinson.

Billy Connolly interviewed again by Michael Parkinson. (This one stopped the show!)

8

Back in olden days, Johnny Carson had too many to count, but Robert Blake was pretty interesting. The things that came out of his mouth sometimes!

David Letterman + Tony Randall = perfection. (and Regis Philbin! came on right after 9/11.)

9

Another Michael Parkinson triumph was bringing together Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grappelli - classical violin meets jazz violin.

I think this wonderful performance of Jealousy is from that show.

10

Former NFL player Art Donovan Jr. Fat guy with a big sense of humor.

11

No matter where he’s being interviewed, Carl Reiner can be depended on to be funny.

She was on only once but the reactions to Jennifer Richards are priceless.

12

Flip side is Robert De Niro is really bad on talk shows. Gives one word answers.

13

I tend to not watch daily shows, the news, or anything, so my exposure to interviewers/interviewees is pretty limited. I’ve seen 1-5 interviews each from Barbara Walters, Letterman, Johnny Carson, and Colbert, though, so using that as my measuring stick:

Jeremy Clarkson seems to be quite good at getting good information out of his subjects. He seemed to always put in the time to read their autobiography, listen to their album, or whatever else so that he could point out some of the more interesting things about them. (Granted, he just needs to do a handful of interviews a year, not several a week.) Whatever else you might think of him, he was surprisingly good in this one respect.

Adam Savage is, also, surprisingly good at interviewing people. He hasn’t done many but, for example, his interview of John Cleese is possibly one of the best conversations I’ve ever heard. It probably helps that Savage is smart enough in his own right to hold his own and contributed to the conversation. And similarly, he seems to pick people that he either knows or knows a lot about to interview, which helps him to bring out the most interesting aspects of that person.

14

Greg Davies is a goldmine on any show.

I challenge you to watch this entire 3 minute story without laughing.

Ryan Gosling nearly dies on that couch.

15

Artie Lange makes for a pretty good interviewee if it’s Joe Buck i-viewing him.
start it @ 1:30

16

Tom Arnold is surprisingly likable and funny in interviews. Moreso than when he’s doing stand-up.

Norm McDonald ranks up there, too. I like his stand-up, but his interviews are great. There’s an old clip of him on Letterman where Courtney Thorne-Smith is discussing a movie she made with Carrot Top. Norm slays, and saves the segment.

George Carlin was always interesting. He’d get a little too extremist and crotchety, but he also made you think.

17

The late Robin Williams.

Any time he was on a talk show, you never knew where he would go. He’d take some comment, something on the host’s desk, or god knows what, and riff it out to infinity. You could just see his mind working, making these immediate connections, in a way that was brilliant and astonishing. Google for the clips, but here’s one clip of Williams riffing on Shakespeare.

The most revealing thing about seeing Robin Williams on Johnny Carson, however, was that it made me realize how incredibly fucking quick Carson was. On the couch you’d have William going all over earth, the moon and creation, and then you’d see Carson behind the desk keeping up with him.

18

I’ve been watching quite a few of the older Dick Cavett shows on Decades TV and, so far, have really enjoyed John Carradine (great storyteller), Bette Davis, and Arthur Miller. Fred Astaire was nice but pretty boring. Ginger Rogers seemed to be not quite all there. But it’s fascinating to watch him interview so many old-time stars. Either I missed or they haven’t played the Hepburn interview yet. Can’t wait to see that. (Yeah, I know I can watch it on You Tube.)

19

Cavett with Janis Joplin and Gloria Swanson was pretty good. (lol - and then a still-hippie-fied Margot Kidder comes out in her bare feet, sits cross-legged.)

Mentioned this in another thread somewhere - the two-part Cavett interview ('80?) with Robin Williams was the funniest I’ve ever seen RW.

20

I missed those. I’m not a big fan of Williams. Sometimes I like Cavett as an interviewer and sometimes I don’t. The thing I like most about him is how he’s able to put some of the really big stars of the day at complete ease. I’m not liking (and this isn’t totally his fault, it was the times) when women like Billie Jean King came on, specifially just after the Women’s US Tennis Association (?) had been created, or someone from the Women’s Lib movement is on and the attitude is kind of, “Well, isn’t that cute.” It’s interesting to see what women were up against not all that long ago. If a woman wasn’t an actress or a Broadway star or similar, they were somewhat dismissed. Oh, another one that was fascinating was Rose Kennedy. Her attitude toward what was called mental retardation at the time is pretty dated but she did at least talk about it.