So, who do you want to book as a guest on your talk show? - either living or dead.
Who do you think are/were the best or most memorable talk show guests ever and what makes them so engaging?
Hitler. The right answer is always Hitler.
Dead Men Tell No Tales. Pretty boring talk show with a dead guest!
I’ll go with Norm McDonald. He cracks me the fuck up!
If I had a talk show, I’m not sure I’d host. I’m afraid if I did it would turn out something like the late Chris Farley’s attempts to interview someone on SNL. Maybe I’ll just produce and get someone like Ed Murrow, Mike Wallace, Jack Paar, or Johnny Carson to do the actual interviewing.
That said, an ideal guest would be someone with a interesting life who has (or had) natural skills as a raconteur and would (or was) not be afraid to delve into controversial topics. In terms of dead people, that would include Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, and Charlie Chaplin. I can imagine Voltaire would also have an excellent guest had there been talk shows during the 18th century. Also, I wouldn’t give them just a measly 5 to 10 minute segment of a 60 minute program, I’d have them on the entire show (maybe even having a second or third hour if the interview goes well).
Tom Waits
Quentin Jerome Tarantino
Billy Bob Thornton
musical guest Jim Jarmusch
I think the best interviews are when the host and the guest have a long history and high comfort level with each other. They can say anything to each other, and they go to great lengths to make the interview funny and/or entertaining.
For example, I loved Letterman’s relationships with people like Bill Murray and Regis Philbin. You knew those interviews would never be boring. And I loved the whole schtick between Letterman and Richard Simmons.
Norm McDonald interviewing Adoph Hitler. Now that would crack me up.
Or Mel Brooks interviewing Adoph Hitler.
Or…anyone interviewing AH. Comedy Gold!
Oscar Levant, possibly the greatest celebrity wit of the 20th century.
Never got big laughs from Kevin Nealon from SNL (nor the show itself after '81) but as a talk show guest I thought he can be quite self-deprecatingly funny, often recounting something dreary and totally inconsequential (even in talk show guest terms!)
Patton Oswalt makes for an awesome raconteur, in his dumpy, deadbeat way. Definite appointment TV, no matter who’s i-viewing him.
fantasy i-viewees:
a drunk Oliver Reed
Gary Busey at the end of a four-day meth bender
Noel Coward
Ed Gien
HILARIOUS seeing John McEnroe attempting to be a talk show host a while back. White as a ghost, moved like a robot - looked like something that could eventually morph into a spider or a rat or something. Looked like a really, really sick cyborg. Creeped me.
I miss:( my favourite interviewers, by a universe mile: Barth Gimble and Gerry Hubbard.
Always wanted to get interviewed by Dick Cavett.
Maybe the best interview I ever saw, back around '80 - a D.C. two-parter, with Robin Williams. Never seen him any funnier, with a shitload of stream-of-consciousness role-playings, sometimes riffing on Shakespeare, and then non-sequituring right away into a stereotypical suburban Californian housewife extolling the merits of so-and-so dishwashing liquid. Cavett feebly tried to be a foil to some of RW’s manic freestyling, but couldn’t keep up with him, and just sat back and let Williams go off.
Whole grain goodness.
Adolf Hitler impersonating Richard Simmons on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
I have abou4 or 5 host I liked …old school dick cavett or tom Snyder
now…dennis miller or bill maher
radio would be imus tom leykis or Bernie ward from kgo in sf
tho imus would have to have the old crew because chuck mc cord was the only one who could keep him in line … and hed have ot be on sirrus/xm because he was always funnier off air than on …