The Dennis Miller Show is an American syndicated late-night talk show created by and starring comedian Dennis Miller. The show launched in January 1992 and was hosted by the former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchor as an attempt by syndicator Tribune Entertainment Company to carve out a niche in the late-night television landscape; an opportunity to do so was anticipated due to Johnny Carson's retirement from The Tonight Show that May and his replacement by Jay Leno. Miller's show was unable to build a significant audience, however, and was cancelled after seven months.
The show was taped at Tribune's KTLA Studios, 5800 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
Background 1989—1992 American late-night TV landscape From the January 1989 launch of Arsenio Hall's Paramount-syndicated late-night show, its immediate ability to carve out a niche and compete against the legacy late night leader, Johnny Carson's Tonight Show on NBC, turned a lot of heads. Having observed Hall's and Paramount's success with younger viewers as well as in attracting an audience entirely new to late night, the Chicago-based first-run syndicator Tribune Entertainment Company (that had mostly been known for its daytime programs Geraldo and The Joan Rivers Show) felt the conditions for a competitive entry of their own in the late night race—an arena dominated by Carson for decades—were finally in place.
In 1990, Tribune Entertainment Company pursued Garry Shandling for a syndicated late-night talk show through the performer's representative talent agency, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment. When Shandling turned the offer down, Brillsten-Grey recommended Dennis Miller, another one of their clients.
The drive for Tribune to shift preparations for their planned new show into higher gear increased in May 1991, when Johnny Carson announced he would be retiring from The Tonight Show one year later. As NBC announced its decision that Jay Leno would take Carson's place, and since the time slot was at that point only contested by The Arsenio Hall Show, Tribune felt that if Leno could not hold onto Carson's audience they might migrate to a newer show. Thirty-seven-year-old stand-up comedian and television performer Miller—finishing up the 1990-91 season, his sixth, on NBC's Saturday Night Live weekly sketch comedy series where he had primarily been hosting the Weekend Update satirical news segment—was approached with a Monday-through-Friday late-night show offer whereby Tribune Entertainment would distribute the new program and Miller would co-produce it with the Brillstein-Grey Company. Miller and the others involved felt even more secure in their position when Leno was picked to replace Carson over Late Night host David Letterman, who would eventually end up getting his own show at CBS, Late Show with David Letterman.
History Early days On January 20, 1992, following his departure from Saturday Night Live, Miller launched the late-night TV talk show The Dennis Miller Show, syndicated by Tribune Entertainment. The Dennis Miller Show continued in the tradition of "alternative" talk shows, starting with Late Night with David Letterman, which debuted on NBC in 1982. The show remained faithful to the classic talk-show format with a desk and three or four guests a night, while Miller carried forward the spirit of his SNL Weekend Update with a newscast segment that aired on Fridays. In support of the show's premiere, Tribune made use of extensive advertising in trade publications and on-air promotions and also used a billboard promotion on Sunset Boulevard.
Nick Bakay was the announcer, and Andy Summers, formerly of the band The Police, led the house band. The show's staff boasted a mix of past and future performers, writers, and producers of note including Mark Brazill (That '70s Show), Eddie Feldmann, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick (creators of Will & Grace), Norm Macdonald, Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), John Riggi, Herb Sargent (Saturday Night Live), Drake Sather, Dave Thomas (Second City TV), and Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick (writers of The Santa Clause and Space Jam).
Guests included Mountain (with Leslie West and Corky Laing), Toad the Wet Sprocket (who made their national television debut on the show), Henry Rollins (who appeared repeatedly to chat with Miller and perform spoken word), Primus (who while performing "Tommy the Cat", had to deal with a member of the audience who jumped onstage—whom Miller playfully tried to "tackle"), King's X (who performed two songs, "Black Flag" and "It's Love" to empty seats in the studio due to the 1992 Los Angeles riots), and comedian Bill Hicks.
Miller thought there would be room for his show, as its main competitors for the time slot would be The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Arsenio Hall Show, and he felt they all attracted different audiences. At the time, Arsenio Hall was not worried about Jay Leno's hold on late night, but told the Los Angeles Times, "Dennis Miller is the only one who scares me, because I have tremendous respect for him and think he's one of the brightest comics on the scene."
The show opened to mixed reviews, with some being "blisteringly negative", but Tribune remained optimistic, saying that a 2 rating nationally would be acceptable, due to the late hour of the show, and pointing out that, in some locations, Miller was doing better than Hall. As the show progressed, national ratings were still behind Hall (whose show was also syndicated). In the first five weeks of Miller's show, the national A.C. Nielsen Co. rating was 1.8 (around 1.6 million homes) to Hall's 3.4 over the same time-period. Media watchers noted that, in contrast, Hall's 1989 debut had numbers between 3 and 3.5, and that the industry standard for long-term survival at the time was a minimum of 2. In order to address this shortfall and in anticipation of Carson leaving and his audience being up for grabs, Tribune began making changes to the show.
In February 1992, Andy Summers announced that, after helping to launch the show and writing its theme music, he should move on to focus instead on his solo career. Summers had developed a different musical vision for the show than the traditional rock 'n' roll that Tribune wanted. He was replaced by David Goldblatt, who had been Diana Ross's musical director for her 1989 world tour.
By March 1992, Tribune Entertainment decided it wanted more of the show's focus to be on Miller and his comedy and less on the guests, as testing had shown the audience tuned in for Miller's opening monologue but often tuned away when he was talking to guests. To facilitate this change, Ken Ehrlich was moved to being a musical consultant and replaced in his co-executive-producer duties by Laurence Ferber, who had been able to restructure The Joan Rivers Show to increase ratings by bringing it more in line with her personality. It was also at this time that Dave Thomas was brought in as a writer to "open up the comedy", with the hope he could develop bits for Miller where he would interact more with the audience. Tribune remained optimistic that the numbers could rise and pointed out that the show had strong demographics, skewing heavily towards young men—a target audience for many advertisers. Media watchers noted that Tribune had lowered its ad prices since failing to live up to its original ratings estimates. Tribune insisted that "We don't think of our shows in terms of some kind of death period," and pointed out that it took two years for The Joan Rivers Show, then in its fourth year, to get off the ground.
"The Booking Wars" To differentiate himself from Arsenio, Miller wanted to have a mix of Hollywood celebrities, authors, and political figures on the show, early on having guests like Larry Miller, Sally Kirkland, Clive Barker, Michael Kinsley, Tom Hanks, Christian Slater, Bonnie Raitt, Al Gore, and Benjamin Netanyahu.
A few weeks in, the show began encountering problems booking guests, with some media outlets such as the Dallas Morning News wondering if it was Miller's interview style, where "Miller messes around with them as best he can, looking for openings to throw a jab or two or 10." In response, Miller said he did not want to always be "a faceless, selfless conduit of information", nor another Larry King—saying one or two words between guests' speeches—nor Arsenio Hall, who was seen as fawning over guests on his show. Miller felt he was attracting an audience that wanted a "different, funky vibe".
Some controversy occurred around an episode involving guest performance artist Karen Finley. In her piece, she characterized abortion as pouring Drano into a woman's vagina and said she wanted to "feminize the planet to overthrow this male control of our lives." Afterwards, Miller interviewed her and defended her right of expression. Tribune later pulled the episode from its scheduled July 14 air-time, then cut out her segment and aired the rest on July 17. Finley accused the show of censoring her, telling a reporter, "I think Dennis Miller is just as bad as Jesse Helms. What's the difference?". Tribune said that they had taken this action not for political reasons but "the inappropriateness of including the segment in a music, comedy and light-entertainment program".
The main reason the show had problems booking guests was that Helen Kushnick, executive producer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno—as well as Leno's longtime manager, producer, and close friend)—let it be known that anyone appearing on a competing talk show would never be invited on Leno's program. As accusations of unethical booking pressures were made first by Hall and then by Miller, the media began to describe the situation as "The Booking Wars."
Miller, realizing upfront that his show would have trouble competing with more established late-night talk shows, told his show's talent booker not to attempt to compete for famous guests. Instead he wanted to go after "fringe players" and, invoking Gertrude Stein, said he wanted to set a mood of "an eclectic sense of salon." He later recalled that even this approach did not prevent problems with Leno's show. Miller's talent booker had booked the Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi, whom Miller described as "It's like five guys in thongs with small logs beating big logs". To Miller's astonishment, Yothu Yindi cancelled their appearance because they were worried that if they appeared on his show they would be banned from the Tonight Show. Miller called Leno and complained loudly and with expletives, so they "butted heads for a while". Miller and Leno did not talk to each other for several years afterwards. While Yothu Yindi did wind up appearing on the show, P. J. O'Rourke, who after a six-month negotiation was set to appear on the show, cancelled and appeared with Leno. Miller openly denounced O'Rourke on his show. He even pleaded for guests on air, giving the show's office number. Rather than just rely on the talent agent, Miller began calling people personally to invite them to be guests on his show.
Cancellation