Old School Talk Show Guest

[PGage]

Mark Harmon was the only panel guest on Colbert Friday night. I guess he was the perfect Friday night guest, as he is non topical, and the interview could have been taped anytime in the last week or two. But what stood out is how retro (and interesting);the segments were. Someone did a great pre-interview with him, and he had three or four traditional talk show Hollywood stories to tell, which Colbert set him up for in non ironic fashion  - about Johnny Carson, Michael Cain who was with him on his first talk show appearance on (probably) Merv Griffin, Karl Malden and Elizabeth Taylor. They were not as dramatic or funny as the story Dave liked to celebrate as the best talk show story ever, but they reminded me why that style, in many wats deconstructed by the Letterman approach to the genre, worked, when it worked and was done right. He also promoed the upcoming return of a certain character on his TV show.

 I’m not a huge Harmon fan, but like most people I find him likable, and his performance as a secret service agent for 3 or 4 episodes on TWW will always live as one of the best guest starring arcs in the history of dramatic television. Also, I grew up in Los Angeles back in the day, and remember him as a UCLA QB ( though I was a USC fan), and knew his father as the UCLA play by play and sports guy on KTLA. If I were interviewing him I definitely would have talked about TWW (when Harmon was a guest on TWWW podcast he talked about how those episodes led to the Gibbs role, first on JAG and then NCIS), his football days and his rather amazing father, and the controversies on NCIS and the later spin off. But I have to say the old school talk show story approach was entertaining.

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[Paul Murray]

Nitpicking because I watch it: The “certain character” actually returned earlier this season. If the episode description can be believed, Tuesday night will wrap up the arc, IIRC.

More to the point, I broadly agree with all of this. They were good stories about legendary people. (I chuckled at his referring to Irwin Allen as a screamer; that’s certainly consistent with Jonathan Harris’s telling of how he was a “special guest star” for the entire run of Lost in Space.) Harmon can indeed be an engaging guest when he wants to.

Harmon used to make his annual appearance on Letterman at the beginning of the new season. Hearing that he and Colbert has not met made me realize that he has not been on since. (And this seems like an odd time, honestly, since NCIS has been a mix of new and repeat shows. Why not wait until the next sweeps period?) Perhaps someone thought it was best for him to lay low until the backstage drama at NCIS was further in the past. Although ISTR that he was on with British Jimmy, which is much easier for him from a logistical standpoint.

I miss the days when talk shows would book some engaging personalities simply because they were so entertaining, and because they had something to plug. Now get off my lawn...

[Jon Delfin]

On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 10:45 AM Paul Murray <pmur...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

[snip]

Harmon used to make his annual appearance on Letterman at the beginning of the new season. Hearing that he and Colbert has not met made me realize that he has not been on since. (And this seems like an odd time, honestly, since NCIS has been a mix of new and repeat shows. Why not wait until the next sweeps period?)  Perhaps someone thought it was best for him to lay low until the backstage drama at NCIS was further in the past. Although ISTR that he was on with British Jimmy, which is much easier for him from a logistical standpoint.

[snip]

I think it was a factor of when Harmon was available. He was in NYC to receive an award.

https://footballfoundation.org/news/2019/5/16/general-mark-harmon-named-2019-nff-gold-medal-recipient.aspx 

Somehow I had low expectations about this appearance, remembering (it must have been) Harmon's last spot with Dave, during which he was surprisingly (and off-puttingly) goofy. 

[Kevin M.]

On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 7:45 AM Paul Murray <pmur...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

I miss the days when talk shows would book some engaging personalities simply because they were so entertaining, and because they had something to plug. Now get off my lawn...

The guests you are referring to frankly don’t exist anymore. There are still a handful of D list celebrities who stay on-call in case a guest cancels at the last minute, Richard Simmons and Rip Taylor were easy examples of that from the good ol’ days. 

As for intentionally booking guests who have nothing to plug, celebrities have social media to be witty (or attempt to be) and engage with their fan base. They have no incentive to go on a talk show. Talk shows are awkward for those involved. There is a lot of pressure to perform and win people over, and celebrities generally only do them as part of a promotional tour. 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[PGage]

Thanks especially for two things here: 1) I was confused about The Return episode, because I thought I had read something (probably here) that it had already happened. I wondered for a moment if the interview actually was a repeat and I had just missed it. Yet Harmon made a point of saying it was the Christmas episode, so that could not have been it. 2) what also made it feel old school was exactly what you reference; the entire first segment was just him telling his stories, with no real promo in sight. Colbert did hype the second segment with a promise of NCIS talk, but almost all of that first segment was like one of Johnny’s old pals dropping by to chat (not that I think Colbert and Harmon are friends).

On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 7:45 AM Paul Murray <pmur...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

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