The last live episode of HBO’s Emmy-winning comedy-talk series “Dennis Miller Live” airs 11:30 p.m. tonight on HBO. Final guest: actor Vince Vaughn. The series lasted nine years and 215 episodes. Herc stopped watching a long time ago.
Miller’s literate and vicious sense of humor served him exceedingly well in his stand-up and his stellar stint overseeing “Weekend Update,” but when he left “Saturday Night Live” to host his short-lived daily talk show*, the guest-hungry comic’s celebrity interviewing inevitably came off as absurd and insincere, so violently did the brown-nosing clash with the mean and impatient public persona he’d established.
*Anybody remember Miller’s syndicated talk show? It featured Nick “Voice of Sabrina’s Cat” Bakay as sidekick? The host used to complain a lot because Leno was hogging all the guests? Okay.
Though the HBO show brought Miller closer to his “SNL” roots, he would continue to chummily fawn over all visitors, and the funnyman seemed to grow more toothless with every forced giggle. God, how I’ve come to despise that man’s laugh. Every time he cackled too loudly over one of his own failed monologue jokes, my hand would fairly rocket toward the remote.
Miller has expressed frustration over HBO’s policy of keeping “Dennis Miller Live” out of production half of each year (it rotated with, among other things, Chris Rock’s Emmy-winning comedy chatfest), so I’m guessing that – unless he’s got something lined up we’ve yet to hear about – Miller’s not too happy about shutting down for good.
It’ll be interesting to see what the former “Monday Night Football” commentator tries next. “Bordello of Blood” was an exceedingly poor effort, but I thought it often made good use of its lead. Maybe Jon Stewart’s film career will take off and Comedy Central will let Miller inherit its fake news show. I’d tune in to something like that.
But only if they elimated the celebrity interview.
It’ll be interesting to see what the former “Monday Night Football” commentator tries next. “Bordello of Blood” was an exceedingly poor effort, but I thought it often made good use of its lead. Maybe Jon Stewart’s film career will take off and Comedy Central will let Miller inherit its fake news show. I’d tune in to something like that.
But only if they elimated the celebrity interview.
