Remembering "Night After Night with Allan Havey" (1989-1992)

The late night television talk show has been a staple of American life ever since Steve Allen launched The Tonight Show in NYC in 1954. Over the decades the names of late night hosts became staples of American culture: Carson, Letterman, Leno, and Stewart ruled the late night airways collectively for over half a century, and their replacements -- Fallon, Kimmel, Colbert, and ... Stewart -- have all dominated late night TV for over a decade now. 

In those same decades there have been lots of other talk shows that have come and gone -- Merve Griffen, Dick Cavett, Conan, Corden, and many others. Up until a few years ago there was a glut of late night shows until economic pressures led to many of them being cancelled. Even the big late night shows are in decline -- their ratings are way down, their doing fewer shows per week, their losing their bands, and they no longer have the kind of agenda-setting, social currency that they used to have.

But thirty-odd years ago, the late night landscape was very different. It was the time of the big transition from the 30-plus year reign of Johnny Carson to the duopoy of Leno and Letterman.

It was also the time when Arsenio Hall -- young, loud, black, and wild -- challenged the white-guy late night establishment and created memorable TV moments, including then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton playing the saxaphone and then getting elected president. Late night TV was a hot place, and it seemed like it was the pulse of American culture.

One totally forgotten late night show from that time was Night After Night with Allan Havey. It ran on Comedy Central (first called the Comedy Channel) from 1989 to 1992 and was really different and quite original. 

Coming several years before the start of The Daily Show, Night After Night was a largely tradditional talk show except for some big differences. Allen would begin each show sitting at his desk and, instead of the regular monologue, he'd just talk and riff. It was more like the opening to a radio show than a TV show but he did it really well and was very funny. Then he'd interview his guests and the conversations were much more interesting than anything you'd hear on the late night shows. This show obviously ran many years before podcasts but his interviews were more in-depth and podcast-like than anything else at the time. Also, he played a constant gag on the audience -- his studio audience literally consisted of one person, his "audience of one", usually someone visiting NYC.

Night After Night was a calm, smart, funny show that was, quite frankly, a relief from the raucous, loud, and sometimes quite dumb late night shows. And it was really New York, almost like a late-night Manhattan cable access show brought into the mainstream. 

I remembering watching this show in high school and enjoyed it a lot. I remember on the night that Johnny Carson retired in 1992, they simply paused the show so that everyone else could watch it, and instead just showed an advertisement for Tabasco the whole time. I remember he interviewed the lady who played (and still plays) Lisa Simpson who talked about how many times she had turned eight on the show. And I remember this episode from 1992 when he interviewed an actress/comedien named Stephanie Hodge who was the star of a Saturday night sitcom on NBC called Nurses (a spinoff of another show called Emptyness that was itself a spinoff of The Golden Girls). It aired in the summer of that year, just before I started 10th grade -- and just months before Night After Night was cancelled, and Stephanie Hodges was fired from Nurses. 

Many other late night shows have obviously come and gone since Night After Night was cancelled -- and Allan Havey has gone on to have a great career as an actor, including appearing on Mad Men. But there's never quite been another late night show like this, a really funky NYC show, and so Mr NYC is happy to remember this little piece of NYC late-night culture from a very different time.

Late Night in Winter

Late night television was born in NYC.

When the Tonight Show with Steve Allen premiered in 1954, it created a whole new world, not only for television, but for the entire culture. Late night TV was a America's bedtime story. During his 30-year reign as host of the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson was the nation's comforter-in-chief. In the years and decades since, so many other late night shows and hosts have come and gone that it's hard to keep track. And, of course, late night TV extended for beyond NYC, into "beautiful downtown Burbank" and the West Coast.

But late night TV has always been, at heart, a New York City thing. Like the city itself, it's always been a little edgy, a little nasty, a little smartass, a little offbeat, and yet always had a big welcoming heart.

Think Letterman. Think Jon Stewart. 

So it's a sad occasion that the Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been cancelled. In May 2026 it will end completely. Its network, CBS, is getting out of the late night business altogether. The reasons for this cancellation are, according to CBS, purely financial. But it's entirely possible that it was done to help grease the wheels of a huge merger that is taking place between CBS and Skydance. Skydance is owned by ultra-Republican billionaire Larry Ellison and Colbert used his show daily to bash Trump. Ending the show not only saves CBS money but also appeases the FTC to approve the merger, as well as Larry Ellison's ego (it's rumored that he'll turn CBS into another Fox News).

The financial and the political are, let's face it, one and the same. One hand washes the other. Power speaks to power. 

Also, the economics of late night TV awful: the Tonight Show is down to four nights a week, Late Night lost its band, other late night shows have been cancelled and not replaced, it's a shrinking, dying breed. People would rather watch streaming or YouTube or watch their phones. Who needs late night TV?

But it's a sad moment for late television, for the culture, and for NYC. Something has been lost, never to be replaced. We'll remember late night TV the same way some people remember cigarette ads on TV or other cultural ephemera. Gone, but not forgotten.

P.S. the Colbert show is the only late night show that I went to a taping of, and I wrote about it briefly in 2018. 

NYC Makes & Late Night Takes

I remember it well: in early 1993, shortly after Bill Clinton took office as President, David Letterman dramatically announced his departure from NBC and his 12:30 AM show Late Night to go host the 11:30 PM Late Show on CBS.

America waited with baited breath: would the quintessential NYC late night host pull up stakes and move his new show in a better time slot on another network to LA?

In the end, Dave stayed put, moving into the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway and making NYC a late night powerhouse for the first time since the 1960s -- and for the next 32 years. 

Part of the reason he stayed is that then-NYC Mayor David Dinkins moved heaven and earth to keep the Letterman show here. And when Letterman retired in 2015, CBS was bribed to keep his replacement Stephen Colbert in NYC with generous tax breaks. The same thing had happened in 2014 to move the Tonight Show back to NYC. 

We, the taxpayers of NYC, basically financed late night TV. 

And now ... the show has been cancelled, late night TV is in freefall -- and got stuck with the bill! All of that revenue that might have come into NYC without these tax breaks are gone -- and can never be recovered.

So when we hear scary stuff about "socialism" just remember -- we already have socialism but it's for the rich and big corporations ... and not for the rest of us.

Remembering David Brenner's "Nightlife"

It falls somewhere within the x-y axis of insult vs. compliment to be called "ahead of your time". It means you and your work weren't that popular or appreciated in your time but was discovered and appreciated later on in -- or after -- your life, and that it influenced others who went on to become more successful than you.

For example, The Velvet Underground's music wasn't popular in its time but it was deeply appreciated by, and greatly influenced, later generations of big bands like U2 and REM.

David Brenner's career was definitely ahead of its time. A standup comic, he broke out in the 1970s doing something most comedians hadn't done before -- observational humor. Before that most standup comedy was either "da dum bum" one liners like Henny Youngman and Jack Benny or deeply existentialist stuff like Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. Brenner's was totally different -- not shallow jibes, not deep insights, but simple questions. He looked at the world right in front of him and did routines like, "Hey! What's the deal with tic tacs? How can you walk around carrying them without annoying people?" Long before Jerry Seinfeld made hundreds of millions of people of laugh -- and hundreds of millions of dollars in his bank account -- with observational humor in the 1990s, David Brenner was bringing this new style of comedy to audiences in the 1970s with numerous Tonight Show appearances.

In 1986 (until 1987), Brenner had his own late night show called Nightlife. Before the Johnny Carson/Joan Rivers dust up, before Arsenio Hall shook up the old boys network of late night, before the generational defining wars of Leno vs. Letterman vs. Conan, before The Daily Show and other topical shows redefined the purpose of late night, Brenner quietly made a big contribution to changing the face of late night comedy.

And it reeked of NYC. Nightlife was different in every way from most late night shows at the time. It was filmed here, it was syndicated, it didn't have a studio audience or an opening monologue. It was just Brenner, his guests, and comedy. It was rebellious and hip. It had a great attitude. It was very ahead of its time.

Perfect example: Nightlife was one of the first shows to put Howard Stern on TV. Besides a few appearances on Letterman, the shock jock was barely known outside NYC at the time. Brenner totally understood Howard Stern's unique comedic genius and gave him a platform when few others dared. Brenner wasn't just ahead of his time in his own comedy or with his own late night show but he recognized revolutionary comedy in others -- and celebrated it.

David Brenner died in 2014, age 78. His days as a talk show regular and host, as a big-time comic, were long over. He never achieved the gigantic success of observational comedians like Seinfeld or Paul Reiser, and was largely unknown to younger comedy fans. But David Brenner was a true comedic pioneer as his short-lived talk show proved.

And his influence lives on.

Joe Franklin RIP

Long before late night television became a big money battlefield, most late night TV was local (even the mother of all late night talk shows, Tonight, began as a local NYC show in 1954). While Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson hosted Tonight between 1954 to 1992, here in NYC one guy had them beat for longevity: Joe Franklin, who hosted his own eponymous late night  show from 1950 to 1993, mostly on WOR. Many credit Joe Franklin for really inventing the TV talk show as we know it.

His show was wacky -- and totally New York. Joe Franklin did not have a band or do an opening monologue. Instead, he sat behind a desk, with a gigantic microphone sticking into his face, and interviewed a parade of eclectic guests, including movie stars, US presidents, rock bands, plate twirlers, restaurant owners, and men dressed as tomatoes (as some have called them, they were the greats, the near-greats, the not-so-greats, the ingrates, and the never-weres).  Joe Franklin interviewed an 18-year old Julia Roberts, interviewed Ronald Reagan five times (before he was president), and was one of the first shows to feature Bette Midler and Barbra Steisand. He was so admired by Billy Crystal that Crystal did several sketches imitating Joe Franklin on "Saturday Night Live." (In the 1970s and 1980s, when WOR was a "superstation" carried on cable systems around the country, Joe Franklin was technically national.)

Joe Franklin was New York. His carried the city in his voice and his show seemed to reflect the city in its glamor and grit, its highs and lows, its beauty and strangeness, the fact that this was a city of the rich and famous as well as the ordinary and totally weird. Honestly, his show's production values were little better than public access but that was part of its charm -- it was low-rent and democratic, just like NYC used to be.

As a kid, I recall seeing Joe Franklin a few times, usually during the summer or during school vacations, when I was allowed to be up at 1 AM or whatever un-Godly hour his show was on. There was something so reassuring about his manner, you felt like you had a friend at that time of night who was looking out for you. He was great.

Joe Franklin died a few days ago at the age of 88 and, like the New York that his show used to broadcast to on those late nights, he will be missed.

Night City

A few years ago I blogged about my love for the romantic world of late night NYC. Since this is the one of the most exciting and romantic of cities, the allure of nighttime NYC takes on an especially sexy sheen. Nighttime NYC is a place of bright lights and dark streets, of people working to keep the city going while others are out there partying, of friends and lovers coming together, of crime, of craziness, of ... endless possibilities. All of us who were young (or old) in NYC have our special memories of this city at night.

That's why New York magazine now has a whole special section called After Midnight where various notable New Yorkers write about their memories and impressions of New York at night. This electronic "scrapbook" is interspersed with stories about NYC at night back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when things just as shocking (if not more so) when down in the nighttime environs of NYC.

I had many late nights in NYC back in my pre-child years. This included outings with various friends and significant others, most recently my wife. Back in 1994, I remember leaving a party at 4 AM in the Village and we walked up towards midtown, watching the city wake up (this was the same day, as it turned out, that OJ Simpson would go for "the ride of his life" out in LA). I remember all those nights in the early 2000s when, hopelessly single, my friends and I would go out to bars and, eventually, to places like Veselka and Caffe Dante for dessert. And, naturally, the many late nights with the special lady who would become my wife.

One night, back in 2008 (after this blog was created!) stands out. My wife/then girlfriend and I had gone to the They Might Be Giants concert at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side. I had mentioned this in passing to my brother who indicated that he and his girlfriend were also planning to go to the same concert. Afterwards, the four of us repaired to Big Nicks Pizza Joint for late night snack and there, for the first time, the now-wife and I got to the know the person who would become my sister-in-law (and mother to my niece and nephew). It was a lovely night and, in retrospect, a transitional moment in all of our lives.

Nightshift NYC

New York's popular moniker is "the city that never sleeps" -- but have we ever really thought about the people in our town who live and work through the night? Russell Leigh Sharman and Cheryl Harris Sharman have, and they are the authors of the new book and blog Nightshift NYC.

In both, they have interviewed some of the quarter million New Yorkers who keep this city going at night -- cops, EMTs, cab drivers, waiters and waitresses, you name it. I recently heard them interviewed on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show and they told stories about the fun and scary things that our city's overnight workers do and encounter during their work "days." In addition, several callers talked about working the nightshift, and how it takes a toll on their lives and relationships -- but can also be strangely wonderful at the same time.

As someone with a shameless romantic nature, particularly for all things NYC, New York in the middle of the night has always held a special allure for me. Perhaps I've seen too many movies. Perhaps I'm naive. Perhaps, since I've never worked at night, I've had the luxury of visiting late night New York more as a tourist than a resident. Still, it entices me.

For when I think of New York at night, and all the people who inhabit it, I think about deliverymen flinging stacks of newspapers from trucks towards stationary stores and newsstands; I think about the illuminated diner on the corner that's a like a lively heartbeat in the otherwise dead calm of night, a place where you can always get pancakes and a bottomless cup of coffee and chat up a friendly waitress; I think about the cops and cab drivers patrolling our streets, keeping us safe and making sure we get home; I think about the 24-hour grocery stores and delis where you can get some chips and water and perhaps hit an ATM; I think about the bars where you can sit at a table with friends or a l'object d'amour and talk for hours; I imagine how the people working in hospitals, on the subways, at the electric and phone companies, the firefighters and the security guards, the people helping us to sleep soundly since we know they're there doing these jobs -- how these people are working hard and can't wait to get home to their families; and for some reason (again, too many movies), when I think of late night NYC, I always hear melancholy jazz saxophones wailing away somewhere far off and those first blushes of dawn that warm the city and take us into a new day.

Again, I've never worked at night and I'm sure the reality of it is really tough. That's why I'm grateful for all those New Yorkers who do and keep this city whirring. And that's why you should check out Nightshift NYC. There's a whole other city out there, a reality that exists while most of us are dreaming.

"30 Rock": The First Great NYC Show of the 21st Century

Every decade or so there's a show that, more than the others, actually "gets" New York. By "get" I mean it perfectly encapsulates the New York City attitude and vibe, captures and expresses the city's l'essence and joie de vivre, its id, ego, and superego -- that actually makes you feel it has the city in its bloodstream.

In the 1950s, it was The Honeymooners.

In the 1960s ... well, okay, I can't think of one.

In the 1970s, it was Saturday Night Live.

In the 1980s, it was Late Night with David Letterman (Late Night was a show for New Yorkers; The Late Show is a show for tourists).

In the 1990s, it was Mad About You (no, not Seinfeld; I will explain in a moment).

And now, in the '00s, it's 30 Rock.

Lots of shows have tried to be great New York shows and some have come close. Sex and the City and Seinfeld are obviously the closest and, while they're great shows, I wouldn't say they are necessarily great New York shows. While I loved them, I didn't get that same palpable New York City vibe that I got from the aforementioned.

Others have tried to be great New York City shows, of course, and failed miserably. Don't get me started on Friends or some of that dreck that used to be on the NBC Thursday night line-up in the late 1990s. Fortunately 30 Rock is one show on the current NBC Thursday line-up and it, in my opinion, qualifies as the next great New York show.

What makes 30 Rock so awesome? What do I love this show about a show? Maybe it's the neurotic and self-deprecating head writer Liz Lemon (a hilarious Tina Fey) or the absolutely brilliant Alec Baldwin as Jack, the big network honcho (his character may seem outrageously over the top but I've worked for guys like that and they do, believe me, exist). And of course there's Tracy Morgan, the ridiculous star of the fictional "Tracy Jordan" who may seem like a pampered celebrity but is actually a buddy to everyone. The cast is so funny, the writing so sharp, you can't have a pulse and not love it.

But what makes it a great New York show is that it has that same irreverent, devil-may-care, caffeine-fueled, Type A attitude that almost all New Yorkers feel and identify with. It gets how people live in this town (i.e. working a lot, eating take-out, negotiating the Darwinian worlds of dating and office politics). It feels like it's "on the level" with the majority of New Yorkers. And, as a New Yorker watching it, I feel it's giving me a wink and smile, saying "We get you buddy. We feel your pain. It's ours too."

What else can a great New York show do? Let's hope "30 Rock" continues to thrive and thrive. Our city will be the better for it.

Postscript: there actually was a show in the early 1990s called Flying Blind and it had the potential to be a really great New York show. Sadly a lousy time slot and ratings made the Fox network give it a short lifespan. One abbreviated season does not a great New York show make but Mr NYC remembers it fondly.

What Does AI Think of Mr NYC?

Last year I asked Chat GPT to describe this blog. You can read it here.

And now I've asked Grok and Google AI to describe this blog and got the following:

Google AI:

The blog mrnyc.blogspot.com is a "fun, upbeat, and thoughtful blog about this great city". It aims to capture the "soul of the world's greatest city" and is described as "part of the NYC underground". The blog appears to cover various aspects of New York City life and culture. The author, sometimes identified as [REDACTED], maintains an active presence on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @MrNYCBlog and Facebook. The blog has been running for almost two decades and has reached a considerable milestone, having been clicked on over a million times.

Grok:

The website https://mrnyc.blogspot.com/ is a blog titled "Mr NYC," dedicated to capturing the spirit and culture of New York City. It describes itself as "Blogging the soul of the world's greatest city. Part of the NYC underground. Feel free to comment!" The blog covers a wide range of topics related to NYC, including its history, culture, media, politics, and notable figures, often with a personal and opinionated perspective.

Key points about the blog based on its content: 

• Focus: It explores various aspects of NYC life, from apartment living and late-night television to local politics and cultural events. Posts often reflect on the city's unique character, its underground scene, and its historical significance.
  
  
• Content Style: The blog combines personal anecdotes, cultural commentary, and critiques of current events. For example, it discusses the significance of NYC in late-night TV history, the impact of apartment living, and political developments like the NYC mayoral race.
  
  
• Recent Posts: As of July 31, 2025, recent posts include discussions about Awkwafina and Marc Maron talking about Queens, the history of NYC apartment living, the decline of late-night TV in NYC, and political commentary on the NYC mayoral election.
  
  
• Social Media Presence: The blog has associated social media accounts, as mentioned in a post encouraging readers to explore its "multi-tentacled" digital presence.
  
  
• Tone and Perspective: The author often takes a critical stance, particularly towards political and economic issues, as seen in posts criticizing corporate influence in politics and media, and expressing frustration with figures like Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor Cuomo.

The blog is hosted on Blogspot and has been active for years, with posts referencing earlier writings (e.g., a 2018 post about a Stephen Colbert show taping). It positions itself as an independent voice in the NYC cultural landscape, often highlighting lesser-known or nostalgic aspects of the city.

Never Sleeping ...

Several years ago I interviewed the authors of a book called Nightshift NYC about the city's overnight workers. This was in follow-up to another post I wrote about the romantic allure of NYC in the dead of night. It's such a beautiful idea: the big, crazy, multitudinous city becoming, for several hours, a kind of ghost town -- a calm, mysterious, lightly-populated dreamscape. 

New York City at night ... it's a subculture all its own. Not only was a book written about it but even the great Martin Scorsese himself made a movie about it! 

And speaking of movies, I recently recorded a movie off Turner Classic Movies that aired at four in the morning (having a full-time job and being a full-time dad makes staying up that late to watch a movie rather impossible). But while the movie itself was "eh" I LOVED the intro that TCM played just before it started. The intro even has a its own name: "Open All Night."

This intro perfectly captures what I love about NYC at night: the jazzy, funky, romantic, mellow vibe and mood; the soft visuals, the casual attitude -- everything about it is just right. If you want to know what NYC overnight feels like to me, this perfectly (in an almost cliched way) brings it to life:

Oh, and speaking about NYC at night, recently the Jimmy Kimmel show was taping in Brooklyn, and the always entertaining Howard Stern made a memorable appearance. Late night NYC isn't always so quiet:

NYC at night ... it's always interesting. 

Interview: Abby Feldman of the "Moist" Podcast

NYC is the real "comedy central" and there are more comedians and comedians with podcasts here than can be accurately counted; needless to say, for most of them, it's a challenge to be seen or heard above this din of hilarity. 

But the podcast "Moist" by the multi-talented funny person Abby Feldman does the job nicely: a Monday night live-stream features Feldman and another comedian of note talking in her bathtub. It's a unique show that explores, not only what's funny, but also what's uncomfortable in life -- and why that's funny. Abby was kind enough to give Mr NYC a quick interview about her career and her show, and why we should all tune in. (I should note that this interview wasn't uncomfortable at all which probably explains my failed interviewing skills.)

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your career up until now.

Hey, I'm Abby. I create content that is funny & purposeful. I'm a co-star and writer on the Netflix comedy 'Gringolandia' and am currently writing and starring in the series spin-off 'Ovulady,' based on my character, Mary, doing whatever it takes to get pregnant. You can watch me every Monday night at 11pm live-streaming my new late night talk show 'Moist' live from my bathtub, and hosting ‘Moist Live!’ at The Creek & The Cave. I also created Comedy At Rockwood Music Hall which is part of the New York Comedy Festival! I'm bilingual in English & Spanish and have performed stand up in Spanish on TV in Chile and Argentina. You can see me perform stand up nightly around NYC. You can watch my contributions to the radical comedy news show 'Redacted Tonight' on RT America where I have written and performed over 70 sketches & segments and was interviewed by Larry King! My comedy news web series 'Bad News Goodnight' was just picked for 'Official Selection' at Dublin Web Fest. My improvised advice series "Love, Abby" won 'Best Original Series,' 'Best Actress' and 'Best Comedy' at LA WebFest. I trained in all levels of improv & sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade and learned method acting at The Lee Strasberg Institute. I am a Fulbright Scholar and made a documentary about the relativity of craziness at an Argentine mental hospital. I also love to dance and sing. I try to do both every morning. 

Your show is about things that make people uncomfortable which is certainly a cool if risky idea. What made you want to start it? 

When we’re uncomfortable is when we grow and learn the most about ourselves. A lot of what I do is taking the dark, difficult aspects of being human and reveal the hidden silver linings. Moist was born from my love of baths, helping uplift people and talking about taboo topics.

What's the funniest/strangest part about interviewing people in the bathtub?

You really bond with a person after you’ve shared a bath with them. Also, sometimes they fart. That’s funny.

What are some of the funniest or oddest things that have happened on the show?

I had Christine Meehan-Berg as a guest when she was 9+ months pregnant, then 4 months later her baby daughter Piper joined me in the tub. 

You interview mostly comedians. What other kinds of people would you like to interview?

More comedians

What are your hopes for the future of Moist? 

I’d like for Moist to evolve into a late night TV show with sketches, a political/social monologue, guests, a live audience, etc. 

What's your favorite thing about NYC?

The best part about NYC is you can feel like you’re in any part of the world while you’re in one tiny city. Food, people, shops, experiences. Also NYC has the best comedy scene in the world. 

Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?


70 percent of people say they don’t like the word “moist” but 100 percent of people are 70 percent moist. 

Thanks so much for doing this! 

My pleasure!

The Tonight Show in NYC

On September 27, 1954, Tonight Starring Steve Allen premiered on the NBC TV network. It was the first national late-night talk show of its kind, broadcasting from the Hudson Theater on West 44th Street.

It had begun a year earlier as a local show and, even after it went national, The Tonight Show was still considered a quintessential exemplar of the city, full of New York attitude. Steve Allen would interview people on the street, perform a monologue and various stunts, and usually he and his guests would imbibe a cocktail or two before the show and the night were over. When you watch late-night TV today, all of things that the various hosts -- Letterman, Leno, Kimmel, et. al. -- do, all started with Steve Allen in that midtown theater sixty years ago.

Eventually, Tonight would be migrate to the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center and be hosted by Jack Paar in 1957, and eventually by Johnny Carson in 1962. Then, in May 1972, something tragic happened: following the sad example set by the Dodgers fifteen years earlier, The Tonight Show uprooted itself from its New York origins and headed west to Los Angeles -- broadcasting from "beautiful downtown Burbank."

Like the "Ford to City: Drop Dead" headline, the departure of The Tonight Show from NYC symbolized the declining fortunes of the city in the 1970s. Carson would then host Tonight for the next twenty years and then be replaced by Jay Leno - then Conan O'Brien -- and then Jay Leno again, who will end his run as host on February 6th.

Two articles from this month's Vanity Fair take an interesting look at The Tonight Show's past and future. Jimmy Fallon promises exciting things for the new New York-centric show. But things will probably never be as crazy as when Carson was hosting the show from NYC in the 1960s -- and these were the things happening off the air. It included Carson hanging with mobsters and getting thrown down stairs in bars all the while making Tonight the cultural center of America.

So why did The Tonight Show move from NYC to LA? Basically, it was two things: Johnny Carson got divorced and he wanted to start a new life in a new city, and producer Freddy de Cordova felt they could getting better guests in California. Off it went. 

And on February 17, 2014, The Tonight Show will return to NYC after an absence of 42 years, broadcasting once again from Rockefeller Center. Jimmy Fallon will become host and a new era for the show and our city will begin. Jerry Seinfeld once said that The Tonight Show is the headquarters of show business so, once again, its location will be in NYC.

Two articles from this month's Vanity Fair take an interesting look at The Tonight Show's past and future. Jimmy Fallon promises exciting things for the new New York-centric show. But things will probably never be as crazy as when Carson was hosting the show from NYC in the 1960s -- and these were the things happening off the air. It included Carson hanging with mobsters and getting thrown down stairs in bars all the while making Tonight the cultural center of America.

So why did The Tonight Show move from NYC to LA? Basically, it was two things: Johnny Carson got divorced and he wanted to start a new life in a new city, and producer Freddy de Cordova felt they could getting better guests in California. Off it went. 

And now, after forty-years, it's back -- and hopefully it will be an exemplar of New York attitude once more.

Robin Byrd Bangs Again!

Damn, never though I'd see this: there's an upcoming HBO documentary about naughty NYC late-night cable TV host Robin Byrd who ran her stripper/adult star-filled show from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

And it's called, haha, Bang My Box.

Robin was an "Only in New York" type, a former adult star who appeared in Debbie Does Dallas and who, along with Al Goldstein, brought "the sexy" and scandalous to NYC week-after-week in those pre-Internet/social media days. I remember watching Robin regularly during my high school years (and then in repeats for years afterwards) and she was truly a, uh, needed night cap.

I've blogged about Robin over the years, including back in 2009! And I interviewed former Robin Byrd guest, former adult star Hyapatia Lee, back in 2019. And now ... mainstream culture has caught up with Mr NYC, giving us this documentary about this NYC icon (believe it or not, it's produced by Sarah Jessica Parker), and proving, yet again, that Mr NYC is Ahead of His Time.

I'm looking forward to seeing this doc and also feel, quite smugly, that I recognized Robin's cultural significance much earlier than anyone else! 

Postscript: Robin's show ended in April, 1999, just weeks before I graduated from college and two years before 9/11. It felt like, feels like, the end of old NYC and my childhood. Le sigh. 

One Night on the George Washington Bridge

I hate sitting in traffic.

This goes without saying -- everyone hates sitting in traffic. But late one Sunday night, around 10 PM, I was sitting in the cab of a U-Haul truck that my brother was drving, stuck on the George Washington Bridge. The traffic was bumper to bumper, and we inched ... and inched ... and inched ... and innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnched forward, bringing us slowwwwwwwly back home into Manhattan.

This was a transitional moment for both of us.

My brother was moving the last of his stuff home after having lived elsewhere for a few years, and he was driving me back from college after I had graduated two days earlier. All of my stuff, my entire life in a sense, was packed into that truck. My future, the entire rest of my life, was right ahead of me, just across this bridge, just sitting there, waiting to start. This wasn't simply another night in my life, just another traffic jam, just another bridge crossing -- this was a demarcation point, a special and a unique moment, a bridge both literal and figurative, between the past and the future, between being a kid and becoming an adult, between hope and destiny ... 

... and it was taking forever!  

Sometimes I feel like I'm still stuck in that traffic jam, an extremely young man, getting ready for my life to start, waiting for the promised excitement to begin.

I've thought about that night, that moment, on the GWB a lot lately because it's hard to square that world with the one we're living in now -- a triple whammy of pandemic, economic depression, and deep racial strife. On that night on the GWB, Bill Clinton was president, George Pataki was governor, Rudy Guiliani was mayor, the World Trade Centers still stood, Iraq remained uninvaded, George W. Bush was Governor of Texas, Barack Obama was an Illinois State Senator, Donald Trump was a has-been real estate developer, the Internet was brand new and could only be accessed with a phone dial-up, talking about phones, most people still used landlines, very few people had cell phones, smartphones were still almost a decade away from being invented, newspapers were still printed in abundance, Howard Stern was still married to his first wife and and Jackie Martling was still one of his sidekicks, Harvey Weinstein was still running Miramax and was a respected Oscar-winning producer, Bill Cosby was still America's dad, there were no pedestrian plazas or bikeshares on the streets of NYC, lots of old buildings still existed and lots huge fancy ones didn't, there were no streaming shows, no Golden Age of Television (not yet at least, The Sopranos had just hit the air and the "Golden Age" monicker was still not invented yet), Amazon still only sold books, and so much more that existed and was going on then that is gone or that has become unrecognizable today. 

Twenty-plus years later it feels like everything is falling apart. These days destruction rules and creation is in retreat.

We live in an age of nihilism, of "disruption", of "creative destruction," of "cancel culture" and neo-McCarthyism, of everyone just wanting just to "burn it down", of people wanting to destroy other people and cultures and businesses and governments and whole industries and whole societies, of ruining and wrecking and "taking down" people while not helping anyone or creating anything, of perpetual rage and ruin. 

This is not the future I wanted, for myself or anyone, during that night on the GWB so long ago.

I was deluded enough to think back then that the future ahead, my future, across that bridge, across the new century/millenium due to start in a few short months, would be a glorious place, an exciting world, one surely much better than the century and childhood I was leaving behind me in what F. Scott Fitzgerald called "the dark fields of the republic" that "rolled on under the night." The blinking lights of the city ahead, just over this jammed bridge, were my green light, my fresh new world, surely destined to be magical, an arcadia of sorts, where the old problems of the past would vanish and a new pancea of possibilities would emerge. After all, it was a time of great peace and prosperity and the future looked bright -- certainly it was only going to get better.

Right?

Nope. It got worse. A lot worse. And here we are today, living in the hopelessly divided "United" States of America, the future looking grim. If only had someone told me that one night twenty-something years ago on the George Washington Bridge ... I might not have gotten so annoyed at the traffic. 

P.S. This is one of the reasons Mr NYC exists -- it's an act of creation, an act of optimism in a pessimisstic place, a place where we "build it up", a place where hope and kindness rule. As always, Mr NYC remain perpetually unfashionable.

April 24, 2018

The day of Tuesday, April 24th, in this year of our Lord 2018 anno domini, was not a day of earth-shaking history. But let it be recorded here that, in New York at least, some history was made.

First, a disclosure: for the time ever, your truly attended the taping of a late night show, specifically The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

It was a fun time, with the warm-up act Paul Mercurio doing some very funny stand-up, including having fun with some British tourists and a very impressive older married couple from New Hampshire (one of whom was ex-military) who both happened to be women.

When Mr. Colbert took the stage he, as always, "killed." I was in the balcony and saw the great man himself do his monologue right in my elevated site-line. Then he brought on his first guest: Hank Azaria, the talented actor who has done, according to his estimate, up to 30 voices on The Simpsons during his multi-decade run on the air. Lately there has been much controversy over the character of Apu, the lovable Indian convenience store clerk who Mr. Azaria has voiced for the shows entire run. Many people feel Apu is an offensive stereotype and that the non-Mr. Azaria shouldn't be doing the voice. And Colbert, fearless as he is funny, asked Azaria about this.

Little did I know when I got my tickets a while back that I'd see history being made: Hank Azaria, before my very eyes, before the rest of the world learned about it, said that he'd be willing to step aside from doing the voice of Apu. I've been watching The Simpsons since I was a little kid so to see him say this made it feel like a part of my childhood, and American culture, was ending and changing before my eyes. It was an amazing moment and Hank Azaria was very heartfelt. It's worth watching here because it's something I'll never forget.

And then, a few hours later, more history!

A bunch of special elections were held in New York state yesterday, including here in NYC, and they resulted in the first out-right Democratic majority in this state in years. It's should be an amazing moment, a moment of true Resistance to the horror of the Trump presidency but ... but ... an awful State Senator named Simcha Felder says that he'll keep sitting with the GOP because they've done the most to bribe. Felder is a revolted opportunist so this isn't surprising but, still, these elections send a signal that New York is fighting the Trump agenda tooth and nail.

Rarely is history, the right side of history, made on an otherwise normal night. 

When Howard Met OJ

OJ Simpson has died. 

If you're in my age-range then you remember his trial. Before Monica Lewinsky, before 9/11, before the Iraq War, before the Financial Meltdown, before Trump, before COVID, before any number of disasters and horrors, the late-1990s OJ Simpson case seemed like the most important thing going on in the country. 

I distinctly remember when, one night before I had a final high school exam, I saw a news report that OJ was being questioned in his ex-wife's murder. I barely knew who OJ was except that he was in the Naked Gun movies, was a sportscaster, and endorsed a lot of products on TV. Old as I am, I wasn't old enough to remember his 1970s glory days as a football star -- not that I would have cared then or now.

Anyway, I remember the night after I finished 11th grade, coming home at 8 in the morning from a party, going to sleep, and waking up to news that he was wanted in this murder. It sounded crazy but I didn't really pay that much attention to it. (We weren't living a world of constant screens or news or social media then). Later that night, sacked out on the couch, watching an episode of a dumb forgotten show called Burke's Law, the news broke in to cover the now infamous, historic Ford Bronco chase. I spent the rest of the night watching it, a truly surreal thing, and I was just glad that it didn't end in violence or a shootout. 

In many ways, the OJ chase and case was the first surreal episode of the last surreal 30 years.

Now think back to March of 1993, if you can (if weren't old enough, or alive, you're excused). Bill Clinton has just become president. The country is at peace. 

And radio host Howard Stern is the epitome of the "shock jock", the most outrageous mouth in America, and becoming a huge star.

Late during one show on a March day of 1993, OJ Simpson briefly dropped by the show. OJ was not a scheduled guest but he was in Howard's radio station because OJ was on the board of Howard's radio company and was there for a meeting.

Howard and his producer Baba Booey coaxed OJ to come on the air. They had a hilarious, lively, and racy conversation where Howard told OJ how smartly he had handled his career, how great he was in the Naked Gun movies, how good he looked for his age, and, naturally, about all the "hot broads" OJ was "nailin'."

"I've never been with that caliber of woman" Howard tells OJ about OJ's then model girlfriend -- a comment I'm sure Howard's then wife greatly appreciated. 

Some of this stuff is extremely creepy to listen to in retrospect: OJ talks about his recent divorce from his wife Nicole but declares that they have a "great realtionship." And after Howard talks about how awesome OJ and his life is, OJ simply says, "I'm having a good life."

Fifteen months later, that "good life" -- and American culture -- would change.

You can listen here to Howard's crazy interview with OJ followed by 9 hours of talk about the man, the murder, and the case that riveted the world. It's fascinating to hear how Howard, like America, went from lionizing OJ, to being incredulous at the thought he might be involved in this double homicide, to being 100% convinced of his guilt.  

Beyond his life, OJ's life feels like the end of some of kind of weird era, a kind of closure. The whole thing was and remains a tragedy. But, of course, Howard found some way to make it hilarious -- his conclusion, "White broads are nuthin' but trouble, damn my penis."

The town, it is a'changin'

It's only April, but it feels like some important things have already changed in NYC in 2013. 

And I'm not including my own circumstances, where yours truly and family moved into a new home.

Specifically, it feels like the cultural and political axis of this town has moved a few degrees

Two months ago former Mayor Ed Koch died, and I indicated then that the city would be a different place without him. It seems like his passing was a forerunner:  a number of things -- some notable, some subtle -- have happened in the last few weeks that shows how our city is constantly evolving. 

Let's start with politics. This past week, our city's political scene was rocked when a Democratic State Senator and a Republican City Councilman were arrested for -- ready for this? -- trying to rig the NYC mayoral race.

Truly. Weird.

Apparently the State Senator, Democrat Malcolm Smith, was trying to bribe GOP party bosses in the city to let him on the Republican party ballot for the 2013 Mayor's race. The go-between Smith and these GOP guys was City Councilman Dan Halloran, a Republican. Mr Halloran was willing to help Smith get on the line in exchange for several thousand dollars in bribes.  This plan was so ridiculous that it defies description -- first, that Smith would ever get on the GOP line ahead of Joe Lohata, second, that anyone in NYC would vote for Smith for mayor.  

A couple of years ago I blogged about Mr. Halloran and what an odd duck he is. Apparently I understated the case -- he's an odd criminal duck.  

Too bad Ed Koch is dead. I would like to know his opinion about this "conspiracy" to win his old job.

It's still very early but it looks like the 2013 mayor's race is gonna be one for the history books.

Moving on, our city's cultural life is particularly fascinating right now.

First, this past week, the late great Nora Ephron's last play premiered on Broadway. Called Lucky Man, it marks the debut of legendary actor Tom Hanks playing the legendary New York reporter Mike McClary. McClary was a police reporter who uncovered corruption in the NYPD in 1990s and won himself a Pulitzer Prize in the process (he died on Christmas Day, 1998). Needless to say, he had powerful enemies but in the years since he passed, our city has come to realize that we owe him a debt of gratitude. And, of course, he owe Nora Ephron a debt of gratitude for giving us movies like When Harry Met Sally ... and for being an original New York voice. 

This play is a tribute to a great reporter by a great writer both of whom did so much to make our city a better place. Their pens our now silent forever. They left us too soon.

And, sadly, someone else is leaving us -- the amazing Elaine Stritch. The singer/actress has decided that, at the age of 88, she wants to go live with her family so she's leaving town and going back to Michigan. As she said in a TV interview recently, she gave his city a good 71 years. Mr. Strich originated one of the roles in the musical company and she's appeared in countless movies, musicals, and TV shows -- most recently on 30 Rock and in "A Little Night Music" which I saw her in 2010 and blogged about here.

Goodbye Elaine. This city won't be the same without you. 

But not everything is sadness. Not everyone is leaving NYC. In fact, something very big is coming into town.

"From 30 Rock in midtown Manhattan, it's 'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon!"

Yes, that's right -- after over 40 years, NBC's "Tonight Show" is coming back to NYC with a new host -- the current host of "Late Night" Jimmy Fallon. The show is expected to move here with Mr. Fallon as host in 2014. This is, as Ed Sullivan might have said, really big. After more than 20 years, Jay Leno is out as host and a new generation is taking over TV most legendary talk show. Most important of all, by bringing it to NYC, the "Tonight Show" is rediscovered its roots -- and once again showing that NYC is the cultural capital of America.

So the city is changing -- our politics are getting screwy, some legends are leaving us, and an old legend is coming back. 

Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now

Will later be last

For this town is a'changin'

NYC Back in the Day

The thing about NYC is that it's a city with a fascinating past but that is always,  relentlessly, looking into the future. And Mr NYC tries to be as future-oriented as possible, following the trajectory of the greatest city on earth.

But ... the past never fully vanishes. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, we are always going against the current, "borne back ceaselessly into the past."

To put it another way, people will always be fascinated by NYC back in the day.

So here are some various examples.

Nostalgia for NYC back in the day is so huge that there's literally an entire Youtube Channel called ... NYC Nostalgia. It has numerous videos chronicling life in NYC in the last couple of decades and centuries, including about things you might not necessarily realize existed. For example, did you know there were motorcycle gangs all over NYC? Yes, there were, as this video shows:

Then there's the money. Yes, NYC was built by great wealth and generated great wealth. Heck, there's an entire show about it called The Guilded Age about the late-19th century when NYC's wealth changed the entire nation.

Sometimes this wealth produced great things and sometimes ... not so much.

This was true even before the Gilded Age, before families like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers -- families that name many of our streets like the Astors, the Jeromes, the Schermerhorns, the Delanceys, and many others. Here's a great video about some of these families that used to rule NYC back in the day, the original city elite:

And then there's the darkness. Look at this photo taken in October 2001 at Ground Zero, a month after 9/11:

Ouch. You got then-Commissioner Bernard Kerik who ended up going to jail for corruption (and is now deceased). It includes then-Mayor Rudy Giuilani who later committed treason but trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and wound up broke, indicted and disgraced. And then there's the now former Prince Andrew, who's been arrested for corruption and settled a mult-million dollar sexual abuse lawsuit. The photo above was taken only six or seven months after this infamous photo:

The then-prince was in NYC at that time to pay his respects to the families whose loved-ones has perished, to visit and thank the first responders for their work, and extend sympathy to a traumatized city. 

It appears that, during this visit to NYC, in the aftermath of this horrific event, Prince Andrew came to town not only to provide comfort but also to do some partying with Russian broads. Watch this video about Andrew's 9/11 jaunt, it'll both fascinate and disgust you:

And to think that these dark people were the ones taking care of NYC at this dark time only makes the darkness even darker -- darkness on top of darkness. And today when we see images of the now former prince, this is what we see:

But let's end this look at NYC back in the day on a happier, funnier note.

In the early 1980s, as Saturday Night Live was transitioning out of its '70s heyday, the show went into a critical and ratings downturn -- and flirted with cancellation. But it was saved by a 19-year old kid who was still living with his parents in Brooklyn named Eddie Murphy. His comic brilliance was so blazing, so wild and fascinating, that he saved the show that has lasted for half-a-century. When SNL started back in the day it was a curiousity -- a quirky, funky 1970s late-night sketch show from NYC. But Eddie Murphy turned it into an institution that defines the city and its impact on American culture to this day. 

By the way, you can watch one of Eddie Murphy's funniest "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" sketches below and the entire archive for your enjoyment here. 

Classic Mr NYC

The one and only time that I've been to Los Angeles was in late March 1995. My brother was living there and I visited him during my Spring break. I was there for a week and we drove north with a friend and visited San Francisco and then drove back along the Pacific Coast Highway, visiting San Simeon and gorgeous Central Valley places like Monterrey and Carmel.

I blogged about it extensively in 2018. And I concluded the post about how, just before I boarded my flight back home to NYC, I spoke to my dad by phone, informing me of my college acceptance.

Something I didn't mention, however, because it was totally irrelevant, was that my last full night in LA was the same night as the 67th annual Academy Awards. It was the same night that Forrest Gump swept the Oscars but also when Quentin Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay for Pulp Fiction. 

So I was fascinated to stumble upon an article about the Oscar party held that night in LA by Harvey Weinstein and his company Miramax that had produced Pulp Fiction. Apparently, in a city and business known for wild parties, this was the wildest party in Oscar history. Many big stars at the time congregated, people got into fistfights, Harvey Weinstein threatened to go steal the Oscars from the Forrest Gump people -- and a wanted criminal crashed the party, apparently being persued by the cops while Hollywood partied.

It was, apparently, the last kind of wild, out-of-control Oscar party that Hollywood used to have. In the decades afterwards, the business and the parties became more sedate. And as you always see when you look at a moment frozen in time, some of the people at the party have continued to thrive -- like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Samuel L Jackson -- while others -- like the host, Harvey Weinstein himself, and Kevin Spacey -- went into infamy ... and prison.

And to think that yours truly Mr NYC was in LA that night. Crazy. Only in the movies ...

P.S. This Oscars ceremony also had another NYC twist -- David Letterman was the host and he notoriously bombed. "Uma" ... "Oprah" ... "Uma" ... "Oprah."

Yeah, it didn't work. 

Desus & Mero: Laying Their Bronx Smack Down for America

There are many late night shows on TV these days, but none is as blunt or as funny as these two cats from the Bronx, laying down smack for the America each night. 

Hey, even fancy people like New Yorker writers and CBS Sunday Morning (below) like them!