With the great success of Chris Hardwick’s Talking Dead, and Talking Bad, AMC has been courting Kevin Smith and his Hollywood Babble-on co-host Ralph Garman to head an Entertainment Talk show. Smith insists that it will not resemble a conventional talker in format.
The Podcast Hollywood Babble-on is up to their 162nd episode, a show where Garman and Smith meet once a week in front of a live audience and talk about whatever is happening in pop culture that week, or whatever comes up from audience questions. The show is one of many in Smith’s Smodcast empire of over 30 podcasts that equal enough content to fill a channel itself.
Now, Smith is no stranger to filling time, his Kevin Smith is… specials, have been clocking in at 2 hours since their inception, a man who confesses he loves to talk and knows he needs to be shut-up once in awhile. Even on the Jay & Silent Bob Get Old podcast which he runs weekly with his long-time close friend Jason Mewes he has reworked the show so that questions will be posed to Mewes first so he can have a chance to speak. So, here’s hoping that whatever format this talk show takes, he is capable of letting the guests speak.
Whoopi and Nimoy
Years ago Whoopi Goldberg had a syndicated late night talk show that ran 200 episodes, it was two easy-chairs and a grand piano, and it might have been the best talk show around. No one was on the show to sell anything, it was Whoopi, the fan talking with other actors, writers and musicians about life. To this day I stand by her interview with Stephen King as the best one he’s ever one.
My thought is with Kevin Smith’s kandor, and humility he will allow the guests to feel safe enough to make the interviews more than talking points, and safe subjects, but real conversations as if they were buddies hanging out on a back porch having a beer. Much like Jon Favreau’s genius Dinner for Five tv show.
Kevin Smith and crew will be filming the pilot soon. Here’s hoping it gets picked up. In a post Jay Leno boring-safe late night we might be amidst a new world of talk show. Huzzah!
James C.
