ARSENIO

The former talk show host gives readers a look into the Dog Pound.

“Woof, woof, woof!” Readers who watched television in the late 1980s and early ’90s are bound to recognize the cries of the Dog Pound, a section of the studio audience for the Arsenio Hall Show, which became a pop-culture phenomenon despite lasting just over five years. In his memoir, Hall shares his rags-to-riches story, beginning with his childhood in Cleveland—a mostly happy one, in which he discovered his first two obsessions, magic and talk shows, to the chagrin of his Hollywood-hating preacher father. Hall sensed early that he knew how to entertain just about anybody, and after college, he moved to Chicago, hoping to make it big in the city’s comedy scene, which he did, scoring opening gigs for the likes of Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Temptations. He then moved to Los Angeles, where his career exploded, and earned a job playing four characters in the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America (including the really-hasn’t-aged-well “Extremely Ugly Girl”). Hall’s account of creating his own talk show, with just five months to prepare, is a highlight of the book, and while he has no lack of confidence, he consistently credits the friends and associates who helped him along the way. Hall doesn’t write much about his life after the talk show ended, briefly mentioning a few projects, but he seems content to have largely left the limelight—mostly: “The show lost its heat, the ratings fizzled, and we came down to earth. Meanwhile, I went from a leader of the pack to the man in the middle,” he writes with a fatalism that doesn’t turn into bitterness. This book will remind readers why Hall was so popular in his day: He’s funny, but also relatable and genuine. This is a truly fun account.

A likable throwback to the comedy scene of the ’80s and ’90s.