The Pat Sajak Show

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The Pat Sajak Show
Format	Talk show
Starring	Pat Sajak Dan Miller
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	90/60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	January 9, 1989 – April 13, 1990
Chronology
Related shows	Pat Sajak Weekend
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The Pat Sajak Show is an American late-night television talk show which aired on CBS from January 9, 1989 to April 13, 1990.

1 Cast
2 Format
3 Rush Limbaugh incident
4 Cancellation
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Cast

The show was hosted by Pat Sajak, who became a pop culture phenomenon earlier in the decade as the host of the wildly popular game show Wheel of Fortune. In order to do the talk show, Sajak left the NBC daytime version of Wheel, but remained the host of the syndicated nighttime version.

Sajak's announcer and sidekick on the show was Dan Miller, his friend and former colleague from their time working together on weekend newscasts at WSM-TV in Nashville, Tennessee, in the mid-1970s.

The in-studio band was led by jazz musician Tom Scott, who was also the bandleader on Chevy Chase's failed late-night talk show three years later. Coincidentally, Chase was Sajak's first guest.^[1]

[edit] Format

The show's set (inside Studio 41 at CBS Television City in Los Angeles) was strikingly similar to that of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, with which Sajak's show was launched to compete. Its format also emulated Johnny Carson's model, featuring a monologue, comedy bits, interviews with celebrities, and performances by musicians and comedians. The Pat Sajak Show began as a ninety-minute talk show, but was reduced to sixty minutes in October 1989. CBS executives said the show was shortened because the late-night talk show format was better suited for a sixty-minute time slot.^[2]

[edit] Rush Limbaugh incident

Two weeks before The Pat Sajak Show was canceled, on March 30, 1990, Rush Limbaugh (whose radio show had just recently been syndicated and was still largely unknown) made headlines when he guest-hosted the program, and in a departure from its regular format, entered the audience to get its response about a bill in Idaho allowing for abortion on which he had just commented. After a verbal confrontation with an angry woman in the audience, Limbaugh addressed the camera and suggested that he went into the audience in an attempt to show the viewing public that there was an underlying prejudice against him. Due to the constant heckling by audience members, Limbaugh decided to conduct his interview with Sydney Biddle Barrows in another studio.

After a commercial break, Limbaugh attempted to address the topic of affirmative action, but was heckled again by several male audience members calling him a "murderer" before he could make a point. Limbaugh sat silently with the camera focused on him for nearly a minute while audience members continued shouting phrases such as "You want people to die!" Limbaugh responded with, "I am not responsible for your behavior," and got an ovation from the remainder of the crowd, as the few dissident audience members continued to shout.

After another break, Limbaugh returned and conducted the final segment from an empty studio after the audience had been cleared. He stated that the audience was not "evicted from the studio" or "forcibly restrained from doing anything they did" and gave CBS credit for handling the situation in the manner it did.^[3]

Limbaugh later publicly suspected the dissident audience members were planted by the show's producers as a publicity stunt, but that he was not informed in advance or after the fact, if that were indeed the case.^[4]

[edit] Cancellation

During its final weeks, Sajak worked only four days per week, while guest hosts took the reins on Fridays. Sajak, while interviewing Limbaugh a decade later on Larry King Live, facetiously said the show "was going so well that they actually auditioned replacements for me on the air." Limbaugh all but confirmed Sajak's suspicion when he responded with, "I don't know if it was necessarily an audition for that slot, by the way, but I know that they were auditioning talent for various things."^[5]

On April 9, 1990, CBS announced the cancellation of The Pat Sajak Show due to low ratings, which were generally half the level of Carson's,^[6] and were further divided by the popular Arsenio Hall Show, which had been launched in syndication the same month as Sajak's show. Sajak was on vacation when the show was pulled from the lineup, and did not get the chance to host the final show and say goodbye to his audience. The final show was instead hosted by comedian Paul Rodríguez.

CBS filled its newly-available late-night airtime with movies (though some affiliates chose to carry other programming, notably The Arsenio Hall Show) and would not program another late-night talk show for three and a half years, when it premiered Late Show with David Letterman in August 1993.

Sajak's talk show days were not done; he frequently guest-hosts for Larry King on Larry King Live, and for Regis Philbin on Live with Regis & Kelly. He also hosted a one-on-one interview program, Pat Sajak Weekend, on Fox News Channel in 2003.