WHO KNEW HE WAS STILL ALIVE?
Larry King had to announce his retirement.
If he hadn’t, no one would have noticed.
It’s like if a tree fell in the woods and there was no one there to hear it, if Larry King said something on CNN, would he really make a noise?
It was 25 wasted years and thank goodness they’re over.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Larry King. He is probably one of the most skilled broadcasters ever. I consider him one of the great inspirations of my professional life.
But he sucked on TV.
And his quarter century on CNN is a monument to mediocrity and self-importance. His program was never watched but always quoted, it was all buzz and no bee, the epitome of the delusional vanity that defines CNN.
On a network of blathering narcissistic idiots, Larry King was a pretty good figurehead.
And he was also a joke.
It kills me to say this, because I believe Larry King has earned respect, but his ill-conceived television show has been an embarrassment for years. My advice to him would be to have retired while he was still alive.
The only thing more disappointing than his TV show is his autobiography.
Let me repeat: I love Larry King.
Not the addled freak of cable TV, but the inspired broadcaster of late-night radio. In a genius unwitnessed by the rising generation, Larry King once broadcast overnights on the radio.
In a network of big AM stations across the country, late-night listening meant Larry King listening. And as one of those listeners, I can personally attest to his brilliance. In his day, there was no one better than he. In our day, there is no one more fondly remembered than he.
He was a Paul Harvey-class broadcaster.
In my teens and early 20s, I listened to music in the day and Larry King in the night. And as I speak to people my age and older, who remember those days, their listening patterns were the same.
He spoke to the insomniacs and the third-shifters, the truck drivers and nursing mothers. And, in my case, a young guy driving home four hours in an unsuccessful effort to win a woman’s affections.
He would bring in various celebrities, A List and B List, and talk to them for an hour or two or three. Unlike today’s interview shows – from the Tonight show to the Today show – where every interview is an advertisement for a book or a movie, Larry King had people on when they weren’t particularly plugging anything. They were just interesting people hanging out, having a conversation, maybe even being themselves.
It was fascinating.
It was like you were listening in on friends, or better, you were one of the friends.
In that day, Larry King’s interview style was in full flower, and it worked. His approach is driven in large part by laziness. He doesn’t prepare questions, he doesn’t read the book, he doesn’t do anything. You just walk in and he starts talking.
Today, that approach has turned rancid for Larry King. He is so old or fatigued, or just plain bored, that he asks nonsensical, impertinent and stupid things. Not always, of course, but often enough to be uncomfortable.
But back then, it was genius.
He was engaged, alert and comfortable. And the curiosity of his mind matched with the natural flow of the conversation were a true delight to behold.
Personally, I pattern my own on-air interview approach after Larry King’s. Unless it’s a politician or a newsmaker with whom I want to pursue a particular line of inquiry, I treat every interview like a new friend.
I look at every interview from the listener’s standpoint. The listener didn’t read the book or the press release, and the listener probably has no idea, truly, who this person is or what they’re talking about.
So you start with the basics and follow the natural curiosity of what unfolds. Ask the question that springs to your mind, because that’s the question that probably springs to the mind of the listener.
I remember driving across the desert roads of Arizona almost 30 years ago listening to Larry King interview people and recognizing that that was the technique he was using. When I eventually got my chance, I did the same thing.
But the interviewing, as great as it was, may not have been the greatest of Larry King’s talents. He also did two other things – he created a sense of place, and he told an amazing story.
When you listened to Larry King, you were there. Especially at the end of the show, as he talked about going over to Duke Ziebert’s for dinner – I think it was crab cakes he usually ordered – you almost felt like you were going, too. To this day, I long for a Duke Ziebert’s dinner after the show.
You didn’t listen to Larry King, you went someplace with him.
And what a storyteller he was. From his boyhood and larger-than-life life, he mined tales and tidbits that he would tell over a long segment, describing and performing in such a fashion as to draw the listener completely in.
He was so good, and so memorable, that in open-lines segments people would call from across the country and ask him to retell a story unheard for years.
And those callers, and his relationship with them, were something special. His was the first show where people were truly just comfortable talking to him, and he was relaxed enough to let them say what they wanted to say. From across the country he collected a gaggle of interesting eccentrics who were engaging but not creepy. He artfully made them characters on the show, when they were worthy of it, and cut them off in an instant when they weren’t.
As much as I love Rush Limbaugh, and as heretical as this may sound, it’s possible that Larry King was a better general talk-show host than Rush Limbaugh. Rush plows his ground deeper – and has enjoyed a success neither Larry King nor anyone else could ever dream of – but Larry King on the radio had a bigger bag of tricks.
Larry King on the radio was one of America’s greatest broadcasters ever.
So when Ted Turner waved a fortune in front of Larry King’s face and asked him to come to TV, I didn’t like it. His big break was a bad break for the rest of us. Larry King briefly did an afternoon radio show, but that day belonged to a rising Rush Limbaugh and the Larry King magic did not translate to the daytime. He stunk and got bitter and then it was all TV.
Specifically, it was all CNN.
And every CNN stereotype applied to Larry King. Liberal bias, unbearable self-importance, fundamental irrelevance, no real audience, blah blah blah blah blah.
And after 25 years it is finally and mercifully done.
So to the TV Larry King I say, “Good riddance and good bye.” To the radio Larry King I say, “Thank you and God bless you.”
They announced yesterday that Larry King was retiring.
In my book, he retired 25 years ago.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2010
