I did host the Jim Rome show with Jerry Ferrara for three hours when he was on vacation. Three hours is a long time. Think about how long that is. It was tricky, but it was a great experience.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.
I did a network show in the U.S. before, and I loved it, but you have eight days to shoot an episode, and it's just a ridiculous pace.
And actually, about three weeks ago, Micky, Peter and I were in Vegas at the MGM Grand. And we did about 12 shows in seven days. It was quite an experience.
I took classes and performed and did improv and sketch and wrote sketches and did lights and sound for other people's shows just so I could be around the theater. That was about seven nights a week for seven years.
In February 2003, I signed a three-year contract with MSNBC to host a talk show. Having recently decided not to run again for governor of Minnesota, I was still a pretty hot commodity. The show was originally scheduled for an hour, four nights a week.
I'm too short to host a late-night talk show. It's like the bar at an amusement-park ride. You have to be six foot two or over.
There's times when I'll see a show, or something cooking on TV, and think, 'That can really be fun when it's working.' But it's a grind. I did that at NBC, it was five days a week. I was doing 'Talk Soup' and 'Later' at the same time. It's a hard job, more difficult than people realize.
I've done seven shows at the Palladium - long running shows I'm talking about.
My dad was in radio; he was a broadcaster, and it was in the family. He hosted kind of a game show at one point on TV; he was the original host of 'Good Day New York,' and he hosted the Jerry Lewis telethon for 15 years.
For The Truman Show, I worked for a few weeks, do my gig, then I was done.