This week, Arsenio Hall has been hosting live talk shows from a tiny theater inside the legendary Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. It’s all part of the Netflix Is a Joke Festival, which has taken over venues all over Los Angeles.
While Arsenio fans can catch his shows daily on the Netflix Is a Joke YouTube channel, fewer than 100 people are actually in the room while the show tapes, giving attendees an intimate, up-close-and-personal access to Hall and his big-name guests.
Tudum managed to snag a spot inside the theater on Wednesday, when Hall welcomed Snoop Dogg, Quinta Brunson, and Katt Williams, as well as stand-up comedian Chinedu Unaka. Here are five things we saw — and smelled — in the room, from Snoop Dogg’s blunts to the very special guests in the show’s audience.
Hall has fun with a hairy situation. Hall opened Wednesday’s show making light of the news that, the previous evening, Dave Chappelle had been attacked on stage by a presumably disgruntled fan. Hall poked fun at the precarious situation by walking into the room surrounded by three security guards, at least one of which was actually just someone from the production staff. He joked that his mother-in-law had sent him football pads and a bible for the show, and he later discussed fans bum-rushing the stage with Snoop, who said he “wished a motherfucker would” come at him like that, suggesting that he’d be happy to deliver some karmic justice. Hall, on the other hand, wondered aloud about why he was spending so much money on PR when it seemed like all he really needed was “an assailant.”
Snoop lights up the Hollywood Roosevelt. Speaking of Snoop: The rapper/actor/entrepreneur took advantage of the show’s laid-back vibe and lit up a rather, um, fragrant cigar of some sort. (Hey, we don’t know for sure.) As blue smoke gave the first couple of rows a bit of a contact high, Snoop talked about how appearing on Hall’s original late-night show gave him the opportunity to control his own image even as he was facing murder charges. It was there, he said, that he first began to speak in public and get himself out there, something that he said helped him become a master of his own image today. Now, he says, he’s not just a grandfather of six but also owner of Death Row Records, host of at least two shows currently airing on TV and purveyor of Snoop-endorsed products for the whole family. Snoop, Inc. is large, and the boss is very much in charge.
Is Quinta Brunson quitting stand-up? Hall’s second guest was Abbott Elementary creator Quinta Brunson, who’s certainly getting a lot of Hollywood attention these days. It’s all well deserved, according to Hall, who praised Abbott for being truthful and hilarious. They then talked about Brunson’s years doing stand-up. While Hall called her sets “smart and patient,” Brunson said she wasn’t sure she really had the desire to return to the stage. Asking Hall for his advice, Brunson talked about her difficult relationship with the art form, which she said she knows she’s great at but isn’t sure if she loves as her primary version of storytelling anymore. Hall responded with a story about the first time he ever walked into The Comedy Store in LA, and Michael Keaton was onstage killing, demonstrating that some great stand-ups just find new directions in their lives. Brunson agreed, saying that instead of doing stand-up, what she could do was “put her stand-up friends on TV so that they could get paid.” Amen to that.
Special guests are in the house. Right before Katt Williams came on stage, a few special guests dipped into the room, including the legendary Luenell. They were given comfy seats right in the middle of the room, just behind Hall’s son, Arsenio Hall, Jr., who was seated right in front of his dad up next to the stage.
Katt keeps quiet. Hall was clearly excited about welcoming Katt Williams, who he told us earlier this week was one of his favorite all-time guests on his old show. Williams returned the love, telling Hall that he should be proud that he’s been a decent person the whole time he’s been in the game and that, while he’s loath to do talk shows, he makes an exception for Hall. In the room, Williams was soft-spoken and thoughtful, waxing rhapsodic about his life growing up in Ohio and meeting Prince when he was just 12 years old. He says he’s become the man “6-year-old” Katt “was trying to be” and lightly boasted that his upcoming Netflix special, World War III, was his 12th — “more than any comedian dead or alive.” Interestingly, Williams said that his recent Emmy win was incredibly special to him not just because it was his first, but because he never really meant to work toward awards or recognition. Instead, he called the award “God’s doing” and says he’s looking to snag a couple of Grammys next year as well. If he keeps doing what he’s been doing for the past 20-odd years, that just might be the case.
