Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Arsenio Hall: Smart & Classy’ On Netflix, The Late-Night Host’s First Stand-Up Special?!

With all of the hype surrounding the imminent comeback of Eddie Murphy to stand-up comedy, here comes his Coming to America buddy Arsenio Hall, with his very first stand-up special after all these years: “Smart & Classy,” on Netflix. Will it get you hooting and hollering like the famous “Dawg Pound” that used to attend the live tapings of Hall’s talk show? Read on for more…

ARSENIO HALL: SMART & CLASSY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Don’t let the title fool you. It’s a play off of a joke Arsenio makes at the expense of one of his comedy idols, which also plays front and center in his Netflix teaser trailer. Arsenio’s “Dawg Pound” is back in full effect, shaking fists and woofing approval, a holdover from the Cleveland native’s hit late-night talk show from 1989-1994. Now 63, Arsenio somehow had never gotten around to filming his own stand-up special until now. But years of delivering nightly monologues on TV (he made a brief comeback to late-night in 2013-2014) and a “win” on Celebrity Apprentice have provided him with the experience and the experiences to ably fill an hour catching us all up.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: There’s only one Arsenio, but there aren’t many stand-up specials from our line of late-night hosts to begin with (although Seth Meyers is coming through his own debut next week, also on Netflix). Only Craig Ferguson and Chelsea Handler in the past, and Trevor Noah, presently, had the gumption to deliver even more jokes after spending years joking about the headlines for four to five nights a week on the boob tube.

Memorable Jokes: Arsenio has remained out of the limelight long enough for fans to mis-recognize him in public. “That’s God’s way of putting a Hollywood ego in check,” he says. He can take the Wesley Snipes comparisons and run with them, but Dennis Rodman? “I’m still in therapy over this one.” Arsenio does use Rodman as an excuse to segue into several jokes about North Korea, though, and its dictator, Kim Jong-Un, whom he describes as: “He’s like the Wile E. Coyote of international leaders and s–t.”

As a white guy in my 40s, I clearly steer clear of the n-word, but in 2019, apparently, it’s used more casually and freely by the kids these days. Two white tweens sitting next to me in a McDonald’s last week (don’t judge them, judge me) spoke it openly and often, but about each other. In this special, Arsenio drops the word on the North Korean Army to describe their marching skills. I may not be hip to the lingo (and even writing hip to the lingo proves as much), but I know enough to know that when Arsenio goes deep on addressing how the word “midget” is not an equally offensive slur, he’s covering territory previously mined by the likes of John Mulaney, Artie Lange and Tom Segura (they’re all white, tho, so…).

And when it comes to one of his comedy contemporaries, Arsenio’s not as upset about reading Roseanne’s racist Twitter feed, but at how she tried to blame it on her sleeping pills. “Oooh, I hope that’s not true, and it turned out it wasn’t, ’cause I don’t want Ambien to make you a racist.”

It all brings us to “Mr. Cosby,” though, and Arsenio says now, after enjoying the fact that invoking the Cos by name has split the room: “You know what I’ve had to do, I’ve had to separate the artist from the man, you know. I mean, the artist has done so much for the black image on television. And he made me laugh as a kid. And he’s given so much money to black colleges. I’ve had to separate Dr. Huxtable from Dr. Fuxtable, is what I’m saying. That’s what I’ve had to do. Everybody has to handle it in their own way.”

Arsenio has enough perspective to bring some weight to his handling of Cosby’s crimes and how it taints the legend’s legacy. He smartly reminds us that he personally knows some of the women who accused Cosby of sexually assaulting or raping them, and singles out Beverly Johnson for jokes because of how she managed to escape Cosby’s home. Not so smart nor classy, however, are Arsenio’s jokes at the expense of Andrea Constand, the one Cosby victim who successfully took the comedian to trial, choosing to focus on her looks and her sexual orientation. Why do that? Perhaps Arsenio reveals an answer himself when he later talks about how America’s black community has so few heroes to begin with, that sometimes makes it tougher to let go when their heroes turn bad. He illustrates that point further with bits about Tiger Woods and O.J. Simpson.

On the other hand, Arsenio also jokes about siding with protestors against the Washington NFL team for not changing its name and mascot logo, and makes fun of himself for his dubious honor as the one and only black winner of Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice.

Our Take: Of all the comedians to turn Trump’s many quotes into jokes, perhaps Arsenio also is the first and only one with a deep-cut reference to Breitbart that he also ties to hip-hop, and then tags the joke by recording the song he’s talking about and dropping it over the closing credits. That is smart, if not classy. He’s also wise enough, that even though he’ll talk to TMZ (as he did the other day), he’ll tell them he’s not scared about any blowback from his jokes. “One great thing about being old and rich is you can do what you want to do!”

At the same time, every comedian is contractually obligated by their own moral code to address the state of comedy in 2019, and Arsenio’s take is that most comics are neither as old nor as rich as he is. As Arsenio says: “It’s a great time to do stand-up, ‘cause there’s so much going on. At the same time, it’s a scary time to do stand-up. You think every word could end your fucking career.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you want any hints at what Murphy’s comedy comeback is going to look like, you’d do well to keep an eye on his Coming 2 America co-star. Plus, fun fact: Murphy’s voice is credited as the one you hear introducing Arsenio to the stage.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Arsenio Hall: Smart & Classy on Netflix