Magic Missing on This Court

The host of “The Magic Hour” on Wednesday night, stumbling through his opening:

“The funny thing is, my son just turned 6. OK. Just turned 6. Um hm. Don’t clap yet. Because, um, when I turned 6, you got a cupcake, one cupcake for about 10 people. You know. And you got a couple presents, maybe one or two. And . . . it was cool. Now . . . turnin’ 6, oh, man, is . . . isa . . . isa different thing. Not only do . . . you have to throw the party, right. And everybody come, bring him gifts, so you get about 30 gifts. But you gotta give out 200 gifts. Wh-what is that? You gotta give everybody gifts that come to the party now. I never heard a that. So . . . basically, I’m out of a lotta money. I . . . It’s better . . . I thought it was better . . . to receive than give. But parties these days. Oh, isa use whole ‘nother thing.”

Heh heh heh.

Magic Johnson was one of the greatest basketball players ever. When it comes to heading a late-night talk show, though, he got no game.

Epitomizing this was his birthday anecdote, a potentially charming, humorous family memoir that the storyteller botched with clumsy execution, his laugh lines producing little more than polite murmurs even from a studio audience that otherwise responds to him with unquestioning ardor.

Untypically shakeless and bakeless, Magic is the classic trooper gamely undertaking a job for which he appears totally unqualified, a rare encounter for someone who so often has excelled--these days in business as he once did in hoops, in addition to overcoming the stigma of testing positive for HIV.

Yet even after months of speech and interviewing lessons, this is just not what he does well. Incompetence comes to mind when describing the first three episodes of this week’s debut of his heavily promoted syndicated series, “The Magic Hour,” which scores of stations across the nation are counting on to slam home sizable Nielsens in the wee hours. Instead, they may be getting massive slam clunk.

In (Chick) Hearnspeak, “The Magic Hour” is a 10-foot baby hook that travels about 5 feet.

Its best outing came Wednesday night, when Magic’s buddy, Arsenio Hall, himself a late-night talk-show host in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, stayed the entire hour, a piece of floating driftwood coming to the rescue of a nonswimmer bobbing perilously in rough seas. No wonder Magic seemed almost to cling to him, and appeared especially relaxed and almost relieved when the high-energy Hall virtually took over the show in advance of Magic’s belabored basketball-shooting bit on videotape with Michael Douglas and a stiff interview with singer Gloria Estefan. And don’t forget those lame audience-participation segments.

What we have here so far is affirmation that being a successful guest--as Magic has been from time to time, even on Hall’s old show--is much different than being a host, who is required to lead and initiate instead of respond. It remains to be seen if Magic’s initial lumbering is lethal. Or whether his famed high-wattage charisma, the fawning A-list guests and his comely drummer and bandleader, Sheila E., have legs enough to carry him beyond this initial period, when many Americans are tuning in only out of curiosity, to see if the most celebrated super-jock this side of Michael Jordan can reinvent himself on a talk-show set.

So far, no, despite KTTV-TV Channel 11--which airs Magic’s show locally--doing its part to widen the spotlight by deploying stories about some of his guests on its 10 p.m. news (“You can also see and hear Gloria tonight on ‘The Magic Hour’ ”).

The shoulders of Magic’s snazzy five-button suits may be sagging, too, from the tonnage of being seen as the next great black hope. Arsenio Hall’s late-night adventures have faded--the irony being that his show originated from the same Paramount studio where Magic is now plodding. And now that the Sinbad-hosted “Vibe” has joined Keenen Ivory Wayans’ talk show on this season’s syndication cancellation list, Magic is being defined in some circles as the last remaining black late-night host, as if this were a long-running African American franchise and not watching him were a vote for racism.

Instead, it’s a vote for discriminating taste, even though the boisterous studio audience that cheers nearly everything Magic says and does is as fervent as an arena full of Jack Nicholsons.

“I know I’m not a comedian,” Magic told viewers Monday night, beaming his trademark grin at the camera, “but I want to end your day with a smile.” However, the show’s designated comedian, sidekick Craig Shoemaker, is not nearly funny enough to neutralize the deficiencies of Magic, who is not only unclever, unwitty and often visibly uncomfortable in this venue, but also earns the booby-prize for attaining no performance or interviewing skills in his long preparation for going against network heavies Jay Leno and David Letterman.

To say nothing of his critical 11 p.m. duel in Los Angeles with that auteur of vulgarity, Jerry Springer, who this week splashed himself with holy water to become a reborn peacenik in response to loud protests against his show’s turbulent rough-housing. Several nights of Jerry without one right cross or sucker punch? Who would have thought it?

Or that Magic’s writers, with so much time to get ready, would not have found the key yet to creating material that exploits his singular strength--that gleaming amiability?

An opening-night bit with Magic auditioning terrified screamers for “Godzilla 2,” for example, toppled like a dying lizard. As did Whitney Houston when given a sweeper by a stagehand and vacuuming a rug (who came up with that?). And just as thudding was Magic imitating Indiana Jones in front of Harrison Ford Tuesday night.

So far, he has been unable to draw out any of his big-name guests (the parade beginning with Arnold Schwarzenegger) beyond the perfunctory. His mode of interviewing consists mainly of salivating over them for being on the show, and sopping it up when they return the thank yous.

Magic told Hall: “You’re the only reason that I’m here. You set the tone for ‘Vibe,’ Keenen and myself.” It was an interesting comment, given that the first two were short-lived blips, their exits from late-night perhaps accelerated by the drum roll building for “The Magic Hour.”

Hall himself ultimately flamed out four years ago when his late-night ratings sagged after his earlier success in attracting younger viewers with a guest list distinctive from those of other talk shows.

In contrast, “The Magic Hour” seems wedded to the usual array of big names, many pit-stopping their way across TV with movies or other projects to hype. However, problems on the booking front were hinted at Wednesday night when the only guests advertised for Thursday’s show were Los Angeles Lakers rookie Kobe Bryant and musician Kenny G. Not much reason to tune in.

Pulling up another metaphor from Lakers announcer Hearn, you’d have to say that unless it improves dramatically, this show is already in the refrigerator: The door is closed, the light is out, the eggs are cooling, the Jell-O is jiggling and the butter is getting hard.

* “The Magic Hour” airs weeknights at 11 on KTTV-TV Channel 11.