The Chuck Woolery Show
The Chuck Woolery Show was an American talk show that was hosted by television personality Chuck Woolery, with Randy West serving as the program's announcer. The program was launched in broadcast syndication on September 16, 1991, and ran until December 13, 1991, for a total of sixty-five episodes.
| The Chuck Woolery Show | |
|---|---|
| Genre | talk show |
| Presented by | Chuck Woolery |
| Narrated by | Randy West |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 65 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Eric Lieber, Chuck Woolery |
| Production location(s) | Hollywood Center Studios, Hollywood, California |
| Running time | 60 minutes with commercials |
| Production company(s) | Eric Lieber Productions Charwool Productions |
| Distributor | Group W Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network | broadcast syndication |
| Original release | September 16 – December 13, 1991 |
The Chuck Woolery Show was a co-production of Eric Lieber Productions, which was also producing Love Connection with Woolery hosting, and Charwool Productions in association with Group W Productions. The show emanated from Hollywood Center Studios.
Opening
Each episode of The Chuck Woolery Show opened with a sequence involving Woolery meandering his way through Hollywood on a skateboard while dodging people and performing tricks. The sequence would end at the studio, where he would roll inside just as the studio door was closing. (In reality, all the physical skating was done by a stunt double.)
Format
The Chuck Woolery Show, like some other shows of the day, was a celebrity-driven show. Each episode featured four celebrities, and Woolery would spend several minutes talking with each one individually. The set did not feature a desk like most talk shows featuring celebrities did. Instead the show employed a setup that was similar to one used on The Arsenio Hall Show, which saw Woolery conduct the interviews while sitting on a couch while the celebrities sat across from him on a second couch.
The show would sometimes feature a studio audience member ask questions to each of the four guests for a particular day.[1]
An in-studio band was also employed to play the show's theme as well as lead into and out of commercial breaks.
Ratings
The Chuck Woolery Show was one of several talk shows to premiere as part of the 1991–92 television season, joining The Jenny Jones Show, The Maury Povich Show, The Montel Williams Show, and The Jerry Springer Show. It was also the only one of those programs that did not make it past that season, as all of the others managed runs of over ten years and Povich's program still airs as of 2020.
The show was originally going to be distributed by Orion Television, with Group W handling advertising sales. Many NBC affiliates, where audiences were already familiar with Woolery due to his hosting of the game show Scrabble on the network, signed on as did the stations that were owned by Westinghouse and Viacom. WCBS-TV and WMAQ-TV were among the network owned-and-operated stations that chose to pick it up as well.[2]
Despite the clearances, trouble plagued the production from the start. Original producer Orion Television was in financial difficulty when The Chuck Woolery Show was being developed and in early 1991 ceased all production activity. Group W stepped in to serve as distributor and producer, but several stations dropped the series. It also never aired in some markets due to lack of interest.
The initial ratings were also low and continued to stay as such. It was also claimed that executive producer Eric Lieber was particularly hostile to station managers who were carrying the show, and it was said that in at least one case (in fact, its biggest case in WCBS) an argument between Lieber and a station executive resulted in Woolery being removed from the station's morning lineup and placed in a post-midnight timeslot. Whatever the reasons were, The Chuck Woolery Show never caught on with audiences and the show was not renewed beyond the initial thirteen weeks of episodes.
Woolery would continue to host Love Connection during and after production of his talk show.
References
- Chuck Woolery Show episode aired December 3, 1991. Guests this day were Judge Joseph Wapner, Norm Crosby, Nancy Stafford, and Rebecca Arthur.
- Broadcasting Magazine issue from January 28, 1991, pages 8 and 9.