Night After Night (1990–1992) User Reviews (9)

Really Funny Stuff

[legendNYC · 9/10 · 12 July 2006]

Back in the Stone Age of cable television, this was one of the few programs that worked as enjoyable, reliable nightly entertainment. You could depend upon it when you tuned in. Good times.

"Night After Night" aired opposite the "Tonight Show" and snagged a younger (and much smaller) audience. It deserves to be released on DVD. I would gladly pay to see it again. Allan Havey never found a better outlet for his talent.

The Audience of One was a cute bit that worked well. I also thought the running gag with Dave, the weird Weather Guy, was priceless. The banter between Nick Bakay and Allan was comparable to that of Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, or David Lettermen and Paul Shaffer.

"Night After Night" is sorely missed.

Classic needs a 2nd life

[metfan-35745 · 9/10 · 17 September 2021]

Everything I've read here has made me want to rewatch it even more I still do human slolam when walking in a crowd.

I looked Night After Night up because it isnt even listed in Allan Havey's IMDB credits. (Currently watching Billions for the first time and he's great as always)

Great show!

[jthompson-5 · 13 July 2001]

I thought I was the only one who remembered this show. This pre-Conan show was hilarious! But it kind of went down hill after Nick left. Does anyone remember the Mobley Motel!? God! This show made me laugh! They did an anniversary show one year with an entire audience and Nick came back for the show. He did a skit where he played a gay theater type guy and he made fun of all the late night talk shows. Some of the things that he said in that skit are still a part of my vocabulary to this day! I really wish comedy central would re-run some of the shows. Very, very funny television!

A crying shame

[maixiu · 10/10 · 22 September 2004]

It's a crying shame that this show doesn't occupy its rightful place in the pantheon of late night talk shows. Sometimes, large swaths of the show would go by without a single laugh, but you would still turn off the TV feeling you'd watched something entertaining. It's hard to explain; it was humor as dry as it comes. And when the show was hitting on all cylinders it was an absolute riot. The standout episode to me was the one in which Lily Tomlin came on to promote her movie "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe". Instead of answering the questions as herself, she portrayed a Manhattan socialite who had been a financial backer of the film. To top it off, the character she played despised Lily Tomlin. Yet the interview seemed so real, with Havey appearing to actually get upset at the woman's snootiness. I've not seen a situation like this on any other show (except Tuesday Night Titans). I hope some network rolls out re-runs someday.

Watched it religiously.

[lesunra · 10/10 · 12 February 2024]

That is until it got moved to well past my bedtime. I was a freshman in high school when that happened and I wasn't about to wake up in the middle of every night to see it (I'll go to my grave never knowing how to program a VCR). I did wake up to catch the last episode (no school that week) thought the format changed to a studio audience instead of an audience of one but it turned out to be the crew sitting in for the end.

The show hit all the right notes for quality entertainment. It was sort of intimate like listening to an old Jean Shepherd show on the radio. There was no major audience reactions or show bands led by the Vivino Brothers, it was scaled back (no doubt do to budget issues) but that works to its advantage. The show when I watched never had to compete directly with late night panel shows anyway. The news was usually on when this was. If anything was spent it was on the quality of the writing staff, Nick Bakay and the host Allan Havey who almost seemed to have instinctively perfect timing. Even if he didn't say something outright funny on it's own, he knows when to drop the comment at the right time. The humor also tended to be very dry and often based on strange stories instead of one liners.

On top of that, Havey was an excellent interviewer and got many good guests. I remember Tupac Shakur being interviewed promoting Juice, Bill Hicks looking somewhat sickly and guant but no less funny incorporating some of his jokes into the interview. He was promoting his latest comedy album, even the legendary script writer Dennis Potter was interviewed. Interviews that were thorough and entertaining.

This show is long gone now but it lives on in memory and I've seen the scaled back format used again since (Seth Meyer's show was almost like this during COVID) but the people making Night After Night mattered the most.

I think the only thing I enjoyed about The Informant was seeing Allan Havey playing a role and remembering this TV show while seeing him on the screen. I was remembering a news segment he did from Night After Night about a pet owner passing away suddenly at home and the dogs in the house began eating the corpse. Havey mentioned how guilty the dogs looked in the photo for the article. It's the only laugh I had while sitting through that movie. My date thought I was nuts.

Lives well in memory.

[pathighgate · 4 August 2005]

I fondly remember watching this program every night while I was in high school. There was something very special and unique about it which I've yet to see recreated. Some of the bits were absolutely brilliant, including "reviews of movies I haven't seen", if memory serves.

The title of the show was apt; you knew that you'd have the same guy who could give you the exact same feeling night after night, every night.

When the last episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson aired, Havey's show had no content; simply a sign telling viewers to watch Carson. I spent an hour laying in front of the TV, expecting him to do something, but to no avail. That he could get people to watch a still screen for an hour, and yet not be disappointed when nothing happened was a testament to the kind of show his was.

Havey is one of those guys who has the "whatever happened to.." title, with people who knew the show back then actually caring what the answer is.

The best late night talk show

[mphtower · 17 December 2002]

Night After Night with Allan Havey was simply the funniest, wittiest, and smartest late night program ever. How could this be? How could a show on a network with no ratings, no one watching (not even Allan Havey), and zero budget be good? Because they were out there just having fun. "Shaggin' and baggin'" as it were.

The format of the show changed over its brief lifespan from the old VJ style where Havey would introduce comedy clips--the format of the original Comedy Channel--for over 2 hours. He didn't get much time to be funny, but when he was on it was almost always magic. However, as the original format wore thin, NAN shrank to an hour long talk show. But it was more like a concept piece than a talk show. There was no audience (save the later added Audience of One), and he spoke directly to the camera from his comfy chair. There was no desk in front of him, but rather to the side. This open format has not been tried before or since. And the openness of the stage was reflective of the openness of Havey.

I doubt they ever did a pre-read for interviews. He has the skill of Larry King to get celebrities to talk off-topic without the ingratiating self-congratulatory style. Almost all the conversations came across as two friends hanging out, and we, the audience, got to be there with them.

But, on to the most important part of the show: The funny. Nick Bakay, announcer and co-host, was the perfect foil for Havey. Where Havey was genuine and sincere, Bakay was smarmy and full of himself. Where Havey is, well, not too bright, Bakay is a savant of arcana. And they were at their best when working together and against each other--such as the brilliant Freddy the Frog episode. Imagine an entire show improved around a failed sketch about a stuffed frog. There's nothing I can say that can illustrate just how funny it was, but me and my friends still quote that to this day (over a decade on). "There's no more joy! There's no more frog!" "'Nick's making more than me? How much are you making, Freddy?' 'Twenty grand a week!' 'Twenty..heh [starts laughing]'" Whatever, it's funny.

Maybe someday Allan Havey will be able to return to TV. We need his subtlety and his wit. We need someone to say, "Ten dollar haircut on a ten cent head." We need more shaggin' and baggin'.

Most of all, we need Len Pal.

One of a kind

[ns76 · 5 December 2000]

This late night talk show aired in Comedy Central. One of the most unusual features was the Audience of One. The host would literally have one person watching the show, and this opened itself up for many inside jokes between the host, guest, and audience member. The night of Johnny Carson's final show, this show went off the air, showing only a sign that directed people to watch the Tonight Show instead. Very off-beat humor, like a Conan O'Brien show with no network limits.

In effect, this was one of the first non-conventional late night shows. Nick Backay went on to be the side kick of Dennis Miller's short lived series which itself was something of a precursor to Conan. It would be interesting to see reruns to be able to judge them from a present perspective.

I remember

[arteitle · 9 May 2003]

I used to watch this show back when I was in junior high and high school. I still have my free bar of soap from the Mobley Hotel ("Now with soap!"). It was a laid back, unpretentious, funny show. I haven't seen Mr. Havey around much since, and Jon Stewart is filling the late-night slot on Comedy Central admirably, but it would be great if they could bring "Night After Night" back.