TVSquad

Ben Stein was not the first person to try and reinvent the celebrity talk show, and he's also not the first to have failed. Whoopi Goldberg and Chevy Chase each had spectacular failures in the world of late night gab fests before Ben Stein followed his successful game show Win Ben Stein's Money with Turn Ben Stein On in 1999.

The premise of the show was simple. Ben would sit down with one guest and chat with them for a half an hour. If you know anything about Ben's pre-television background, you know he's a highly intelligent and erudite individual, so his goal, often, was to challenge his guest's intellect and try to create a real conversation as opposed to simply lobbing pleasantries at one another. It was actually a great idea for a show, but perhaps Comedy Central viewers who were more interested in having a few yucks weren't the right audience for this show.

What was most impressive about Ben was how easily he could engage guests like Henry Rollins, who doesn't exactly seem like someone with whom Ben would have anything in common. While it made the interviews interesting to watch, it might also stand as an example of why the show failed. Viewers want to see two people chatting, they don't want to see conversation, and especially not on a comedy network. Maybe it could have survived elsewhere, but we'll never know.

The show wasn't unfunny, of course,and Ben Stein, like Mystery Science Theater 3000's Mike Nelson, proved that conservatives can be hysterical, too. Anyone who ends each show by challenging his guest to a series of push-ups can't be too stuffy after all.