20 Talk Shows That Took Big Swings and Missed

At midnight on Los Angeles station KCOP, the room looked more like a small comedy club than a conventional television studio. Audience members sat around nightclub tables; there was no familiar desk, and no house band waited to play the host through a commercial break. The Stephanie Miller Show (1995) drew on Miller’s radio experience, combining topical and progressive political humor with celebrity conversations, recorded comedy pieces, and video-phone exchanges that gave the production a deliberately loose feeling.