Larry King abdicates

As soon as Larry King announced that he’s ending Larry King Live, I had to fight the urge to say nothing but nice things about him. You know how it is: you spend years being annoyed by someone’s questioning style and his influence... and then when he leaves, all you can think about is how he wasn’t as bad as some of the people who followed him. Also, how the basically light-entertainment style of the show was a bit easier to take than the cable news shows that try to pretend there’s something huge, world-shaking, incredibly important, in every single interview.

And I’ll say this: King at his hackiest was never as hacky as the comedians making jokes about his age. I mean, we get it: he’s over 70, and apparently old people don’t belong on TV or something.

Anyway, here’s the best-known (or at least most-Youtub’d) interview from King’s first year on CNN, with Frank Zappa.

Now the "who will replace Steve Carell" talk will coexist with "who will replace Larry King" talk, and it’s possible the two will get confused. So maybe we should just have one person replace both of them. Preferably not Ryan Seacrest, though.