User Reviews

In 1992 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation launched a late-night talk show to compete with American imports. They followed the standard format; a band, announcer, sketch comedy, and celebrity interviews. Unfortunately, Canada has few celebrities, the CBC had a small budget, and the host was the uncharismatic and unfunny Ralph Benmergui.

For those for whom "Canadian entertainment" is an oxymoron, this was very, very Canadian entertainment. Benmergui's fawning over minor celebrities, and his cringing unfunny monologues, were painful to watch. Ratings were poor, and dropped each week.

In desperation, the CBC tried changing the band, the announcer, the sets, the interviews, Ralph's haircut; everything except the two things that were broken, the host and the format.

The CBC still needs a good late-night program, but this program was so unpleasant to watch it has probably poisoned the format at the broadcaster so badly they'll never try it again. The program isn't even listed in the CBC archives.

Friday Night with Ralph Benmergui was a terrible, terrible show. Ralph Benmergui was not a very good host and the interview parts were just painful to watch. The show was so boring and the writing was pitifully bad. None of the jokes were funny. Even the guests were terrible and they even looked like they didn't want to be there, no doubt they had seen the show and knew just how awful it was. It is hard to decide if Open Mike with Mike Bullard was really worse than this show or if it just seems worse because it was more recent so I remember it better, but it says a lot just to say that Friday Night with Ralph B. is even in the same league as that notoriously horrible show, Mike Bullard.