In one segment Oprah Winfrey notes how, on a trip to a remote part of Africa, she met a man who had never heard of Michael Jordan but regarded Larry King as a superstar, a testament to CNN's awesome/frightening global reach and the main reason why Larry King Live, along with that high profile Barbara Walters interview, is so coveted by publicists and politicians. Since his show premiered in 1985, Larry King seems to have interviewed virtually everybody that was anybody (and a lot of nobodies enjoying their 15 minutes of fame), and just about all of them seem to turn up at least once in this boxed set.

For his often controversial guests, King's main appeal is that he pretty much gives them free reign over his hour program. Where other talk show interviewers, NPR/Fresh Air's Terry Gross to name one of the best, typically take the position of the interested everyman, asking questions the average listener/viewer would like to ask themselves had they the chance, King allows his guests unfettered latitude. He doesn't avoid obvious questions that begged to be asked, but he usually doesn't challenge obvious spin or answers that evade the issue at hand.

Also unlike the best interviewers, King sometimes appears to skimp on research and doesn't always listen to his own guests - even this "Best Of" collection has its share of whoppers:

Tom Hanks: "Working with Jackie Gleason was like working with the Pope."
Larry King: "Yeah? What was it like working with Gleason?"

and

Larry King, interviewing the Dalai Lama: "Do you pray? And, if so, who do you pray to?"

Complaints aside, there's no denying that each disc is positively crammed with choice material. Disc 1 ("Hollywood Film Stars & Legends," running 2 hours, 26 minutes) alone includes the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis, Bob Hope, Drew Barrymore, Ann-Margret, Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, Farrah Fawcett, Jim Carrey, George Burns, Jodie Foster, Liza Minnelli, Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, Al Pacino, Hugh Grant, Sharon Stone, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Angelina Jolie, Paul Newman, Christopher Reeve, Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Elton John, Julie Andrews, Jane Fonda, Johnny Cash, Lauren Bacall, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Madonna, Shirley Temple, Tony Bennett, Cher, Catherine Deneuve, Gene Hackman, Elizabeth Taylor, Harrison Ford, Russell Crowe, Warren Beatty, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Quinn, Julia Roberts, Robert Duvall, Kevin Spacey, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, George C. Scott, Vincent Price, Demi Moore, Charlton Heston, Anthony Hopkins, Dustin Hoffman, Bruce Willis, and lots more.

Unfortunately, the discs adopt a Short Attention Span Theater approach, playing like three enormous highlight reels where it's next to impossible to locate a particular guest or topic. There's a dearth of chapter stops and the first disc essentially has no chapter menu, making the set singularly unruly. Few will want to sit down and take in even one disc in a single viewing, yet there are no obvious places to take breaks so that one can watch it over several days as this reviewer did.

Disc 2 ("Presidents & First Ladies, News Events & Scandals") is organized a bit better, with chapters divided thusly: "Presidents & First Ladies" (72 minutes), "News Events & Scandals" (101 minutes). The latter is subdivided into easily accessible sections: "9/11," "Hurricane Katrina," "Death of a Princess," "JFK Jr. Plane Crash," "JonBenet Ramsey Murder," "Martha Stewart Trial," "Prison Interviews" (Mike Tyson, Mark David Chapman, Son of Sam), "O.J. Simpson Trial," "Monica Lewinsky Scandal," "The NAFTA Debate" (with Al Gore and Ross Perot), "Deep Throat Revealed," The Waco Tragedy," "South Asia Tsunami," "The Gulf War," and "War in Iraq." Because King is limited to six presidents (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush) those subjects get more screentime than anyone else. The news events section incorporates CNN footage and wire photos, but this is greatly overdone in the 9/11 segment, which shows (unnecessarily over-and-over again) still-horrifying video of the two airliners striking the World Trade Center. Predictably, this and other segments are accompanied by melodramatic underscoring.

Disc 3 is divided among "Television Stars" (36 minutes), "Broadcast News Icons" (34 minutes), and "Comedians" (55 minutes). The Broadcast News Icons segments is best, especially a segment reuniting 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace with JFK secret service agent Clint Hill, and Bob Schieffer's amazing account of nearly getting to interview Lee Harvey Oswald after the assassination.

From a rights standpoint, the set interestingly incorporates clips from some of the movies and TV shows being talked about (Ghost, Saturday Night Fever, etc.), and some of the musical guests perform songs which are retained here.

What's there is highly watchable, with most of the guests telling amusing anecdotes or making provocative statements. Some highlights include Sammy Davis, Jr. on his waning health, Shirley Temple on being flashed at by MGM producer Arthur Freed while her mother was elsewhere being propositioned by Louis B. Mayer, George Burns on Jack Benny and Gracie Allen, bizarre moments with Bill Cosby and are bare-footed Brando. (I've heard Brando audibly passed gas during the interview but that, alas, isn't on the disc. We do get to see him kiss Larry, however.)

The interviews with the U.S. Presidents are frequently fascinating, as are those with world leaders included on the same disc. The "Scandals" segment offers a big Monica Lewinsky segment, but this is balanced by coverage of the first Gulf War - where various Bush I Administration officials talk about how insane it would be to try and occupy Baghdad.

Video & Audio

Larry King Live - The Greatest Interviews is presented in its original full frame format with video reflecting the changing technologies between 1985 and the present day. Some of the Dolby Surround 2.0 audio (English only, no subtitles though the set is closed-captioned) fluctuates in volume - I had to turn up the sound for some of the oldest interviews - but for the most part everything looks fine.

Extra Features

Supplements are pretty indistinguishable from the rest of the material, but the following are regarded as extras anyway: Included are Larry's Stories: Hollywood Legends (24 minutes) and Larry's Stories: Comedians, with sometimes indulgent but mostly amusing backstories on some of King's most memorable interviews. World Leaders (14 minutes) is an extra that should have been part of the main attraction, as it includes King's interviews with people like Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela.

Parting Thoughts

Even if you dislike Larry King, Larry King Live - The Greatest Interviews has a lot to offer, particularly for its historical/archival value with a great many newsmakers of the past 20-plus years. It's far more interesting and entertaining than you might think it would be, and comes Highly Recommended.

**On the Judge Judy show, a disingenuously appalled Larry asked, "Why do we care [about Anna Nicole Smith]?" It apparently never crossed King's mind that his own program and CNN's 24-7, autopsy-to-embalming-to-grave updates had something to do with hyping this non-news event into something only slightly less important than 9/11 and the Asia Tsunami put together.

Film historian Stuart Galbraith IV's most recent essays appear in Criterion's new three-disc Seven Samurai DVD and BCI Eclipse's The Quiet Duel. His audio commentary for Invasion of Astro Monster is due out in June.