Watching the Coming To America commentary, the producer says that he was surprised that he didn't really have a film career of note after Coming To America. Of course, he had his late night show, but not really a movie career to talk of.
shareI think the late night show hurt his long term prospects. Once he did that show (which he was very good at) it was hard to picture him doing anything else. Once the late night wars between Leno and Letterman took off, Arsenio was unfortunately kinda left out in the cold.
shareHe was big star for a while - He retired Johnny Carson & also he was killing other late night talk show host.
shareHe was a big star and his show was a hit (I always liked it) but I don't think he played any role in Carson retiring. Carson was 66 and he was ready to hang it up. It was the controversy of NBC giving the Tonight Show to Leno over Letterman that really pulled attention away from Arsenio and his show couldn't keep up once the feud between the other two became front page news.
shareI heard he got blacklisted over something.
shareArsenio got the chevychase disease.. he thought he was much funnier than he was and his ego exploded.
Arsenio and Chase have/had definite talent, but their egos got way too big and stopped their development. I loved Arsenio in Coming to America, but after his talk show took off, he just became unfunny - just like Chase.
It's always a really tight line to walk between funny and asshole.
shareNo
There was nothing to work with