Jesse Ventura comes on strong in talk show debut

MINNEAPOLIS -- The cameras opened on a shaved head and panned around. Then, dressed in a black suit and Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, Jesse Ventura struck into a monologue in his unmistakable baritone.

"This is 'Jesse Ventura's America,' where you're going to hear a lot of things that are going to make you think. You may not always want to hear it, but you will get honesty," he said.

So began Ventura's long-awaited career as a talk show host Saturday night, when "Jesse Ventura's America" premiered on MSNBC. The show had been delayed several months by format changes and other pitfalls, which Ventura acknowledged in a backhanded way by thanking the network for "finally having the courage" to put him on the air.

MSNBC initially intended to air Ventura's show every weeknight. But after a few rehearsals he was relegated to Saturday night, with lower viewership.

Guests included California Gov. Gray Davis and Arianna Huffington, a columnist who was a candidate in the recall election until Sept. 30. Both appeared by satellite.

Ventura opined on such subjects as the California gubernatorial recall, zero-tolerance policies in schools, the depravity of major party politics and how the media perverts the electoral process. In most cases, he spent more time delivering analysis than retrieving it from guests.

Even when he tried, Ventura seemed to have trouble eliciting debate, drilling guests with yes-or-no questions more characteristic of a lawyer in cross-examination than a talk show host trying to drum up dialogue.

Still, the studio audience appeared to enjoy the performance. They laughed at Ventura's jokes and nodded approvingly at many of his opinions.

Ventura ended the show by designating a "hero of the week" and a "dork of the week," which will be a regular fixture on the program. The "hero" was a football player hurt in a game, who had since returned to the field with a prosthetic limb. The "dork" was a doctor that was attacked by sharks while conducting an experiment on whether practicing yoga would reduce his heart rate and render him immune to shark attack.