Once a major player on the late-night talk show scene, comedian Arsenio Hall never seemed to find a place to hang his hat after the end of his talk show.

It came as a surprise to many, who saw his fast rise in the mid-'80s. Starting out as a standup comic, he soon transitioned to TV and movies, thanks in part to his friend and fellow standup-turned-actor Eddie Murphy -- the two starred together in 1988's "Coming to America," and Hall had a small role in Murphy's 1989 film "Harlem Nights."

That was the same year he launched "The Arsenio Hall Show," a syndicated late-night show that went head-to-head with big guys such as Carson, and later Letterman and Leno.

It was canceled in 1994, and though he never quite disappeared, he also didn't settle anywhere for long. He did a long string of cameo appearances, usually as himself, and took a broad range of hosting gigs -- "Soul Train's" 25th-anniversary special in 1995, the NAACP Image Awards ceremony in 1997, and so on.

That was also the year he launched his own sitcom, "Arsenio," but it only lasted a handful of episodes and was gone before the year was. The following year, he starred in the action-comedy series "Martial Law" with martial-arts star Sammo Hung, but that was gone by 2000, leaving Hall a star without a show once more.

He seems to have embraced that now, though. He's back in late night, doing regular appearances on his former competitor Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" (following him to his short-lived "Jay Leno Show" as well).

He continues to dabble in film -- he appeared in the 2009 blaxploitation comedy "Black Dynamite" -- and he's returned to voice work as well. One of his first roles, back in the '80s, was the voice of Winston on the cartoon "The Real Ghostbusters," and recently he's gone back to the cartoon game, doing work on 2006's "Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy" and 2005's "The Proud Family Movie."

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