Saying farewell to the David Letterman I watched over 35 years.

My first encounter with David Letterman on television was on the original Peter Marshall-hosted THE HOLLYWOOD SQUARES where Dave answered a question with a surreal word image of his dog filling out tax returns.

Afterwards, I became a regular viewer of 1980's short-lived THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW on NBC (which, in the Wichita Falls TX market, was replaced for a time by reruns of MEDICAL CENTER).  In that incarnation, Dave dared to ignore the rules for daytime TV talk shows and gave airtime to comic/musical talents such as Valri Bromfield, Loudon Wainwright III and Andy Kaufman (though, occasionally, Dave's infatuation with old-line showbiz would surface when Allen "PASSWORD" Ludden would come on and disdainfully mock pop song lyrics).  And, if I recall correctly, Edwin Newman would occasionally deliver brief news bulletins.

LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN debuted in early 1982--the purest form of Letterman's irony, sarcasm and demythologizing of television conventions.

A decade later, Dave was denied THE TONIGHT SHOW in favor of then-Monday night guest host Jay Leno.

1993 heralded the move to CBS with the re-titled LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN.  On its debut show, Paul Newman stood up and asked "Where the hell are the singing cats?"  This turned into a prophetic statement heralding the departure or minimization of old NBC colleagues such as Riquette, Kamar the Discount Magician and Larry "Bud" Melman (who, on CBS, had to go by his real name of Calvert DeForrest due to NBC spouting nonsense about "intellectual property")

No need to bemoan it here, but about 80% of the idiosyncrasy was drained from the CBS Letterman show because of the concerns over what made for an appropriate 11:35 p.m. show vs. an appropriate 12:35 a.m. hangout destination.

As Dave aged, his energy level began to decline.  In recent years, outside incidents such as the WGA strike and Jay Leno/NBC's demoting Conan O'Brien from THE TONIGHT SHOW seemed to periodically reanimate the peak-era Letterman.

I haven't been a regular viewer of LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN in quite a long time, but am planning to watch the final two shows via DVR and herald the end of a talk show era quite different from the current "invite guests to play parlor games" ethos.

Full Mitt Romney Fundraiser Video Part 2

Female comic Jen Kirkman on ex-LATE SHOW talent booker and sexism in stand-up biz.

Ms. Kirkman's blog post is well worth reading; kudos to her for jumping hurdles and making a living in a culture where funny women often get told they're "not funny" and/or have to deal with male biases and hangups (presuming a lot of talent bookers/TV execs prefer their female comics "fuckable" and nonscary/nonconfrontational to men). 
http://jenkirkman.tumblr.com/post/16136734211/what-i-would-have-said-about-eddie-brill-on-npr

Doubting we've seen the last of Rick Perry as Presidential candidate.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/rick-perry-commits-suicide-on-stage-at-debate.html

Perhaps Rick Perry may be both pundit toast and even voter toast after last night's GOP debate performance.

But I'm guessing Perry will go on THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO and do his best to humorously spin lead into at least brass--making himself safe for 2016.

This reminds me of a Democrat who gaffed by making a too-long convention speech in 1988, appeared on Johnny Carson's TONIGHT SHOW and ran for President in 1992.

The Democrat's name was Bill Clinton.

[UPDATE 11/11/11] I was wrong; Perry appeared on LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN--now, by default, Dave's the new Johnny Carson and will probably stay a few years past Carson's retirement age.

More information about David Letterman's backstage life than humans should be allowed to have.

In the wake of David Letterman extortionist Robert Joe Halderman's sentence (six months behind bars, plus 1,000 hours of community service, plus four-and-a-half years' probation),
here's a link to a VANITY FAIR article which, among other things, gives insight into Halderman's desire to wreak vengeance on both Letterman and Stephanie Birkitt
(the woman Letterman and Halderman both coveted):
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2010/04/letterman-201004

This article from NEW YORK magazine last fall is probably the most thoughtul
and informative about the behavior of Letterman, Birkitt and Halderman:
http://nymag.com/arts/tv/features/60314/

A wreath on the grave of THE JAY LENO SHOW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jay_Leno_Show

Two notes to add to the Wikipedia article:
1. I'm assuming that David Letterman was possessed by a malign form of glee in proposing the Super Bowl commercial for LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN to Jay Leno--knowing that Leno's shaky hold on a "good guy" persona would take a further hit with a "can't laugh at
myself" turndown.

2. Last week, Bill Maher made his final guest appearance on THE JAY LENO SHOW.
When Maher brought up the topic of Jay's "vulnerability" (see Note #1),
Leno cut Maher off and rushed to a commercial break.

One final prediction: The Jay/Dave ratings war may be a bit more unpredictable from March onwards. Yes, Leno will be Number One some nights--and Letterman will beat him on other occasions.

And more than a few of us will opt for Coco if he finds himself on Fox or Comedy Central.

SALON's Joan Walsh still feels the need to defend Bill Clinton.

Perhaps the perpetual-wiseacre writer Tom Carson said it best about Bill Clinton when describing Clinton as an "a--hole" likely to go on and on crying over "his thwarted greatness."

Certainly the Bay Area-based webzine Salon.com has felt the need to keep throwing roses towards Clinton on occasion--even to the point of employing Clinton hagiographer Joe Conason.

Here's Joan Walsh recently praising Bill for Salon:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/10/23/bill_clinton/?source=newsletter

I still don't understand the need to prop up an ex-President who couldn't stand up to Sam Nunn on gays in the military, who shredded the Safety Net for millions of Americans, who helped bring on the go-go greed that eventually sunk our economy (and, no, I'm not forgetting George Butch, Jr.'s role in that process)--and who wasted a year of his second term determined to "win this thing" re the revelations of his private affairs (even the Republican-leaning David Letterman handled le affaire Stephanie Burkitt better than Bill with Monica Lewinsky).

And, remember, Clinton (the alleged First Black President) shamefully played the Race Card last year to ensure that his wife would receive the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

David Letterman outs himself re workplace affairs.

I just watched David Letterman confess having workplace affairs with female LATE SHOW staffers (and a producer of CBS' 48 HOURS trying to blackmail him for $2 million regarding this subject was arrested yesterday).

Having found this out before tuning into the show, the monologue--which included jokes about Roman Polanski, Mark Sanford and businessmen bringing their wives on business trips (relating somehow to Barack and Michelle Obama working together to bring the Olympics to Chicago)--was a bit creepy.

And so was the Paul Shaffer choice for play-in, play-out-of-commercial music:
The Rolling Stones' "Bitch."

A key lyric of the above song: "Love...is a bitch."

[Guessing that Bill Carter, who wrote THE LATE SHIFT (about Letterman and Leno jockeying to be The One to sit in Johnny Carson's vacant TONIGHT SHOW host's chair), won't have any trouble pitching a LATE SHIFT II to publishers.]
UPDATE as of October 6th:
Dave tried a second pass at an apology/explanation, and he's still upset about the extortion attempt. One fairly deft joke about how he can no longer do Bill Clinton/Mark Sanford material. Some contrition towards wife Regina. And, sort-of reversing a "they're welcome to come forward" comment the first time around, expressing worry for the staffers receiving attention from the media.

Short of any smoking guns related to sexual harassment and/or hush money (although it's being revealed that Letterman's involvement with assistant/occasional on-air foil Stephanie Birkitt continued after his marriage to Regina), I'm guessing this is the last on-the-show statement before Robert Joe Halderman's trial.

Lots of overreaction from the left and right about David Letterman's TOP TEN Palin jokes.

An article from an occasional contributor to SLATE:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/06/11/david-letterman-owes-sarah-palin-flight-attendants-and-women-in/

Letterman's semi-apologetic clarification--plus the original Top Ten list (links from HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE):
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/06/greatest_non-ap.php
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/06/why_the_kid_glo.php

James Wolcott's take on Letterman's remarks:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/06/here-it-is-friday-and.html
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/06/like-clint-eastwood-in-a.html

And the Palins getting their demagogue on to rack up cheap political points from their base:http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/06/palin-vs-letterman.html

Another Letterman apology: http://defamer.gawker.com/5291870/

Post-mortem for Jay Leno's TONIGHT SHOW tenure.

It's been a long time since 1991-92--a period immortalized in Bill Carter's THE LATE SHOW. Jay Leno, with the aid of Helen Kushnick (his then-manager), received NBC's blessing to host THE TONIGHT SHOW over the shattered ego of perceived successor David Letterman.

Leno started his tenure wanting to retain a few facets of the Smart Comic persona on display through his 80s career (most notably when he was a favored guest on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN). Smart Comic Paula Poundstone was a semi-regular and Leno, desiring some continuity with the Johnny Carson-era jazz-based TONIGHT SHOW band, anointed Branford Marsalis as bandleader. And authors were even welcome on the show.

But Leno eventually decided to dumb down. Marsalis was shown the door and guitarist Kevin Eubanks took the bandleader job--no more of that alienating jazz stuff. Leno asked Hugh Grant "what the hell were you thinking" re a prostitution encounter--and THE TONIGHT SHOW's ratings soared ahead of Letterman's on CBS. And there was the hand-over-handshaking with young front-row fans. Not to mention the increasing coarseness of the jokes, with only occasional flickers of the Smart Comic Leno of old--like a lightbulb filament just before burning out.

Now, Leno gets to continue a prime-time version of his show in a 10:00 p.m. nightslot Monday-Friday. Conan O'Brien will now get the "is he too smart for 11:35" treatment that Letterman received upon moving to CBS in 1993.

And one of the last commercials on the last episode of the Jay Leno TONIGHT SHOW was a thinly-veiled plea for viewers to buy General Electric stock in these less-than-robust economic times.

When movie actors declare they're quitting movies.

From what I've been reading, Casey Affleck and allegedly-retiring-from-acting Joaquin Phoenix are filming a Sacha Baron Cohen/Andy Kaufman put-on documentary that includes, among other things, Phoenix' less-than-acclaimed Las Vegas debut as a hip-hop artist. And apparently towards that end, Phoenix appeared on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN last night to plug his allegedly-final film TWO LOVERS: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/02/why_did_he_come.php

The appearance (or at least the clips I watched on THE VIEW this morning) contained a giant dollop of bored, monotonal "I hate doing talk shows" attitude a la Kristen Stewart's drop-by on LETTERMAN to plug TWILIGHT (which can be found here at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVjoXMJ7j3E).

And, since the media attention span is quite small, no one recalls Phoenix's discomfort on THE TONIGHT SHOW in 2000 around the release of GLADIATOR--and the peevish response from Jay Leno. No documentary film crew on the set then.

About a decade ago, Liam Neeson (suffering burnout from doing back-to-back escapist, CGI-dependent fare such as STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE and the now semi-forgotten remake of THE HAUNTING) made similar threats to retire from film acting.

Thankfully, Neeson changed his mind (and may be on the verge of giving a potential career-highpoint performance as Abraham Lincoln for Steven Spielberg). And maybe Phoenix, after a year or two away from the inanities of mainstream show business, will consider doing the same.

Jay Leno going to prime time: everything old is new again.

Jay Leno, who will now get to take his play-down-to-the-proles version of THE TONIGHT SHOW to prime time, isn't the first host of the show to score a prime-time gig on NBC. Both Steve Allen and Jack Paar went the same route in the 50s and 60s--and if I recall correctly, Paar's prime-time show was much the same as his late-night one.

But neither Parr nor Allen were asked to do an hour show for five nights a week in prime time.

Obviously, Ben Silverman (who for every OFFICE or 30 ROCK comes up with nongenius ideas for "edgy" retoolings of KNIGHT RIDER and THE BIONIC WOMAN) isn't going to walk the plank. So, one can expect NBC to gut their prime-time schedule as much as possible (even past the 16 hours remaining when Leno debuts next year) with more superstupid reality shows and extra helpings of DATELINE NBC.

Perhaps the silver lining in this cloud will be possessed by Conan O'Brien. Free of the spectre of Jay being direct competition on either Fox or ABC, maybe Conan can develop an 11:35 p.m. talk show that can be truly Conanesque [i.e. incorporate more of the LATE NIGHT WITH...show than he thought possible, say, a week ago] and move the tired late-night format into a new era.

At least until Viacom sends David Letterman to early retirement and likely blesses Jon Stewart with the CBS 11:35 p.m. slot.