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The Late Show with David Letterman is an hour-long weeknight comedy and talk show broadcast by CBS from the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway in New York City. The show debuted on August 30, 1993 and is produced and hosted by David Letterman. The show's music director and bandleader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is Paul Shaffer. The head writers are brothers Justin Stangel and Eric Stangel. The announcer is Alan Kalter, who replaced Bill Wendell as announcer in 1995. The show airs at night, but is recorded the afternoon of the broadcast. Each show is recapped in The Wahoo Gazette.
Letterman was previously the host of Late Night with David Letterman (which many news articles still call Letterman's show even today) on NBC from 1982 to 1993. Shaffer, Wendell, and several members of the band were also with the NBC show.
Sketches
When Letterman moved to CBS and began the Late Show, several of Late Night's long-running comedy bits made the move with him, including his best known bit, the Top Ten List. Letterman renamed a few of his regular bits to avoid legal problems over trademark infringement (NBC cited that what he did on Late Night was "intellectual property" of the network). For example, "Viewer Mail" on NBC became the "CBS Mailbag," and Larry "Bud" Melman began to use his real name, Calvert DeForest.
The Late Show is well known for its repeated absurdist segments, often taking the form of competitions or audience participation. The charm of these segments is often that they are completely pointless, yet are taken seriously by Letterman and all involved.
The Friday show is known to have the best sketches of the whole week. Sketches like "Johnny Dark", "Will It Float?", "Know Your______", and "Audience Show and Tell" are among the most popular.
Physical Comedy
Letterman himself is known for his quirky physical comedy, which he has used in varied degrees throughout the years. Examples are throwing his blue note cards through the window behind him, throwing pencils at the camera, pausing to take a long drink of his coffee, showing the inside lining of his suit, showing his receding hairline, long awkward moments to organize his note cards on his desk, flipping pencils upward and trying to catch them one-handed, wiggling his tie, adjusting the height of his chair, stirring his guests coffee with a pencil before they arrive, pausing to clean his glasses, and pretending to eat or drink excessive amounts of non-edible items.
During cooking segments such as with Martha Stewart the guest has a table set up with ingredients to demonstrate how to prepare some sort of meal. Letterman usually plays dumb, measuring the wrong amounts, throws raw eggs at the band, gulps down bottles of wine, eats butter, and generally creates a mess.
Format
Early shows included a short informal clip of Letterman in baseball cap interacting with a celebrity before the show theme began.
After the show theme with introduction from the announcer, each show begins with Letterman's comic monologue, sometimes making an inside reference to something an audience member said to him before the show. Jokes usually include pop culture and political icons. This is followed by an introduction of Paul Shaffer and the band. Letterman walks to his desk and begins to tell stories or introduces a running gag, followed by the day's sketch comedy.
Following this the show turns to guest interviews on the couch with a celebrity, politician, or the latest news hero. Ocassionally there is a short comedy bit in between the first two guests, or the guest will take part in a bit of their own. The final guest of the show is either a stand-up comedian or a musical performance.
Letterman ends the show by waving from his desk, "Good night everybody!"
Memorable Guests
Madonna
In March 1994 pop star Madonna appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote her new album Erotica. The unofficial "Queen of Pop" who is known for controversy infamously swore thirteen times throughout the interview and refused to leave at the end. Letterman, who asked her questions on various topics including her nose ring, music and love life was soon branded a "sick fuck" after he suggested Madonna kiss a member of the audience. Madonna went on to ask if Letterman was wearing a "rug", whether he wanted to smell a pair of underwear she brought on the show, or whether he thought the microphone was sexually big. In between this Madonna often swore and referred to sexual themes including her vagina saying quote: "Did you know it's good to pee in the shower?" Eventually, she swore so much that the producers went to commercials and showed comedic monologues of Madonna. At the end of the interview, when Madonna refused to leave, Letterman cut to a break and when they returned Madonna was gone. Letterman has since stated "I'm not pleased with the way I handled it. I should have said, 'You say that word one more time and you're gone. That's it. Adiós.' And I didn't." in USA Today. Madonna appeared days later on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and appeared predictably mellow. Her return to Letterman was in 2000 while promoting album Music.
Drew Barrymore
In a 1995 episode, as a birthday present, actress Drew Barrymore stood on Letterman's desk and flashed her breasts as part of an erotic dance (the cameras only showed her from the back during the flash). The dance shocked the usually unflappable Letterman. It was reportedly a gift from Barrymore for Letterman's birthday. Said Letterman, "I couldn't have been more pleased."Oprah Winfrey
Letterman and Oprah Winfrey have had a peculiar public relationship. Although Winfrey appeared twice on Letterman's Late Night show in the 1980s, she had never appeared on The Late Show and Letterman had never appeared on Winfrey's show. Winfrey had described her visits to Late Night as difficult. Despite Letterman's jocular attempts to woo Winfrey onto his show, Winfrey did not visit The Late Show from 1989 until December 1, 2005. "I want you to know, it's really over, whatever you thought was happening," said Winfrey during the broadcast, and presented him with an autographed picture of herself and Uma Thurman to commemorate his "Uma... Oprah..." debacle at the 1995 Academy Awards. About 13.4 million people, according to preliminary Nielsen Ratings, tuned in to watch. "The Late Show" last attracted as large an audience in February 1994, when it had the Winter Olympics face-off between figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding as a lead-in. It drew its best adults 18-49 rating (4.4) since Letterman's return to the show following heart surgery in February 2000.Courtney Love
In March 2004 rock singer Courtney Love flashed David Letterman six times — once while standing on his desk. The next day she was arrested in New York City for throwing a microphone stand at a man.Farrah Fawcett
The former model and '70s sex icon Farrah Fawcett made headlines in late July 1997 when she appeared on Letterman's show in some sort of druggy haze. At one point in her interview she crawled on the studio floor on all fours calling for an imaginary cat. At the end of the show, Letterman thanked Fawcett for "almost being here."Janet Jackson
Pop star Janet Jackson appeared on the show in February 2004 - the day after her nipple was controversially revealed at the Superbowl. The headline story which sparked much debate, spawned many viewers to watch the episode which featured Jackson in a red dress. Its revealing nature was pointed out by Letterman. Janet Jackson had to be blocked during the episode when she said "Jesus Christ" after being asked about the incident. Her album, Damita Jo, which she was promoting got little coverage and sold poorly.Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon was a frequent guest and occasional substitute bandleader on Letterman's television shows since Late Night first aired in 1982. In 2002, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the show as the only guest for the entire hour. Appearing very underweight and weakened, Zevon performed and spoke at length about his illness. It was this show where Zevon offered his insight on facing death: "enjoy every sandwich." He performed three songs (his last ever before an audience): "Genius", "Mutineer" and a rousing version of his classic "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner." Zevon regarded Letterman as "the best friend my music ever had." He died on September 7, 2003.Bill Hicks
On October 1 of 1993, Bill Hicks was to appear on the David Letterman show for the twelfth time, but his appearance was cancelled somewhat controversially. At the time, Hicks was doing a routine about pro-life organizations, where he encouraged them to "lock arms and block cemeteries" instead of medical clinics, but his routine was cut from the show. Both the show's producers and CBS denied responsibility for the cut, but the reason appeared obvious to many during the following week's Letterman show when a commercial for a pro-life organization was aired. For many fans, this reinforced one of Bill's recurring themes, that America was being sanitized and manipulated in the name of corporate sponsorship. Hicks himself felt betrayed, and wrote a 32-page letter of complaint. Later, Letterman expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled. Unfortunately Hicks was dead by that time, and never heard Letterman's sentiments.
Memorable Episodes
September 17, 2001
On September 17, 2001, The Late Show returned to the television airwaves six days after the September 11th attacks, a high-profile appearance given the anxiety and grief still felt by many at the time, especially in New York City. Letterman reportedly was considering not resuming the show, and credited "the reason that I am doing a show and the reason I am back to work is because of Mayor Giuliani.... Rudolph Giuliani is the personification of courage."In his opening monologue, an emotional David Letterman said:
- "The reason we were attacked, the reason these people are dead, these people are missing and dead ... They weren't doing anything wrong, they were living their lives, they were going to work, they were traveling, they were doing what they normally do. Uh, as I understand it -- and my understanding of this is vague, at best -- another smaller group of people stole some airplanes and crashed them into buildings. And we're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervor, religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense to you? Will that make any goddamned sense?"
That night Letterman hosted Dan Rather and Regis Philbin. The Dan Rather interview was one of the most emotional interviews in the history of the show, with both David and Dan Rather held back tears while speaking about the attacks.
Since Sept. 17, 2001, the regular opening, which had previously made fun of New York City, has consistently led with "From New York… the greatest city in the world…"
High-definition broadcasts
The show began broadcasting in HDTV on Monday August 29, 2005. About two weeks later, Tim Kennedy, the show's Technical Director, commented on the transition in the show's official newsletter:
- The biggest challenge in the HD conversion was to renovate and upgrade our old control room, audio room, videotape room, and edit room while still doing five shows a week....This entailed pulling a remote production truck on 53rd Street running somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 feet of video and audio cable just to tie the truck to the existing technical plant....
- The coolest piece of equipment is our new control room Virtual Wall. We have done away with the conventional monitor for every video source and replaced it with four 70-inch rear projection screens and within those screens we can "virtually" place as many video images as we want, anywhere we want them, and when we want it.
Other staff
In 1996, Dave fired longtime producer Robert Morton for an apparent botched attempt to move the show to ABC in place of Nightline. Jay Leno's Tonight Show had also recently overtaken the Late Show in viewers, and director Hal Gurnee, producer Peter Lassally and announcer Bill Wendell also left around this time. Dave seemed to take on a more somber tone from this date forward, though he did promote writer Rob Burnett to Executive Producer, a post he holds to this day. Burnett was absent from the day-to-day operations, however, from 2000-2004, replaced by Barbara Gaines and Maria Pope. While Gaines took over behind-the-scenes duties admirably, Pope insisted on the on-air producer role; she was to be onstage but just out of camera range. The show seemed to suffer greatly due to Pope's presence, and Dave showed a renewed sense of ease with her departure in 2004. Lassally was invited back to the show in February 2005 as a guest shortly after the death of Johnny Carson.
International broadcasts
| Country | Broadcaster |
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| Middle East | |
| Australia | |
| Brazil | |
| Canada | |
| Denmark | |
| Hong Kong | |
| Italy | |
| Latin America | |
| Malaysia | |
| Mexico | |
| New Zealand | |
| Norway | |
| The Philippines | |
| Sweden | |
| United Kingdom |
Statistics
The following is a list of statistics about the first twelve years of the show:
- 2,458 broadcast hours (2,418 shows, four prime time specials, 26 guest host shows, ten Late Show Backstage shows)
- 6,312 guests, performances, demonstrations and stand-up acts
- 1,459 cameos
- Most frequent guests:
- Rupert Jee (284)
- Mujibur and Sirajul (91)
- Regis Philbin (87)
- Tony Randall (74)
- Most frequent musical guests:
- Elvis Costello (16)
- Lyle Lovett (15)
- Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson (14)
- Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews Band, Bonnie Raitt (13)
- Blues Traveler, Foo Fighters, Jewel, Natalie Merchant (12)
- Most frequent comedic guests:
- Brian Regan (16)
- Jake Johannsen (14)
- Jim Gaffigan (11)
- Mitch Hedberg (10)
- Wendy Liebman (9)
External links
- Official Sites:
- Profiles:
- Fan Sites:
- Media:
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