Dave Letterman - c/d?

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I think he's still solidly classic. The only dud parts of his show are the interviews, but you could say that about pretty much any talk show. The recent 4AM show was great the whole way through (well, until Modest Mouse played) because there were no real interviews, just the comedy bits.

NA (Nick A.), Thursday, 10 June 2004 15:12 (twenty years ago) link

he goes through hills and valleys these days. lately the show has been pretty funny. I like Smitty, his assistant. but it also goes through dry spells where it seems like he's phoning it in. still always better than leno though.

kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 10 June 2004 15:26 (twenty years ago) link

this thread shouldn't even exist. David Letterman is absolutely classic, whether it's the sport jacket days of old or the current suit days.

cramedog, Thursday, 10 June 2004 15:42 (twenty years ago) link

Used to be funny (especially when Chris Elliot was writing), then go less funny, then got to be kinda pathetic.

dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 10 June 2004 15:53 (twenty years ago) link

Some of those sketches they did on the old NBC show were great, especially the ones where Chris Elliot was the conspiracy guy and later the guy beneath the stairs.

earlnash, Thursday, 10 June 2004 17:06 (twenty years ago) link

"Can anyone who saw it give me a decent account of his Oscar hosting - I can't really find more than a couple of lines about it on the net, a brief description followed by "it was excruciating" or something like that. What did he do??"

I remember enjoying his oscar hosting gig along with my family. He did video taped skits if I can recall. It wasn't disimilar to the comedy bits on his show. All of the aftermath about it being "bad" was kind of weird. If I could speculate, it could be because people take the awards somewhat seriously. His wiseass approach may have turned off soccer moms and celebrity journalism types. The following year was hosted by the pompous, unfunny Whoopie Goldberg who America inexplicably preferred.

theodore fogelsanger, Thursday, 10 June 2004 17:32 (twenty years ago) link

his oscar show was great! he did kind of treat it like his own show though.

kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 10 June 2004 17:41 (twenty years ago) link

I thought his stint at the Oscars was amusing too. I'm not really sure who decided it was awful, I've actually never met someone who claimed it as an awful performance, particularly in light of other Oscar MCs

Allyzay, Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:03 (twenty years ago) link

has anyone seen the old SNL skit where norm macdonald plays letterman? absolutely ABSURD shit!

cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:05 (twenty years ago) link

"Got any gum?"

VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:11 (twenty years ago) link

YES YES YES!

uhhhh.. got any gum?

i'm dying

cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:11 (twenty years ago) link

That's possibly the funniest thing Norm MacDonald ever did.

VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:12 (twenty years ago) link

So it's just become the done thing now to call his oscars bad, in the media anyway. Even he refers to it in a sarcastic or desultory way, sometimes.

de, Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:14 (twenty years ago) link

OMG I remember the skit now, that someone said "Got any gum". Holy shit, that was funny.

His David Letterman wasn't very dissimilar from his Larry King, now that I think about it.

Allyzay, Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:15 (twenty years ago) link

dan, you are sooo right.

the most absurd thing about the skit is it hardly has anything to do with letterman. mostly just macdonald and mark mckinney acting fucking insane.

cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:15 (twenty years ago) link

UHHH.. GOT ANY GUM

cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:16 (twenty years ago) link

"Hey Paul!"
"Yeah, man?"
"Uhhhh... got any gum? Heh heh heh! HOOO..."

VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:17 (twenty years ago) link

Ha ha ha.

NA (Nick A.), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:19 (twenty years ago) link

i must stop reading this thread, laughing uncontrollably at work thinking about this skit.

cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:20 (twenty years ago) link

Hey, cutty?

Allyzay, Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:22 (twenty years ago) link

stop it

cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:24 (twenty years ago) link

Got any gum?

VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:24 (twenty years ago) link

I really liked his Larry King sketches too, and they were made funnier by the fact that the audience never laughed at them.

NA (Nick A.), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:24 (twenty years ago) link

I'm totally bringing gum to John St. tonight.

Allyzay, Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:24 (twenty years ago) link

i never found him funny at all

amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:25 (twenty years ago) link

oh jesus christ i cannot read that

cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:26 (twenty years ago) link

Letterman or Norm MacDonald? Or both?

NA (Nick A.), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:26 (twenty years ago) link

Dave's trip to London in '95 was fookin' killer.

Kingfish Disraeli (Kingfish), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:27 (twenty years ago) link

William Hurt: Andie MacDowell's performance in this movie really drove the story..

David Letterman: Oh-ho, Andie MacDowell! Did Andie MacDowell ever give you one of these? [ starts mimicking boxer moves ] Ha haa!! Huh? Hee hee! Can you imagine such a thing? Just, boom! Boom! Ha ha ha haaa!!

Paul Shaffer: Ah ha, ha ha ha ha!

William Hurt: What is your trip?

VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:27 (twenty years ago) link

I'm practically pissing myself after reading that, holy shit. CAN YOU SELL ME A HOT DOG??? What is the SNL obsession with hot dogs, btw? I think Spencer and I can be completely conquered by someone asking either of us if we'd eat ourselves if we were a hot dog. And the Larry King skit I best remembered involved him suddenly yelling, "I like...HOT DOGS."

Allyzay, Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:28 (twenty years ago) link

"I would. I'd eat myself with some mustard and relish. I'd be DELICIOUS."

NA (Nick A.), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:28 (twenty years ago) link

UHHH.. GOT ANY GUM?

Hee hee hooooo haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

cutty (mcutt), Friday, 11 June 2004 14:22 (twenty years ago) link

Hey Paul...you got any gum?

NA (Nick A.), Friday, 11 June 2004 14:29 (twenty years ago) link

what the fuck is up with the popeye's chicken thing? have they really been shilling this for days?

kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 05:58 (twenty years ago) link

D with a capital D.

Lo Boob Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 06:06 (twenty years ago) link

I don't know why but I always liked Norm's Burt Reynolds impersonation.

oops (Oops), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 06:09 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, the Popeye's thing has been going for a couple of weeks. They did the same thing a few months ago when Dave and Paul decided they liked the Schick Quattro.

Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 07:39 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...
They reran an episode that was just on a month ago. They didn't even bother with a celebrity guest, Jack Hannah was batting lead-off. I loved Dave to death growing up, taping his shows and watching them after school the next day. However, the blatant sleepwalking is tarnishing his career.

Are his writers all in their late sixties? Why would anyone find him funny anymore?

Carson in '85 was funnier than this.

Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 28 October 2005 03:24 (nineteen years ago) link

he's still funny every time I watch, I watch him for weeks at a time then a bad show will break the habit for a while. Plus, he gives Tom Waits a TV home, he should get a medal for that. Classic. It's starting right now wow! I'm getting back on the horse, fuck it.

tremendoid (tremendoid), Friday, 28 October 2005 05:40 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm pissed I missed Jerry Lewis the other night.

Best 1982-86, esp when Sandra Bernhard or Pee-Wee were on. He's still gold compared to fucking Leno, but I watch maybe 3x a year.

The reason his Oscar hosting was called 'bad' is his sensibility jarred with that of the Academy. Since the ideal Oscar show would involve the host dynamiting the theater, he was fine. His joke that "Eat Drink Man Woman" was how Schwarzenegger first asked Maria Shriver on a date -- followed by a grinning thru gritted teeth shot of Ahnuld in the audience -- was justification for the assignment by itself.

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 28 October 2005 12:35 (nineteen years ago) link

And "Uma.....Oprah, Oprah.....Uma" became part of the lexicon for a while.

nickn (nickn), Friday, 28 October 2005 20:53 (nineteen years ago) link

people watch Saturday Night Live???

sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 28 October 2005 21:02 (nineteen years ago) link

"Funny Headlines" are ten times funnier than "Does It Float?", and I can't stand Jay Leno. Dave needs an intervention. "Know Your Cuts of Meat"... Good grief.

Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 28 October 2005 21:06 (nineteen years ago) link

remember the crispen glover debacle?

howell huser (chaki), Friday, 28 October 2005 21:49 (nineteen years ago) link

Debacle?

Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 28 October 2005 22:06 (nineteen years ago) link

By debacle, do you mean "greatest moment in television history"?

Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 28 October 2005 22:11 (nineteen years ago) link

Yeah, really.

Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 28 October 2005 22:24 (nineteen years ago) link

that is what i mean actually

howell huser (chaki), Friday, 28 October 2005 22:30 (nineteen years ago) link

oh yeah I watched the same show Pleasant Plains watched - Will it Float was boring, the week in review was funny, the top ten KILLED and, well, I wasn't gonna stay up watching Jack Hanna just to prove a point but it was a good show from what I saw.

tremendoid (tremendoid), Friday, 28 October 2005 22:49 (nineteen years ago) link

what's your angle, that Dave went on air and confessed all his sins but it was under the old rules and under the new rules he's a sexist fossil?

mh, Friday, 5 January 2018 19:47 (six years ago) link

Also wasn't Dave's thing a consensual affair (with an employee admittedly, but still)

Screamin' Jay Gould (The Yellow Kid), Saturday, 6 January 2018 02:27 (six years ago) link

yeah i guess I never heard that anything was necessarily bad about the affair unless you think any affair is misconduct

Joan Digimon (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 6 January 2018 02:29 (six years ago) link

Dave is so fucking boring

calstars, Saturday, 6 January 2018 02:47 (six years ago) link

Personally, the weirdest bit for me was that I was back a home for a summer, working an intern job and crashing with my parents, and would watch Letterman with my mom. And Monty was a fixture during that time, so my reaction was very much “god damn it, Dave, wtf”

mh, Saturday, 6 January 2018 05:37 (six years ago) link

there's a letterman interview with trump from like 1984 where dave goads him into running for office

flopson, Saturday, 6 January 2018 05:51 (six years ago) link

eh, Stone was pushing that on him earlier than that

mh, Saturday, 6 January 2018 05:53 (six years ago) link

a vanity fair article from 2009 by former writer nell scovell described the working environment as sexually charged and hostile.

mizzell, Saturday, 6 January 2018 18:30 (six years ago) link

what the hell whiney

k3vin k., Saturday, 6 January 2018 18:55 (six years ago) link

Chris Weingarten, Edge Lord

Johnny Fever, Saturday, 6 January 2018 19:05 (six years ago) link

Stern has talked about this on his show in the past couple of months. My take away was that it was a quid pro quo, Dave would finally do Howard’s show in exchange for H participating in D’s Netflix shit. Maybe an opening for H and Netflix, which he’s spoken of in a kind way before. And Netflix seems to have a bottomless wallet and their stock is flying, so yeah why not H as the fulcrum in a new audio division, where podacasters who want to make some $ could also go.

calstars, Saturday, 6 January 2018 19:12 (six years ago) link

anyone watching this?

kolakube (Ross), Sunday, 14 January 2018 04:03 (six years ago) link

Watched it last night. Liked it very much and was sad it was only an hour.

Johnny Fever, Sunday, 14 January 2018 04:04 (six years ago) link

I got tired of them congratulating/jerking each other off after 10 minutes or so. I'll watch the Malala Yousafzai episode but the others don't sound appealing.

LLAMAS ARE FOR CLOSERS (WilliamC), Sunday, 14 January 2018 04:13 (six years ago) link

Dave's side trip to Selma with John Lewis, cut into bits of the Obama conversation, upset the pacing a little bit but were very resonant (with me, at least...I'm not as jaded as some of yous).

Johnny Fever, Sunday, 14 January 2018 04:17 (six years ago) link

yeah I liked it, it was nice

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 14 January 2018 04:30 (six years ago) link

right there with you Johnny

kolakube (Ross), Sunday, 14 January 2018 04:43 (six years ago) link

two months pass...

Jay z interview was good but letterman addressing his own sexual misconduct felt weird and stilted

Droni Mitchell (Ross), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 17:04 (six years ago) link

this show sucks

kurt schwitterz, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:06 (six years ago) link

yeah it's not great. just found letterman getting a pass and then talking about it to be profoundly jarring

Droni Mitchell (Ross), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:12 (six years ago) link

it was undeniably cringey to see dave declare "they hate me" as he walked around oxford with malala yousafzai and a bunch of other college girls who, as far as I could tell, actually and truly did hate him

most other moments of the show also cringey. no part of me thinks he really wants to be doing any of this

del griffith, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:17 (six years ago) link

lol del what made you think they hated him?

Droni Mitchell (Ross), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:18 (six years ago) link

basically just things like their faces and words and postures and lack of words

del griffith, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:20 (six years ago) link

one month passes...

The author, Tina Fey, and Merrill Markoe all properly call BS on Dave here.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/david-letterman-netflix-tina-fey-interview.html

the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 17 May 2018 12:03 (six years ago) link

yeah that's a good piece

martin short's interiors (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 17 May 2018 12:21 (six years ago) link

i know a couple of the original Late Night writers, and they're funny guys, but plenty of women could've been their equal

the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 17 May 2018 14:31 (six years ago) link

the relationship between Dave and Merrill Markoe is very weird, that was a recurring theme from Jason Zinoman's Letterman bio of last year

Josefa, Thursday, 17 May 2018 14:43 (six years ago) link

seven months pass...

1) Years ago when I wrote for David Letterman we would make these fake broadway shows and put them on at the end of the show and never tell the audience they were fake. No one ever knew. https://t.co/uPQtupwycz

— rodneyrothman (@rodneyrothman) January 4, 2019

na (NA), Friday, 4 January 2019 21:17 (five years ago) link

the two fake musical numbers are fantastic

na (NA), Friday, 4 January 2019 21:21 (five years ago) link

omg dying

Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 4 January 2019 21:24 (five years ago) link

wow. totally worth perusing that whole thread. fresh step!

rip van wanko, Friday, 4 January 2019 21:33 (five years ago) link

lmao

Οὖτις, Friday, 4 January 2019 21:42 (five years ago) link

six months pass...

Dammit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfFG6YdayX4

Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 23 July 2019 14:34 (five years ago) link

I've been waiting for these!

Also, Don Giller recently (well, eight months ago) posted what is probably my favorite talk show appearance by anyone, ever (now with backstory!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGt2mBHDEEo

Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 23 July 2019 14:42 (five years ago) link

six months pass...

I'm easy to please, but I loved this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Oqk78YpQY

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 5 February 2020 22:41 (four years ago) link

Amazing combination of hosts and guest.

Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 5 February 2020 23:04 (four years ago) link

eight months pass...

Good interview

https://www.vulture.com/article/david-letterman-2020-election-trump-interview.html

Josh in Chicago, Monday, 2 November 2020 17:06 (three years ago) link

great read!
he was a guest on Busy Phillips’ podcast a month or so ago, and he talked about his gameshow past in more detail, ie working as a stand-in host for a show that was still casting the actual host, it was fun to think of that as his “whatif” career lol
I could read/listen to him talk about literally anything these days

terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 2 November 2020 20:33 (three years ago) link

Yeah its always really interesting to hear him talk about his days as a wandering showbiz jobber. Would love a doc or a real good bio that covered that era of his life up to the late show.

turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Monday, 2 November 2020 20:42 (three years ago) link

He is such a great storyteller. When he was on WTF last year, he told a long story about getting stuck in a gig opening for a Lola Falana musical revue in Denver where he bombed 2 shows a night for 10 days straight. Worth checking out

Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 2 November 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link

two years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54fd3T15JFg

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 01:27 (one year ago) link

those "favorite moments" videos have been a real highlight of my 2022 viewing

POLIZISTEN VERSINKEN IM SCHLAMM (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 02:55 (one year ago) link

eleven months pass...

Someone actually won Letterman's marquee for The Late Show in a charity raffle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQM3j_s3Obk

Love how Letterman points out that the raffle was open "worldwide...and our winner is from New Jersey."

birdistheword, Wednesday, 17 January 2024 17:06 (nine months ago) link


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