Dave Letterman - c/d?

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.

uhhhh.. got any gum?

i'm dying

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

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.

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?

Hee hee hooooo haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

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

Carson in '85 was funnier than this.

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.

have you not been following the new news?

nope

what's the new news?

not turning up any

An industrywide reckoning for men accused of sexual misconduct?

that's old news

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?

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

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

Dave is so fucking boring

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”

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

eh, Stone was pushing that on him earlier than that

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

what the hell whiney

Chris Weingarten, Edge Lord

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.

anyone watching this?

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

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.

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).

yeah I liked it, it was nice

right there with you Johnny

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

this show sucks

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

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

lol del what made you think they hated him?

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

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

yeah that's a good piece

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

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

the two fake musical numbers are fantastic

omg dying

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

lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfFG6YdayX4&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1O34is5LORIGtHIExDJnkaCxFu-8ZDDWq1pyYfjT5ApOE5OCfDVWbQO18

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

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

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

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

Amazing combination of hosts and guest.

Good interview

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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."