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Seven Random Things About Dave
May. 20th, 2015 09:20 pmNot even ten would really be enough, when you have 33 late night years split between two networks and studios. Still, in fairness, I haven't been a regular for that many of them, so seven is probably about right- and I am not going to just ape a top ten list on the final night for doing so.
We first heard about this weird daytime show by this weird guy when I was in college. He wasn't a Hollywood star, nor did he have the Lampoon or SCTV pedigrees that were virtual tickets to getting past the cool-comedy gatekeepers of the era. He had done jokes for and/or with Mary Tyler Moore, and not even her beloved sitcom but her short-lived variety show, gonged after three episodes. Here's a clip I doubt we'll see tonight- from 1978, of Mary singing with Dave and, um, Batman?!?
But this NBC thing wasn't just edgy, it was over the edge. It also went completely over the heads of the hausfraus that were home on weekdays waiting for their "stories" to come on. So NBC had to do SOMETHING with this talent, and fortunately, it found a place to put him just as his comedy was becoming better known: a post-Carson slot previously occupied by the fair-enough-I'll-buy-that-hahahahaHA drollness of longtime NBC News anchor Tom Snyder:
In 1981, Johnny Carson, after several years of acrimony, settled a contract dispute with NBC with an agreement that kept him with the network, and among the terms of the agreement was that Carson would gain control of the time slot following The Tonight Show. On November 9, 1981, NBC and Carson's production company Carson Productions announced the creation of Late Night with David Letterman, a program set to premiere in early 1982 in the 12:30 a.m. time slot Monday through Thursday.
Years later, Dave repaid Tom for the time slot by tapping him to host the new CBS 12:30 Late Late gig for its first incarnation.
The rest of the history is better known, and will be homaged ad infinitum tonight (I missed Dylan's performance last night because I didn't set the DVR to go long enough, and I've got four hours booked on tonight's disk). So, from Not the Home Office in East Otto, New York, those Seven Random Things:
( Number Five!- The Laugh )
( Number Three!- The Loyalty )
(I said these would be random, didn't I?)
( Number Six!- The Interviewing )
( Number Two!- The Bad Became Good )
(I meant to have that outside the cut.)
( Number Seven!- The Music )
( Number Four! - The Comfort Food )
( And the Number One Random Thing!- The Game Change )
We had long and eventful days today, which I'll recount in time (it's mostly good, at least at the moment), and I may be out of town the next two, so I won't be spoiling tonight's final show until I've seen it, which might not be until the weekend. Yet if I'm up in the middle of the night, I'll have no choice but to check in on the proceedings, to see if there's a Stupid Pet other than ours, or a watermelon being hurled to the pavement below, or a final gift basket being delivered to Comcast headquarters to apologize for the time Dave almost got arrested sending one to GE.
Say farewell to our good friend Dave Letterman, he's right over there- one night only:(
We first heard about this weird daytime show by this weird guy when I was in college. He wasn't a Hollywood star, nor did he have the Lampoon or SCTV pedigrees that were virtual tickets to getting past the cool-comedy gatekeepers of the era. He had done jokes for and/or with Mary Tyler Moore, and not even her beloved sitcom but her short-lived variety show, gonged after three episodes. Here's a clip I doubt we'll see tonight- from 1978, of Mary singing with Dave and, um, Batman?!?
But this NBC thing wasn't just edgy, it was over the edge. It also went completely over the heads of the hausfraus that were home on weekdays waiting for their "stories" to come on. So NBC had to do SOMETHING with this talent, and fortunately, it found a place to put him just as his comedy was becoming better known: a post-Carson slot previously occupied by the fair-enough-I'll-buy-that-hahahahaHA drollness of longtime NBC News anchor Tom Snyder:
In 1981, Johnny Carson, after several years of acrimony, settled a contract dispute with NBC with an agreement that kept him with the network, and among the terms of the agreement was that Carson would gain control of the time slot following The Tonight Show. On November 9, 1981, NBC and Carson's production company Carson Productions announced the creation of Late Night with David Letterman, a program set to premiere in early 1982 in the 12:30 a.m. time slot Monday through Thursday.
Years later, Dave repaid Tom for the time slot by tapping him to host the new CBS 12:30 Late Late gig for its first incarnation.
The rest of the history is better known, and will be homaged ad infinitum tonight (I missed Dylan's performance last night because I didn't set the DVR to go long enough, and I've got four hours booked on tonight's disk). So, from Not the Home Office in East Otto, New York, those Seven Random Things:
( Number Five!- The Laugh )
( Number Three!- The Loyalty )
(I said these would be random, didn't I?)
( Number Six!- The Interviewing )
( Number Two!- The Bad Became Good )
(I meant to have that outside the cut.)
( Number Seven!- The Music )
( Number Four! - The Comfort Food )
( And the Number One Random Thing!- The Game Change )
We had long and eventful days today, which I'll recount in time (it's mostly good, at least at the moment), and I may be out of town the next two, so I won't be spoiling tonight's final show until I've seen it, which might not be until the weekend. Yet if I'm up in the middle of the night, I'll have no choice but to check in on the proceedings, to see if there's a Stupid Pet other than ours, or a watermelon being hurled to the pavement below, or a final gift basket being delivered to Comcast headquarters to apologize for the time Dave almost got arrested sending one to GE.
Say farewell to our good friend Dave Letterman, he's right over there- one night only:(