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David Letterman's final shows...

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by RecoveringJournalist, May 13, 2015.

  1. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Paging Dr. Freud
     
  2. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Isn't that also around the time Silverman was pushing Supertrain and Manimal? Silverman was a disaster at NBC, but he was right to kill all the rural programming when he was at CBS, because that paved the way for the network to rule the 1970s with All in the Family and its spinoffs and grab the youth demographic (which CBS has punted down the river in spades since)
     
  3. steveu

    steveu Well-Known Member

    Ya, Supertrain was 1979. Manimal was actually Brandon Tartikoff's brainchild in 1983. :)

    Funny thing is Silverman's instincts were dead-on at CBS and ABC. Everything just went south for him at NBC.
     
  4. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    As I pour more thought into this, I wonder if the rise in people turning off Letterman had as much to do with us as a collective as Letterman's act not being the same. Many of us who were in grade/high school and college in the 80s were full-fledged adults with families by the time late-1990s Letterman hit the stage. Are you staying up until 12:30 a.m. to watch a talk show if you're plugging away at a 9-to-5 with a kid and a mortgage? Probably not as much. Many of us lost years of watching from being in the sports department at 11:30 on a Wednesday night or whatever.

    Also, I really consider Letterman's final show at NBC to be the goodbye to the Dave we all grew to love and admire. That conflict with management, which started from the beginning when he tried to deliver the fruit basket to GE management, really drove a lot of his personality and on-air smartassery. It was as if he was saying nightly, "we know our bosses are morons, so lets fuck with them." Moving to CBS meant moving to a company that respected him and valued him. They bought the fucking Ed Sullivan Theater and renovated it just for his show for crissakes. You get that kind of deal the last thing you want to do is instigate them and turn them off. Who among us wouldn't get fat, happy and comfortable in those circumstances?
     
  5. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    I watched Letterman religiously in high school and college and for a few years after that. For, probably the last 10-15 years, it's seemed to me, like he's been phoning it in about 75 percent of the time, maybe more. He'd bring his A-game when he had a really good guest, or one who he had a connection with, and I started only watching when that was the case. If Stern was on, or Julia Roberts or Bruce Willis, or Chris Elliot, he'd be tremendous. I remember watching a couple years back and Anna Faris was on and she was not a bad guest, but Letterman looked like he was ready to kill himself.

    I started watching Kimmel as soon as that started and I've been hooked since. He seems to enjoy the job and the guests seem to like him and he pulls some of the pranks that would have been very Lettermanesque 20+ years ago.
     
    sgreenwell likes this.
  6. WCIBN

    WCIBN Active Member

  7. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    The Letterman show ended last Wednesday. The staff had until Friday to vacate the offices. Giant chunks of the set wound up in dumpsters on 53rd Street, and the seats have been removed from the theater.

    They took down the marquee on the Ed Sullivan Theater overnight.
     
  8. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    Well, that's show biz!
     
  9. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    I didn't expect them to turn it into a museum, but I figured the stuff would come down gradually and not just wind up in the dumpster a few days later.
     
  10. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    In my last job, I worked a block away from the Letterman show and on 5-6 occasions, attended tapings when they were giving away extra tickets. They often gave away tickets on Thursday because they did two shows on that date.

    Dave was funny at times, but there was so little connection with the audience. Compare that with Colbert and Stewart, who also taped in the same general neighborhood, and it was night and day. Dave was more than just a bit aloof, he seemed practically annoyed that he had to be there.
     
  11. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    This was strong.
     
  12. sgreenwell

    sgreenwell Well-Known Member

    I have a buddy that might be interested in that, he used to host the Merv Griffin Show in his apartment.

     
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