Welcome to one among thousands of posts about David Letterman’s last day in
late night.
I had a typically punnish title ready to go before realizing that the survey of my
favorite things begun here for my 40th birthday hadn’t been updated in over a year.
A click on Dave’s name in the labels below will show that his brand of television, unsurprisingly, merits the designation.
Last Thursday Conan O’Brien, now holding court weeknights on TBS’s Conan, stopped by CBS’s The Late Show with David Letterman to chat with Dave about something the hosts rather infamously have in common.
I refer of course to sons playing tee-ball.
They also found time to discuss each man, in his own way, having been screwed out
of the former marquee gig in late-night broadcasting — Johnny Carson’s (and Jack Paar’s and Steve Allen’s) old chair behind the Tonight Show desk — by NBC in favor of Jay Leno. It’s a metaphorical chair, to be sure; Tonight hasn’t been filmed in the studio Carson used, let alone with the same “home base” furniture and props, since Johnny left. And the TV landscape sure isn’t the same as it was when Conan took over the post-Tonight slot at NBC from Dave when Letterman went to CBS to challenge Leno, never mind how different it is from Carson’s heyday.
This post is currently down for maintenance.
If you’re looking for a laugh amidst pre-Oscar fatigue (or just because), I direct you to
a gallery of doctored movie posters over at The Shiznit.
Ali Gray has reworked posters for the annual glut of prestige films to give them titles and taglines bluntly reflective of what the viewing public and/or the promoters think about them.
David Letterman has been goofing about Twitter for a while now. He acts more befuddled than he really is — say, mistaking the 17 feeds that the official Late Show Twitter account is following for the number of followers it has, or literally typing in
the words “hash tag”.
I was merely bemused with this ongoing bit, however, with one exception, until the moment frozen in the above screencap struck me.
This post is currently down for maintenance.
Christmas arrived at The Late Show with David Letterman a day early. Dave is always preempted on Christmas Eve so that CBS can air Mass, but this time the fabled meatball was toppled from the Ed Sullivan Theater’s Christmas tree on the night before the night before the Night before Christmas — when Dave rammed into the tree on a go-kart. He was trying out toys again with Shannon Eis.
A clip of the joy ride is up at the show’s website now; I don’t know how long it will last.
I’ve joined my grandparents for dinner the past couple of evenings, although that’s the extent of the similarities between this post and last year’s “Bing!”.
On Wednesday, Grandmom and I spoke about Lost. I’m taking a break from that subject for at least one post, however, since the coming weeks will be full of it.
Christmas is here. I wish you a day of peace.
Image © 2005 David Malki.
Are you perchance dreaming of a Betty White Christmas? The saucy gal, whose
shtick these days melds the randiness of her Sue Ann from The Mary Tyler Moore Show with the cluelessness of her Rose from The Golden Girls to great comedic effect, dropped by The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Monday night. While the seams showed a bit — I’m guessing not enough rehearsal time to memorize the lines or know what to riff on, hence the slight hiccups in dialogue betwixt her and Craig — she remains a national treasure. [bad link]
Has it really been a month since Conan O’Brien’s debut as Tonight Show host?
I took a look out of curiosity — as well as respect for both Conan and a late-night institution that dates back to before even Johnny Carson. The filmed opening was funny, but the rest of the taped bits offered diminishing returns and my Will Ferrell tolerance is low, so the main take-away for me was merely a vague excitement around the zeitgeist. One also has to wonder exactly what NBC has done to the TV landscape by slotting Jay Leno at 10 p.m. (ET) weeknights come the fall.
U2 lit up late night last week, visiting CBS’s Late Show to goof with David Letterman and perform five nights in a row. I was surprised by how funny the “on hold” sketch and Top Ten were — Edge’s ad-libs about Sting were particularly good.
A visit from Jon Stewart was icing on the cake, as he and Dave compared notes on hosting the Oscars.
I had a pretty good run going in The Late Show with David Letterman’s online Top Ten contest [dead link] a few years ago.
A mousepad was then the standard prize. When contacted for my mailing address
after my third win, I asked if I could perhaps get a T-shirt instead. Hanging proudly in my closet is a misprint whose logo extends from not far past my sternum on the right
to somewhere under my left armpit.
I began playing again several months back but victory has been elusive. You can play, too, submitting all the individual entries you care to based on the week’s category. I usually send in at least a half-dozen, brainstorming as many as I can that I really like along with the sort I think the folks behind the contest will go for based on the tone of past winners or running Late Show gags. Once the week is up, a decuple of winning submissions are chosen. They don’t get read on the show, keep in mind, simply posted on the web-site. Nowadays a T-shirt is the official prize, and presumably not a factory reject either.
Related: Low and Inside • Exile in Jayville • Feed Me Rewrite
