LATE SHOW NEWS #236    *** FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE ***
February 17, 1999
posted March 12
by Aaron Barnhart


	"The Feb. 14th 'Late Show' featuring the
	premiere of Dave's Mom's ... was Dave's
	highest-rated show since [the] debut on August
	28, 1993.  The reasons seem pretty clear: CBS
	produced special 'Dave's Mom' spots, word of
	mouth spread quickly once Dave announced on the
	show last week that this was not a gag and that
	Hillary Clinton would be Mom's first guest, and
	there was that agreement binding all CBS
	affiliates to air 'Late Show' at its 'live' 
	clearance time of 11:35 p.m. Eastern ...
	Weasel stations will return to running Dave
	after "Studs" or reruns of "M*A*S*H" on the
	28th. If you live in a market that normally
	carries Dave on a delayed basis, this would be
	an excellent opportunity for you to write
	station management and tell them how much you're
	enjoying watching the show at this 'new' time."
	(Letterman News #1, Feb. 17, 1994)
	
	That's how it started, five years ago -- a David
	Letterman fansheet, reborn a few days later as
	LATE SHOW NEWS.  Back then, I put the lineups in
	the front, the news and commentary in the back:
    
	"We sure hope former NBC late-show host TOM
	SNYDER is enjoying his week in the sun.  He
	deserves it.  Big, bombastic, and wonderfully
	unhip Snyder has been the focus of attention
	since a columnist for the New York Daily News
	'confirmed' that CBS and David Letterman's
	people had asked Tom to host the new program, to
	be produced by Worldwide Pants, that would
	follow Dave at 12:35 a.m ...  Tom [has] a
	long-term deal with CNBC, where flanked by some
	of our day's most notorious second-rate t.v.
	personalities, he has total command over the
	pond.  Still, cable has shown us that there's
	plenty of life in the guy, and led to a Snyder
	renaissance of sorts." (Late Show News #2, Feb.
	22, 1994)
	
	There was a lot going on in late-night, and
	LATE SHOW NEWS spent months trying to harness it
	all and get in front of the curve.  Mere weeks
	before Arsenio Hall announced his departure from
	talk, I wrote:
	
	"It is clear that 'The Arsenio Hall Show' has
	lost its early sparkle, probably for good. 
	While it might be a solid moneymaking vehicle
	for Hall Productions, Arsenio would be well
	advised to revamp it soon.  He has apparently
	prepared all of his life to do talk t.v., since
	he first got hooked on the Carson show as a boy
	in a Cleveland ghetto. But that was before he
	ever dreamed of pulling in a $12 million salary.
	Having learned a lot about sacrifice growing up,
	it may be time for Arsenio Hall to put his nose
	to the grindstone again and reinvent the program
	that, as much as the Letterman show, made
	late-night television in the post-Carson era."
	(LSN #7, Apr. 29, 1994)
	
	I did a three-parter on Ted Koppel:
	
	"Koppel realizes that he and his friendly rival
	Letterman are part of a vanishing breed, that of
	the old-fashioned t.v. broadcaster.  Dave
	reaches into his 1950s grab bag for wholesome
	entertainment ideas and cultivates a Garry Moore
	geniality to win over his new, larger audience,
	while Ted unapologetically speaks to the holders
	of power and the central figures in stories that
	tens of millions are following.  And both of
	them fear, quite rightly, for their collective
	future as beacons to the masses. ...  An
	interactive future with hundreds of televised
	choices available to the individual will doom
	t.v. and with it, Koppel believes, the last
	semblance of mass media in this country." (LSN
	#22, July 19, 1994) 	
	
	Recounting the 1988 Writers Guild strike that
	forced David Letterman to anchor several weeks
	of his show without writers, I wrote: "It must
	have been grueling work, especially given his
	perfectionistic streak, although
	characteristically he mocked himself on the air
	when, after doing a month's worth of new shows,
	he took another week off. Yet we recently had
	occasion to watch a number of those episodes
	from July and August of '88, and in them
	Letterman is simply at the top of his form as a
	broadcaster.
	
	"Despite their painfully bad Top Tens (Dave
	would get about six or seven written down and
	then fill the rest of the slots with 'Not
	available due to writers' strike') and techie
	binges (abundant use of Hal Gurnee's Network
	Time Killers and special cams, including one
	program shot from 13 different angles), these
	shows stand out largely on the strength of
	Dave's opening segments.  In one, he spends ten
	minutes recounting a speeding ticket issued to
	him the night before at, of all places, LAX
	airport.  Three such segments over consecutive
	evenings are spent being fitted on-air for a new
	suit. ... It's not that the show is any less
	prepared than before, but without so many cars
	on the freeway, and the relentless push of jokes
	waiting to be told, the ride is different,
	smoother, perhaps more exhilarating.

	"Not that we are complaining about this first
	season on CBS; it's been a trip all right,
	though more like one on a roller coaster. Many
	recent shows, however, have seemed to be running
	on synthetic zip, an orchestrated hurly-burly of
	items that fly away from the host and hit
	nothing in particular. ... Some nights, what
	'Late Show' could use is a sedative that would
	bring its metabolism down to the level of a
	writers' strike. More stories, like Dave's
	hilarious recounting a while back of his trip to
	the White House to visit the Clintons.  More
	time chatting with Paul -- we miss that
	especially." (LSN #24, Aug. 2, 1994)
	
	On the passing of the first late-night host,
	Jerry Lester of "Broadway Open House," I wrote:
	"The comedy-variety show was NBC's ticket to the
	top of the burgeoning new medium of t.v. In
	addition to 'Broadway Open House,' there was
	Uncle Miltie, the 'Colgate Comedy Hour' and
	perhaps the biggest phenomenon of them all,
	'Your Show of Shows,' which by 1952 was being
	watched by nearly everyone with a set. The word
	'Broadway' was probably strategic ... During his
	years of quixotic battle with the Ed Sullivan
	show, Steve Allen would brag that he was putting
	on a 'Broadway-quality show every week.' Pat
	Weaver claimed that what America saw when they
	tuned in to _Your Show of Shows_ 'was better
	than most of the Broadway comedies.'

	"As television grew in stature and power, it no
	longer had to bother with comparisons to other
	cultural icons, for it had become the defining
	icon irrespective of the quality of its content.
	But by then Jerry Lester, and for that matter
	Steve Allen, had moved on, each of them
	convinced that richer horizons loomed ahead. 
	Apropos of their places in the evolution of
	t.v., Allen left to try creating his own 'show
	of shows' on Sunday nights, while Lester
	returned to the theater and to standup comedy --
	that is, relative oblivion." (LSN #57, March 28,
	1995)
	
	A few weeks after Jay Leno passed Dave Letterman
	in the late-night ratings: "Some might say there
	have been numerous distractions to account for
	'Late Show's' poor performance of late, ranging
	from the loss of Dave's agent (now Disney prez)
	Mike Ovitz to the disappearance of CBS's
	prime-time audience. But these are just morsels
	for the entertainment press; they aren't actual
	impediments to creativity. One factor, however,
	just might be: Dave is doing too damned many
	shows. During eleven and a half seasons at NBC,
	Letterman averaged 160 broadcasts a year, or
	forty weeks times four with twelve weeks'
	vacation. And he did this while working for the
	King of Late Night, who taped even fewer shows.
	So long as Johnny ruled the roost, it was
	understood that network talent didn't work on
	Mondays (or Fridays, in the case of Letterman's
	first few seasons). Let the pretenders bust
	their butts five nights a week. That changed
	when Jay Leno took over and his manager and
	producer, Helen Kushnick, decided to make a
	clean break with the Carson years. ...
	
	"Result: excepting Greg Kinnear, everybody is
	now doing 220 broadcasts per year, a third more
	than Carson's average ... Inevitably, the
	chore of filling the sixty additional hours of
	t.v. time has fallen to repetitive as opposed to
	creative devices, like O'Brien's 'Clutch Cargo'
	moving lips or Letterman characters Mujibur and
	Sirajul -- sticks of gum that lost their flavor
	long ago." (LSN #76, Aug. 22, 1995) Weeks after
	I wrote this, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"
	announced a four-tapings-per-week schedule.
	
	"As if to test the loyalty of the many female
	viewers who now watch Dave since he jumped to
	11:35 and CBS, the 'Late Show' is regularly
	airing material that would once have earned its
	writers the charge of sexism. It's a charge not
	leveled lightly, and I've shrugged off letters
	sent in recent months by readers peeved at
	Dave's treatment of female guests. On the other
	hand, here we are, beginning the third season of
	the new improved Letterman, and he's *still*
	cracking jokes about Janet Reno." (LSN #79,
	Sept. 19, 1995)
	
	On HBO's "The Late Shift": "This film is a
	four-star disappointment, a bewildering mess of
	Machiavellian intrigue and sitcom stupidity that
	might best be compared to recent 'SNL' broadcasts,
	with their high production values, questionable
	premises, and shockingly poor execution. In an
	irony that is becoming sadly too commonplace in
	this decade, HBO has produced a movie about two
	comedians, done by two comedic talents, producer
	Ivan ('Ghostbusters', 'Dave') Reitman and
	director Betty ('Dream On') Thomas -- and it is
	painfully unfunny." (LSN #93, Jan. 9, 1996)
	
	Dateline Pasadena: NBC announces to TV critics
	that Conan O'Brien is getting his first
	long-term extension. "Conan is finally getting
	showered with unrestrained hosannas for the
	first time on 'Late Night.' He will air an
	anniversary special -- another first -- for his
	Sept. 13 show, and that almost certainly will
	lead to prime-time anniversary gigs in years to
	come. Fame, which has been doing a cute fandango
	with him,  now seems to be wanting to go
	cheek-to-cheek. Will fame change his show from a
	comedy playpen into a joke mill? Will his
	unusually good people skills be increasingly
	used to ingratiate himself to reporters instead
	of keeping staff morale buoyed?  You know what
	outcome I'm rooting for." (LSN #117, July 16,
	1996)
	
	"After nearly two years of uninspiring ratings, 'Rush
	Limbaugh the Television Show,' which earned a
	reputation as a Teflon program incapable of preserving
	its lead-in audience, will cease production Sept. 6.
	'I've been pushed later and later and in the process
	lost a lot of potential audience,' moaned Limbaugh last
	week in announcing his departure. Fact is, however,
	that the show has been scheduled at nearly every
	daypart, with lead-ins ranging from talk shows to
	tabloids to true-crime strips and yet, as station
	managers have testified to me over the years, no matter
	where you put Rush, it seems only the Dittoheads will
	watch him." (LSN #118, July 23, 1996)
	
	"Doe-eyed and impeccably well groomed, Craig
	Kilborn, the former ESPN anchor turned Weekend
	Update wannabe on Comedy Central's 'The Daily
	Show,' knows how to turn on the smarm. Offering
	his nightly unsolicited promotion for daytime
	talker 'Caryl & Marilyn: Best Friends,' Kilborn
	never tires of telling us that they really *are*
	friends, adding, with a glint in his eye, 'And
	that's why it just might work.' Delivering one
	of his mock sermonettes, he is bursting with
	fake sincerity. 'De-tassel your cars,' he urges
	recent high-school graduates. 'Go back and get
	that community college degree.  I believe in
	you!' Right.

	"While Dennis Miller, the standard by which all
	faux newscasters are judged, revels in playing
	the angry outsider, the polished and cheeky
	Kilborn takes a decidedly establishmentarian
	tack.  That, and the show's inspired mix of
	smart-ass material from Lizz Winstead and her
	crack staff of writers, help this new half-hour
	topical comedy series stand apart from its
	late-night peers." (LSN #122, Aug. 27, 1996)
	
	"No comedian currently performing owes as much
	to Johnny Carson as Bill Maher; his light body
	English is such a contrast to Conan's physical
	jerks, Jay's nervous pacing, and Dave's huge,
	amphitheater-style gestures. ... Interestingly,
	the most serious complaint against Maher I'm
	hearing this week has more to do with his
	demeanor off-camera than on.  He is not, shall
	we say, a very personable guy. ...

	"Sooner or later, [critics] say, this meanness
	will surface on the air and will scare viewers
	off. I'm not so sure.  True, today's
	up-close-and-personal entertainment media
	virtually ensures we get to see the stars with
	all their blemishes.  But 'PI's' target audience
	has been reading dishy celebrity exposes for
	years, and by this point in time, being an
	asshole probably rates far down their list of
	t.v. star sins.  A similar story describing 'The
	Rosie O'Donnell Show' as behind-the-scenes hell
	appears in the latest New York Observer; but
	most of the staffers cited in the piece admit
	they find Rosie truly is wonderful on camera,
	and isn't that what it's all about anyway?" (LSN
	#138, Jan. 13, 1997)
    
	"Fifteen years ago, on July 28, 1982, David
	Letterman put on a talk show, and a wrestling
	match broke out. Andy Kaufman, a singular figure
	in entertainment whose antics both on and off
	the tube were already legendary, struck a blow
	for performance art, or rather received one,
	when he was clobbered by pro wrestler Jerry
	Lawler during a taping of Letterman's new
	late-night talk show on NBC. On the same date in
	1987, Letterman himself was in the line of fire
	as a segment with the actor Crispin Glover
	disintegrated into a kicking exhibition, with
	one foot coming very near Letterman's pricey
	head.

	"To this day, no one is really sure how much of
	either incident was staged or spontaneous. But
	the four players had in common -- Glover and
	Lawler, Letterman and Kaufman -- were not naive.
	They knew that few things in life are more
	staged than a television broadcast. Yet they
	surely realized there is no more effective or
	compelling theater than the live TV show where
	all of the elements are in perfect harmony. Or
	in this case, perfect discord." (LSN #163, July
	29, 1997)
	
	"I don't know about you, but I'm really starting
	to tire of [Charles] Grodin's performance-art
	shtick, now well into its third low-visibility
	season.  In case you missed it, Dave appeared on
	Grodin's CNBC talker Wednesday, but not before
	the host delivered about an, oh, 20-minute
	intro, then had Dave on for two segments, one
	and half of which were spent asking him the type
	of question that would be particularly of
	interest to an immigration agent.  Grodin said
	nothing entertaining during the interview and
	gave Dave few if any chances to say anything
	entertaining. Afterwards, host said goodnight to
	guest and to his Mom. Good night, Chuck ..."
	(LSN #170, Sept. 16, 1997)
	
	"Filmmaker and gonzo journalist Michael Moore
	has made a career out of getting his camera
	crews thrown out of corporate headquarters. But
	Monday night he dared a studio audience to throw
	him out -- of his own TV talk show, no less.
	During a taping of a late-night talk show in New
	York, an unscheduled pilot for the Fox network,
	Moore announced he was bringing out a 'special
	guest' -- none other than O.J. Simpson, football
	great and infamous trial defendant ... If the
	Fox network ever decides to do 'World's Scariest
	Talk Show Appearances,' this one is a cinch to
	get in." (LSN #180, Nov. 18, 1997)
	
	"I'm hard pressed to pick which was the dumber
	move: NBC's decision to oust Norm MacDonald as
	the guy who reads the fake news on 'Saturday
	Night Live' or Comedy Central's
	firing-slash-allowing the departure of Lizz
	Winstead as head writer and chief creative spark
	on 'The Daily Show.'  But I do know this:
	Neither show will be the same as a result." (LSN
	#186, Jan. 13, 1998)
						
	Following Howard Stern's hijacking of Magic
	Johnson's talk show: "That broadcast of 'The
	Magic Hour' will go down as one of the great
	moments of infamy in late night, right up there
	with Helen Kushnick cancelling a 'Tonight Show'
	broadcast and the first-ever 'Chevy Chase Show.'
				
	"What amazes me even now, several days after the
	fact, is the extraordinary stupidity of Earvin
	Johnson and his 'people' for extending the
	invite to Stern, and then not withdrawing it
	despite learning what Stern planned to do on the
	show.  He had demanded that his 'band,' The
	Losers, be allowed to perform their flatulent
	version of 'Wipe Out' as a condition for doing
	the show.  He said he would tell the host
	exactly what he thought of 'The Magic Hour,' a
	show he'd been roasting without mercy for three
	weeks on the radio.  Stern told his radio
	audience that he would embarrass Johnson on the
	air. And they let him do the show anyway!  The
	whole show!" (July 7, 1998)
    
    On Canada's "Open Mike with Mike Bullard":
    "What's really impressive about this show is how
	much of it Bullard fills with unscripted material
	-- and how consistently hi-grade are his ad libs. 
	During Wednesday's broadcast, after an especially
	tasteless Clinton joke failed to elicit the correct
	audience response, Bullard said, "It's at times
	like this I'd like to remind you that we're all
	Canadians." (LSN #221, Oct. 13, 1998)
	
	"It seems unlikely that we'll look back at the
	past seven years of overnight network news with
	any great nostalgia.  But it is passing quietly
	from the scene, at least as its own distinct
	news entity, so this is as good a time as any to
	remember it. While fonder memories may be
	reserved for the 'NBC News Overnight,' which
	signed off 15 years ago, the overnight news
	programs of the '90s had their own quiet appeal
	as one of the last places on network TV where
	news remained a work in progress." (LSN #228,
	Dec. 15, 1998)
	
    ***
    
	Overnight news might be the best analogy for
	what I produced in five years of LATE SHOW NEWS,
	a work in progress if there ever was one. Nearly
	every week I would be up into the wee hours
	getting one of these issues out -- 250 of them,
	roughly, in five years -- and while I never made
	a dime e-mailing them to my subscribers, it was
	one of the best investments of time I've ever
	made.
	
	From the beginning of this experiment in
	Internet journalism, I was dependent on the
	support and advice and tips I received every day
	through e-mail. Above all, I want to thank three
	people.
    
	At around noon on Feb. 17, 1994, I posted the
	first issue of LETTERMAN NEWS from my desk at my
	real-estate job in Chicago. Four hours later I
	received this e-mail:
    
        Aaron,
        I love LETTERMAN NEWS!! Keep 'em coming. Actual 
        useful and interesting info is a rare and wonderful 
        thing on the 'net.
    
        --S.
    
	That was the beginning of what has become a
	wonderful friendship with Sue Trowbridge, the
	person responsible for the late-night lineups at
	the back of every issue of LATE SHOW NEWS that
	followed.  The early feedback I received from
	Sue and a handful of others encouraged me to
	rename the zine and begin issuing it every
	Tuesday. 
	
	A month after I launched LSN I got an e-mail
	from a freelance writer named Richard Gehr.  He
	had seen my stuff on the WELL and wanted to
	write 200 words on me for the Village Voice. 
	Then, he changed his mind. He thought *I* should
	write for the Village Voice. As it happened I
	was going to New York at the end of the month to
	see a "Late Show" taping. We met with his
	editor, Jeff Salamon, and that's how my first
	print assignment came about.  Richard saw
	potential in me before anyone else did and for
	that he has my eternal gratitude.
	
	The third person I must thank is the former
	Diane Carlson.  She didn't immediately grasp
	that this little online vocation of mine would
	burgeon into a career, but soon she began
	cheering me on.  More importantly, after we
	married and made a home for ourselves, she gave
	me permission to quit my drudge job -- so to
	speak -- and write full-time. I wouldn't be
	where I am now had she not made that leap of
	faith.  Actually, a lot of life is made up of
	leaps of faith.
	
	Other people who deserve recognition here:
	
	Don Giller, aka Donz5, has supplied me with more
	information than anyone else. He also let me
	write 2,000 words about him for the Voice in
	1995. Tom Heald, Tom Roche, Harrison Wyman and
	Mark Evanier also contributed mightily.
	
	Those who sent me words of encouragement in
	those first few days of LATE SHOW NEWS included
	Steve Pace, David W. Fields, Mary Ballard, Scott
	Barvian, Val Dodge, Shawn Trexler, and from the
	"Late Show" Rick Scheckman, who's still there,
	and Chris Schomer, who's not.  Bob Rossney, then
	doing an online column for the San Francisco
	Chronicle, was the first to actually write me up.
	
	Marc Gunther and Bill Carter got me into two
	sections of the New York Times. Bill, of course,
	also supplied the intellectual stimulus for that
	first LETTERMAN NEWS (his book "The Late Shift"
	had just been released). Jim Windolf gave me a
	break at the New York Observer after Richard
	Gehr pointed me to him.
	
	George Schweitzer at CBS was the first network
	executive to open his door to me. Conan O'Brien,
	Jay Leno, Robert Morton, Rob Burnett, Jeff Ross,
	Scott Carter and Peter Lassally were generous
	with their time before I ever went "legit."  I
	was introduced to Jon Stewart at a taping of
	"Politically Incorrect" and he instantly
	recalled the nice review of his syndicated show
	I'd written two years earlier.  I can't recall
	an encounter that so impressed and flattered the
	hell out of me as that one. Tom Snyder and I
	had a very pleasant chat in L.A. in 1996.  Yeah,
	I overreacted to his form letter passing on all
	media requests.  Happy retirement, Tom.
	
	Lastly, thanks to all of you for reading,
	sending e-mail and telling your friends about
	me.  I feel very lucky to have had you as my
	audience this half decade, and I hope you'll
	continue to be with me over at the TV Barn.
	
	There is more to say about this very charmed
	time, these last five years that changed my
	life, but I should save some of it for my *own*
	retirement. And anyway, it's late and so is this
	issue. So drive safely, and we'll see you here
	next time.
		
***

Entire contents Copyright 1999 by Aaron Barnhart. All
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