আমাদের কথা খুঁজে নিন
David Letterman May Have Lost Some Battles, But He Won the Late-Night Wars
Sure, David Letterman lost some battles along the way.
He waited out Johnny Carson in vain. Ceded ratings supremacy to Jay Leno. Endured embarrassing personal entanglements (stalking, blackmail), made some missteps (inappropriate workplace relationships) and faced real peril (emergency open heart surgery), all while remaining fiercely private.
SEE ALSO: David Letterman's Top 10 Late Night Television Moments
In spite of it all, Letterman outlasted a lot of lesser late-night lights to become the longest-running host on network TV. He’ll have some 33 years behind the desk by the time he retires next year, a few more than even Carson logged in his own legendary run.
During Dave’s time, Conan O’Brien came and went from network TV. Arsenio Hall, too — twice. Remember Dennis Miller? George Lopez? Whoopi Goldberg? Even Chevy Chase and Pat Sajak had a trip to the plate. Pat Sajak! We take for granted how fickle is the late-night game; how difficult it is to stick.
And all those young talents taking their swings now — Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers. Dave hung around long enough to see each of them essentially cast in his mold.
Yeah, Letterman lost some battles. But they’ve always called this late-night “wars” for a reason.
Dave won the war. Now he’ll take a victory lap to prove it.
Funny thing is, Letterman is about to turn 67, but he always was, and always will be, the mischievous one. The anti-establishment one. The irreverent kid in a world of stuffy grownups.
He reinvented our understanding of funny with that insouciant streak, hurling objects off his building and leaping onto a Velcro wall wearing a Velcro suit for no reason. Because it was his show and he could. Carson did silly, sure, but nothing as random as that.
I’d go so far as to say Letterman made “random” its own brand of funny. It was his thing for a good long while, until it became mainstream in the late ‘90s. That's so random, the kids still say. Almost sounds quaint now, doesn’t it?
But there was always something questioning and cerebral going on beneath the surface; some need for a deeper understanding. For that reason, not everything he tried necessarily worked. (Remember “Uma, Oprah”? That was so random!)
Leno liked to tell jokes and serve up softballs to his guests, but did he ever take a real risk for a laugh? Dave was punk rock to Leno’s easy listening; if he’d won the ratings, it wouldn’t have been right, anyway.
Letterman put self-deprecation in Conan’s back pocket. He made it OK for Jimmy Kimmel to be crass and biting, a consistent risk-taker. Invented Fallon’s "it’s-just-you-and-me-having-fun" interview trick. And every time Meyers looks into the camera and makes that are you kidding me face? Pure Dave.
Letterman isn’t just going out on his own terms. He’s going out in his own time; an era of late-night — nay, of comedy at large — that he created. And it’s still going strong.
The more I think about it, Letterman didn’t just win the late-night wars. He established a comedy superpower in a brand of humor that will live on long after the smoke clears.
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