Requiem for an aged comic

[jmyrlefuller]

Requiem for an aged comic
J. Myrle Fuller bids adieu to David Letterman

(Photo credit: U.S. Department of Defense, June 2013)

by J. Myrle Fuller
May 21, 2015

Last night, on May 20, 2015, David Letterman hosted the final episode of the Late Show, ending a career of nearly 35 years as a talk show host and 22 years as the host of this particular show.

The mood was far from one of celebration. For one, it began with Gerald Ford's inauguration address, stating "our long national nightmare is over." Self-deprecation was always part of Letterman's schtick, but this series finale made it seem like real despondence. This was not a man who, like his erstwhile rival Jay Leno, was being forced out of his position. This was a man who had run out of gas, a man who no longer knew how to be funny. Another brief sketch had a Wheel of Fortune contestant solving a puzzle of "Good Riddance, David Letterman."

Letterman clearly was at a point where he was not satisfied with his product. Leno seemed to pick up steam when he was nudged out of the way for younger, hipper Jimmy Fallon and used that as inspiration for a new barrage of jokes aimed at his employer, the Obama administration and others. Letterman never had that. He tried to hang on a bit longer, perhaps hoping he could get another brief glimmer of glory against Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, the kind he had when he first moved to CBS for his first two years, or in 2009 when NBC mangled a succession plan that gave Leno prime time and pitted Letterman against his friend and former employee, Conan O'Brien. But whatever inspiration he had in years past, whatever genius that created so many of the memorable comedic moments over Letterman's three-plus decades on air, was gone. All he could muster was a compilation of clips from his glory days, including his 1996 stint as a Taco Bell drive-thru man and some funny interactions with children, a few lame jokes, and some sentimentality.

The Letterman we saw last night, and probably the past few years, was one that genuinely saw himself as a failure. He idolized his former boss, Johnny Carson. When given the opportunity to host a show after Carson, he did it exactly according to Carson's specifications: that is, don't do it the way Johnny did it. Even so, even as he did his show exactly the way he was supposed to, it ended up being turned against him when the top prize of Carson's old spot on The Tonight Show came available. Instead, topical, conventional comic Leno got the gig. So Letterman took his talents to CBS, hoping to beat NBC at its own game. For a couple of years, it worked, but soon he lost his way and never got it back. Letterman tried to adjust. As more political hosts like Jon Stewart rose to prominence, he tried to become more overtly political; Letterman was, without doubt, a liberal. Yet he couldn't be Jon Stewart. The Late Show wasn't an investigative research team like the one The Daily Show had; it was a comedy team, a team that was starting to run dry in the late 2000s. The iconoclastic stunts that had made Letterman famous were becoming predictable, established, the very kind of thing Letterman was fighting against when he started. Letterman lacked Leno's ability to adapt to the times, and by the end, it was painfully obvious to see.

So now Letterman moves into retirement, with a child young enough to be his grandchild, or perhaps even great-grandchild, to raise. He's made enough money over his career to not have to worry about that, and now he will be able to devote his full attention, with however much time he has left on this planet, to his wife and child. The Late Show now moves to the hands of Stephen Colbert, a strong satirist who will have his own adjustment issues as he moves away from the absurdist persona he used on cable TV.

Sometimes, in life, we fail. Sometimes, for any number of reasons, we never achieve the success we think we can. It hurts, to be sure. Nevertheless, the consolation prize isn't always something to sneeze at, especially if it means the respect of your peers and over thirty years as the host of a national TV show. And somehow, I doubt that his child will ever see his TV host dad as a failure.

[massadvj]

Letterman was no failure.  While Leno beat him regularly in audience size, Letterman had the more attractive audience from the advertisers' standpoint.  The Late Show with David Letterman, however, never did live up to its expectations, but it did well enough to become a mainstay at CBS in the time slot, which no other show or host had been able to accomplish previously.  In the end, Letterman goes down as a successful TV personality, not quite at the level of Leno, but a cut above Arsenio and several others who tried and failed in late night talk.

[EC]

Nicely done, Myrle. 

I don't think it was so much that Letterman lost his funny, more the definition of funny changed and he couldn't or wouldn't follow suit.

He was a fixture for a long time, bowed out under his own steam rather than being pushed - I'd say he went out gracefully.

[alicewonders]

I used to love watching Letterman, but during the later years he just seemed bitter and mean - not funny at all.

Good article Myrle!
 

[Lando Lincoln]

Nicely done Myrle.  Sincerely... well done.

[Politics4us]

He's a nasty person. Just look at the way he treated John McCain and Bill O'Reilly, two people who aren't far right wingers.

[Paladin]

Sic transit Gloria.

Thanks, Dave. Now get out!

CBS wasted no time in kicking David Letterman’s set to the curb. Sentimental fans gathered outside the Ed Sullivan Theater on Thursday to watch as stagehands unceremoniously crushed and sawed through iconic pieces of the “Late Show” backdrop the day after the final show.

“I can’t believe they’re just demolishing the whole thing. It’s shocking,” said Stephanie Strausz, of Manhattan, who scored a second-row ticket to Wednesday’s star-studded finale.

“It should go in the Smithsonian, not the Dumpster,” she said.

[snip]

There were a few things stagehands carefully carried out, including Letterman’s on-air desk — which was covered in bubble wrap and headed for the Smithsonian — a replica of the George Washington Bridge, loaded into a van, and furniture and instruments belonging to band leader Paul Shaffer.

Most of the costumes and some props were sent to a costume warehouse in Yonkers.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/21/cbs-throws-david-letterman-set-into-dumpster/

[andy58-in-nh]

Well done, and a fair assessment, I think.
 
I will admit to being perhaps in a minority, in that I never found Mr. Letterman all that funny or witty, or amusing. His brand of humor has always eluded me somehow, perhaps because I do not tend to find self-conscious, topical snarkiness all that compelling a reason to stay up late.
 
Others clearly do and did, as Letterman's success in staying on the air for so many years is evidence.

[DCPatriot]

Well done, and a fair assessment, I think.
 
I will admit to being perhaps in a minority, in that I never found Mr. Letterman all that funny or witty, or amusing. His brand of humor has always eluded me somehow, perhaps because I do not tend to find self-conscious, topical snarkiness all that compelling a reason to stay up late.
 
Others clearly do and did, as Letterman's success in staying on the air for so many years is evidence.

I'll second that, Andy!

Sophomoric is the word which comes to mind.

[Bigun]

I can honestly say that I never watched Letterman for more than one hour total during the shows entire run. Johnny Carson was an entirely different matter.

[raml]

I watched Carson and once in awhile Leno but maybe I watched 2 hours total during his time on the show. I didn't dislike him I just didn't care for his show. Obviously many did like him.

[Lando Lincoln]

I will not miss Letterman.

[jmyrlefuller]

I watched Carson and once in awhile Leno but maybe I watched 2 hours total during his time on the show. I didn't dislike him I just didn't care for his show. Obviously many did like him.

He had a particular kind of humor. It was more strangeness than anything, and so that kind of thing simply wasn't for everyone. I was actually a pretty big fan; I liked him better than Leno for a long time. But Leno's jokes got better, and Letterman, some time in the late 2000s or so, pretty much lost his sense of humor entirely.

One thing he did a great job of doing was making somebodies out of people who would otherwise be nobodies. The stupid pet/human tricks, the kid scientists, the contestants on "Know Your Current Events," the Ventriloquist/Impressionist Weeks, etc. Compare that to Jimmy Fallon and all his sketches—he almost always has to rely on other celebrities (Jimmy Kimmel still has a bit of that "15 minutes of fame" spirit on his show). That's one of the things Dave really moved away from in his last years that really killed his show.

[DCPatriot]

Seeing him run and jump on a velcro wall....that was it for me.