When Johnny
Carson retired from The Tonight Show in 1992, people wondered what his next
project would be. Besides brief appearances with David Letterman, a Kennedy
Center Honors Award and a Bob Hope special, he disappeared. Johnny passed away
13 years later, in 2005. When David Letterman retired from his CBS Late Show in
2015, people thought that Letterman would pull the same disappearing act as his
idol, Carson. Thankfully, that did not happen, and David Letterman has kept
active with various projects. He is still a co-owner of the
Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan Indy racing team. Since growing up in Indianapolis, he
has been a die-hard auto racing fan. He appeared at the “Netflix is a Joke”
Comedy Festival in Los Angeles. He makes regular appearances on his official
You Tube page, being interviewed by longtime producers Barbara Gaines and Mary Barclay.
Plus, he has released several seasons of his Netflix show “My Next Guest Needs
No Introduction.” Since 2018, Letterman has released 5 seasons and 28 episodes.
The tagline for the show is “His beard is big. His guests are bigger.” The show
has been nominated for a primetime Emmy five times. Its theme song was written
and performed by Letterman’s longtime band leader, Paul Shaffer. This show demonstrates Letterman’s top notch
interviewing skills. Even if the viewer is not interested in a specific guest,
Letterman makes it fascinating.
His two most recent guests were Miley Cyrus
and Charles Barkley. At age 77, David Letterman is no spring chicken. People
have suggested that he return to daily TV, or even have a weekly show, perhaps
filling in for Jimmy Kimmel, who looks up to Dave like Letterman looked up to
Carson. At his stage in life, Dave probably wants a show like he has on Netflix,
where he can call the shots and decide how busy he will be. No doubt, he does
not need the money. His net worth is a staggering $400 million.
The show is
refreshing since Letterman interviews people of all ages and disciplines. It
would be easy for him to stick with people only from his age group and talk
with nothing but comedians. But he has talked with people much younger than
himself who would appeal to a youthful demographic. Examples include: Lizzo,
Cardi B, Tiffany Haddish, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian and Billie Eilish. That
is not to say that he has not interviewed more “seasoned” guests, such as:
George Clooney, Howard Stern, Robert Downey Jr, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jerry
Seinfeld. In 2018, Letterman interviewed President Barack Obama for this
program. That was his first interview since leaving the White House.
His
interview with Miley Cyrus had Dave talking with Miley’s mother and sitting with
her as Cyrus performed at the legendary Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles.
When he talked with NBA great Charles Barkley, Dave joined him on the golf course and Charles showed Dave around the TBS studios where he acts as an NBA analyst. Letterman joined Barkley and his cohorts on TBS to discuss the current state of the NBA. Dave talked with Barkley’s co-hosts on the NBA show, including Shaquille O’Neal.
It’s refreshing since the show is not just Letterman sitting in a studio
interviewing a guest for an hour, although he could make that interesting. Each
show is partially in studio and partially on location. It is nice to see
Letterman in a long form interview format where he does not need to break for commercials
every few minutes like he did with his shows on CBS and NBC.
In 2022,
Letterman did another project for Netflix, called “That’s My Time with David
Letterman.” This show consisted of six episodes, recorded at the “Netflix is a
Joke” comedy festival in Los Angeles. Each episode featured a comedian doing a stand-up
set with Letterman briefly interviewing them afterwards. In 2023, Disney Plus
released a show called “Bono and the Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave
Letterman.” This show had Letterman interviewing the duo from then legendary
band U2 in their hometown of Dublin, Ireland. Bono and The Edge performed some
of their iconic songs, reimagined.
Without a
doubt, Letterman will be remembered as one of the icons of late-night
television, like his idol, Johnny Carson.
*Some
information from Wikipedia and imdb.
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