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| courtesy: NY Times |
I was a David Letterman fan even before the groundbreaking, but ill fated 1980 NBC morning show. His appearances on the "Tonight" show were great, and Dave was hitting the game show circuit for a while. It was young, but vintage Letterman-- wise and snarky, but he took the games, like Password and Pyramid seriously, trying to win money for the contestants.
Letterman left "Late Show" on CBS in 2015. He's made sporadic appearances on talk shows and I've enjoyed every shot. When Letterman retired, he said he was never coming back to The Ed Sullivan Theater because he didn't want to see other people living his life. I can understand that. I've made visits to old work places, with mixed feelings.
Letterman went back to his old show last week, and I'm sorry he did. The NY Times speculates a recent podcast cleared the air between new host Stephen Colbert and Letterman. There might have been some hard feelings in the past because CBS was talking to Colbert well before Letterman announced his retirement.
Be that as it may, Letterman lifted his embargo in a show that aired the night of November 20.
While I'm a huge Letterman fan, I hate the direction of Colbert's "Late Show." He had a great start, attempting a nice, down the middle talk show. He seemed Carson-esque to me. It turns out, Colbert didn't have the chops for that, so it was back to his old "Colbert Report" schtick, but with a new name. Regardless of how you feel about the 45th president of the United States, a nightly 60 minutes of "Trump sucks" gets old, fast, and it's lowest common denominator television.
I hasten to add that Colbert's ratings went up when he went back to all politics, all the time.
It was a solid appearance. Colbert and Letterman avoided politics. There was plenty of talk about the old days, which I enjoyed beyond belief. Watching Dave sit behind the desk again brought a tear to my eye. He is one of the greats. Letterman had nothing to plug or promote. He was just there to chat and share some memories.
Appearing on Colbert's "Late Show" meant Letterman gave it his blessing, which is undeserved.
