25 Years with Uncle Dave

I was talking with my 14-year-old son yesterday about David Letterman...we had been up late watching Dave the night before and chatting about various skits and jokes and such. It suddenly dawned on me that 25 years ago, in 1980, I was a thirteen-year-old kid who got up every morning during his summer vacation after completing junior high school to watch the David Letterman morning show on NBC. For those of you not old enough (or perhaps too old) to remember, NBC's first assignment for Dave was to take over the 60-90 minutes after the Today show was over to be funny, etc. They even had a daily newsbreak in the show with Edwin Newman.

There was no Paul Shaffer, no stupid pet and/or human tricks, no Will It Float. Just Dave and a cast of wackos...half of the guests were characters. It was a great show, and won Emmys and such, but only lasted 8 months. By the time I was ensconced in my first dreadful year of high school, Dave was off the air, only to return several months later as the original host of Late Night, and the rest is history. Late Night, at least originally, was essentially the morning show with Paul Shaffer, only at 12:30 AM.

But for that summer, my friend Dave Holmes and I would get up, watch the show, and then call each other to discuss the best bits. It is astounding to me that a quarter-century has passed -- even more astounding that, yes, we are still watching Dave and, whoa, I have a fourteen-year-old about to start high school. Amazing.

I am of that school of folk who grew up in the Letterman Age -- the 1980's, when Dave was turning television inside out and backwards. Dave belongs to that hallowed Hall of Fame that includes Mad Magazine, Monty Python, SCTV, and the Smothers Brothers -- those take-no-prisoners comedians who are both a bellwether of their times and master subversives; smilingly ripping all pretense and assumption down and making us laugh at the fact that everything we know is wrong. I know my own sense of humor, such as it is, owes a lot to Dave.

And Dave (Letterman) is still as great as ever -- he has become an incredibly natural, likable host, but still very funny. You can see his desire to emulate the kind of class Johnny Carson had, but in his own way, with his own style. That more people watch Jay Leno every night of the week is only a testament to NBC's lead-in ratings and Leno's ability to use Letterman's jokes only dumbed-down for stupid frat boys. Leno is so pathetic in his lowest-common-denominator humor and woeful interview skills; yet we live in a world where Fear Factor is a top rated show.

In any event -- thanks Dave, for 25 years. Hopefully we'll both still be around in another 25 and I'll watch the Late Show with my grandkids.....