{"id":7807,"date":"2025-09-10T17:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/7807\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T17:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T17:47:08","slug":"david-letterman-on-late-night-colbert-leno-and-mulaney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/7807\/","title":{"rendered":"David Letterman on Late Night, Colbert, Leno, and Mulaney"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis format will always exist, just perhaps not on network television.\u201d
\n Photo: Michele Crowe\/CBS via Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been ten years since David Letterman stepped away<\/a> from the grind of hosting a late-night talk show, but time has not dulled his legendarily dry wit, even though at least one member of his family wishes it had. \u201cFor some reason, my wife \u2014 we\u2019ve been married for 72 years \u2014 has decided that she\u2019s my public defender,\u201d the comedy icon tells me, his voice as affably grumpy as ever. \u201cSo whenever we go anyplace and I say, \u2018Oh, what is this, a parakeet?\u2019 when we\u2019re clearly in Whole Foods, she will say, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s kidding. No, no, it\u2019s a joke. He\u2019s kidding.\u2019 And that happens all the time now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Letterman pretends his wife\u2019s commentary is annoying, but really, this anecdote is just another way to poke fun at himself: The subtext of her Dave-splaining is that his celebrity has faded to the point that strangers need to be assured they haven\u2019t stumbled upon a very confused 78-year-old man. \u201cI used to hope that the audience, whether it\u2019s one or 1,000, would recognize that something was a joke,\u201d Letterman says.\u00a0\u201cBut the index of those who know who I am? Getting smaller every day. So in a way, I guess she\u2019s doing me a favor because I could easily be zip-tied and hauled out of these places.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, while Letterman may not be at the center of the cultural Zeitgeist the way he was ten or 15 years ago, he has hardly disappeared into the background. His Netflix interview show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, has snagged multiple Emmy nominations (and one win) since launching in 2018 and, earlier this summer, netted a two-season renewal from the streamer. Rather than jumping on the celebrity-podcast bandwagon, Letterman has instead offered fans regular updates (and flexed his comedic muscles) as a permanent guest on The Barbara Gaines Show<\/a>, a YouTube series fronted by the former Late Night executive producer (and often co-hosted by My Next Guest producer Mary Barclay). The show is hosted on Letterman\u2019s own robust YouTube channel<\/a>, which is updated regularly with new (and often timely) clips from the Letterman library, including musical performances<\/a>. And in December, Letterman partnered with Samsung to launch a free, ad-supported (a.k.a. FAST) TV channel dubbed Letterman TV. Available via the electronics giant\u2019s Samsung TV Plus platform<\/a>, the virtual channel offers a curated collection of Letterman sketches and interviews along with newly taped intros and commentary from the host himself.<\/p>\n

Until now, Letterman TV has relied exclusively on 22 years\u2019 worth of output from the comedian\u2019s CBS Late Show, which was produced and owned by his Worldwide Pants production company. But as part of a new agreement with NBCUniversal being unveiled today, the channel will also begin streaming content from Letterman\u2019s NBC Late Night era, adding material from more than 1,800 episodes to the mix. Content will be regularly refreshed, but the initial batch of programming set to go live on September 10 includes packages of appearances by Pee-wee Herman, Andy Kaufman, and Steve Martin, plus a handful of full-length episodes such as the series premiere (with guest Bill Murray), the one-year anniversary special, and themed episodes like \u201cCamping With Barry White.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike many talent-specific FAST channels that can be viewed across a variety of platforms (Pluto TV, the Roku Channel, etc.), Letterman TV \u2014 along with a similar Conan O\u2019Brien channel<\/a> that debuted in 2023 \u2014 is exclusive to Samsung devices. Because of that, Samsung TV Plus content chief Takashi Nakano says the platform is dedicating \u201cmore firepower\u201d to get the channel in front of its global audience of nearly 90 million monthly active users. \u201cWe do promote it heavily because of this,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have access to Times Square, we have access to other large screens that we can do massive promotions around, and our marketing team has got a robust plan to make this come to life across our platforms. We are going to put a lot of muscle behind it. And so is Dave, by the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed he is: In conjunction with the arrival of the new Late Night library on his FAST channel, Letterman last week hopped on the phone with Vulture for a 40-minute conversation on an array of topics. He talked about his NBC years, of course, including the incredibly short-lived daytime talk show that paved the way for Late Night, and why so many of his best-known bits would work today in the age of viral social-media moments. Letterman also had thoughts about the chumminess among today\u2019s late-night hosts, his love for John Mulaney<\/a>, his complicated relationship with Jay Leno, the future of late night, and, yes, CBS\u2019s decision to cancel not only Stephen Colbert but the entire franchise Letterman created more than 32 years ago.<\/p>\n

Hello, David, and first of all, thank you for your time. How are you?
Well, Joe, I was thinking about this: You and I have known each other forever at this point.<\/p>\n

I mean, I\u2019ve known you forever, certainly, and I\u2019ve been covering you since I started working as a reporter in [redacted]. So yes, it\u2019s been quite a while.
Yeah, well, it\u2019s nice to have a relationship this long with somebody who kind of has witnessed all of this mess. Thank you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no Bill Carter<\/a>, but I try. And my hair is getting whiter, so \u2026
Bill Carter? [Laughs.] Oh, my goodness. Bill Carter, the man who\u2019s made a career out of late-night TV. He really has. God bless him. He\u2019s soliciting money. He\u2019s starting a late-night theme park.<\/p>\n

See, that\u2019s one good reason to do your Netflix show and put your library on free streaming services: to make sure the kids today know who you are and what late-night TV is all about.
Oh, God bless the kids today.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Letterman with Bill Murray on NBC\u2019s Late Night.
\n Photo: NBC\n <\/p>\n

Speaking of which, we\u2019re doing this interview partly because of the return of your original NBC series, Late Night, to TV via Samsung TV Plus and its Letterman TV channel. I want to go back to the launch of that show and try to get into your head about what was going on then. A couple of years earlier, NBC had given you a daytime talk show<\/a>, and it was canceled after just a few months because of lousy ratings. How did that whole experience impact you and the process of creating Late Night?
I appreciate this, because it sparks memories. Looking at it now, with age, that was a fascinating life experience. I left Indiana thinking, Everything that\u2019s wrong with television and television comedy, I have the solution. And as soon as I get out there, just hang on. If you folks can wait it out another year or two, I will solve everything that\u2019s wrong with comedy on television.<\/p>\n

Now, I will say that was before Saturday Night Live, so they helped my load be a little lighter in the lift, in my mind. And we dropped down at, I think, ten in the morning, or nine in the morning across the NBC television network. And the producer of that show<\/a> quit the Friday before it was to go on the air because he didn\u2019t get it. We didn\u2019t get him. We locked heads. It was nothing but screaming fights. We had no other guidance, no North Star, except, You know what? We\u2019re all sick of these game shows; just wait until you get a look at us. And boy, was that a huge lesson for me. I realized, Yeah, you really don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

And then, like you say, a month and a half, 16 weeks, whatever it was, we\u2019re gone, and we completely blew up the daytime network-television schedule at NBC. The fact that they were able to keep me around, and that year of not having anywhere to go except comedy clubs was a sad, sad experience for me because in show business, as with life, you get your one shot, and if it doesn\u2019t work, you go to the end of the line. And who knows how long that line is? So against my own ego, against my own better judgment, we had to sit down. And it was a learning process. But boy, it was tough. It was really tough, because just the ego involved with the Wait until you get a look at us was so misguided.<\/p>\n

The thing is, you were right that you were going to change things in comedy and TV, and ultimately that\u2019s what happened with Late Night. To me, it just seems that Fred Silverman and the execs at NBC didn\u2019t quite realize your comedy might not have been right for daytime-TV audiences in 1980. People really liked The Hollywood Squares, which was one of several game shows canceled to make room for your program.
The Hollywood Squares, there\u2019s a fine show. There was nothing wrong with Hollywood Squares. I think they still do it somewhere, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

They do. It keeps coming back. I think you\u2019ve been on some version of it, haven\u2019t you?
I was on Hollywood Squares<\/a>. I don\u2019t know that I was on the original 1960s Hollywood Squares with Paul Lynde and Wally Cox. But yeah, that show was very funny. But I just think the morning show was a huge lesson for me in Okay, Mr. Big Shot, let\u2019s get a hold of ourselves and try it again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen some clips of the morning program<\/a>, and what strikes me is how much of the DNA of Late Night was there, right down to the jokes about New York in the introduction and segments like \u201cSmall Town News.\u201d How did you decide what to keep and what to change when you started putting Late Night together? I mean, you obviously wanted to stay true to who you were, but you\u2019d just had this ratings failure, so was there any second-guessing going on about what would work?
Well, it was interesting because of the failure of the daytime show and restrictions that were placed on us in order to protect our relationship with The Tonight Show. It was nothing punitive, but there were certain restrictions: no monologue, no big orchestra, and we couldn\u2019t book the same guests they were booking. All of those things actually worked in our favor. We had a tremendous group of musicians, I was not up to carrying a Johnny Carson monologue for ourselves, and the people he was booking were probably of no interest to us at that time. That all changed, of course. But that helped us.<\/p>\n

Now, the other side of this was, every second I was on the air, I was waiting to get the hook. Because we had come and gone so quickly and the result of it was just darkness for a year, I feared that. So I\u2019m torn between the two things: It didn\u2019t work the first time; we have reasons now to alter the show or to keep it the same way, but what the hell happens if this goes away? So the first two or three months, I think we were all nervous about the outcome. But then again, you have to remember: Those days, there was nothing on opposite us. So, no offense, you could have had a show that would\u2019ve been successful. And I mean that only with love, Joe.<\/p>\n

Any specific memories of that first episode of Late Night? I\u2019m excited that it will be officially streaming.
Well, we had several first shows: the first show on the daytime show, the first show on the NBC show, and the first show on the CBS show. And it\u2019s always like you\u2019re getting ready for the Rose Parade. You have the Rose Parade and then it\u2019s, Oh, geez, what are we doing tomorrow? I think that was typical of the daytime show, the Late Night show, and then the Late Show: After all of the effort, all of the energy goes into that first show, now what do we do? It\u2019s not until about a month and a half in that you establish a rhythm of production that will hold you, that will prop you up for the rest of the run. But until you are comfortable with that, it\u2019s going to be a struggle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Letterman with Paul Reubens.
\n Photo: NBC\n <\/p>\n

Your NBC late-night show was actually produced by Johnny Carson\u2019s company. So that essentially made the man you idolized your boss, or at least your partner. Was he a silent partner, or did he chime in much during the run?
To my memory, Johnny couldn\u2019t have cared less, except whatever cut of the budget he got. We were of no threat to him. He was still the king of the heap. To him, we were just, \u201cEh, okay, call me when they\u2019re canceled.\u201d He was always very nice. He would have me on from time to time, and we would promote the show. But I think he found it amusing. And who knows? I never really asked him what he thought of the show, but I always felt like, if you\u2019re not as good as Johnny, really, is there any point in leaving Indiana?<\/p>\n

But if you look at Johnny\u2019s work now, my God, it was just solid. Pick one night of one week \u2014 the first year, the eighth year, the 20th year \u2014 he\u2019s just rock solid. He\u2019s like the very best home-health-care person you could afford. He\u2019s constant, doesn\u2019t miss a beat, doesn\u2019t get you worried. I mean just, good lord, who can do that? I always felt I fell short of that. I feel everybody else doing it falls short of it. The only person I think didn\u2019t fall short of that was Regis Philbin. Regis was, you know, \u201cGet on, and when we hit your stop, let me know, because I\u2019m going to keep going.\u201d He was fantastic. And Johnny? The best.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about Letterman TV, the FAST channel you launched last year. What was your reaction when your team brought the idea of licensing your library to Samsung TV Plus, as well as the early move to put clips up on your YouTube channel? It\u2019s a wholly logical idea, but you\u2019re someone who famously doesn\u2019t seem to like revisiting older stuff.
I don\u2019t know what your age is, but we used to have an answering machine on the phone that I couldn\u2019t figure out. So anything in the digital world has been a very complex mystery for me. And without the world of the internet, I don\u2019t know what would\u2019ve become of the material.<\/p>\n

I think we got into it a little late, because we just weren\u2019t sure how to do it or what the interest might be. We started the YouTube operation, and I liked the idea of centralizing this material for those who may be interested. Then, out of nowhere, came the offer from Samsung to be another library for this material. So I feel just dumb lucky to have these opportunities because, without that, I would not have known what to do. Not only that, I would not have thought there was much interest, because all of these shows we\u2019re talking about now are decades, decades old. And the culture changes so rapidly, generation to generation, that who knows of what use, if any, they might be for any reason?<\/p>\n

Are you happy with the response so far to the YouTube and Samsung channels?
I\u2019m just happy now to have been able to have a bit of control with the inventory. And beyond that, if it works, well, how flattering is that? It\u2019s pretty good, because the idea of having done all of those shows was one thing. It\u2019s just, Oh, okay, I completed a marathon. I completed a triathlon. And that\u2019s it. But now, well, you have some evidence here, so it\u2019s greatly flattering. And like I say, the digital strategy was nothing that I thought of. We\u2019re still new to this. But so far, the reaction, I think, has been pretty positive. For an old man, that\u2019s flattering.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get back to Late Night.\u00a0When your CBS show ended ten years ago, I wrote a story<\/a> about how, starting on NBC, you were doing viral moments before we called them that \u2014\u00a0things like \u201cStupid Pet Tricks\u201d or the \u201cTop 10 List\u201d or you throwing yourself against a wall while wearing a Velcro suit.<\/a> These are things that would blow up on social media and YouTube today.
I think you\u2019re right. It had not occurred to me that what we were doing would\u2019ve been apt now. But I will say a lot of that came to me from Steve Allen, who was doing this stuff in the \u201950s and \u201960s. There was no wackier guy on television, and I think he had maybe three different passes at a late-night show. And the one I saw, the one that really made sense to me, was where he was the human tea bag. But I took a lot of that spirit with me to what I thought was just great good fun.<\/p>\n

Now you\u2019ve obviously inspired several generations of TV hosts. Jimmy Kimmel has been most vocal about crediting you with influencing his sense of humor, and I know you have a great relationship with Conan O\u2019Brien, who succeeded you at NBC. And then just a few months ago, John Mulaney used your visit to his Netflix show <\/a>to tell you what watching Late Night and Late Show meant to him. You two seemed to really bond during that appearance.
I would, right now, drive cross-country and back in a rental car with John Mulaney, without stopping, other than for gas. I find this kid so \u2026 I struggle to describe him. He\u2019s so good at what he does. He\u2019s so appealing, and the struggle he\u2019s had, the obstacles he has put in his own path and overcome, I find inspirational. I\u2019m late to the fact that some of our show was the reason for his show. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a paper trail on that. Or maybe some remote DNA. But even without that, I just love the kid. He\u2019s so bright. I find that stand-up comedy is so superior now to when I was toying around with it. I could go on and on about what a thrill my friendship with John Delaney is. John Mulaney. We\u2019re so close that I call him \u201cDelaney.\u201d<\/p>\n

You and Mulaney have something else in common, which is that you both host talk shows on Netflix. Yours has just been renewed for two more seasons. It really seems to have become a perfect outlet for someone who doesn\u2019t want to retire but has also moved past the grind of a daily show. It seems to really work for you.
Well, it does work for me because there\u2019s not much else I can do in life professionally. And thanks to the good friends at CAA and the good friends at Netflix, this came to pass.\u00a0And I love it because I get to meet and spend time with people like John Mulaney. I mean, this is how I fell in love with the kid. The same with Tina Fey. I\u2019m grateful to have this opportunity. The schedule is so much better than five nights a week.<\/p>\n

I love that the show is so focused on a single interview each episode, with you just drilling down on what your guests are about as opposed to their latest project. It fills the void left by the late, great Tom Snyder, whom you brought to CBS for a few years to fill the time slot behind you. Your production company, Worldwide Pants, owns the rights to his episodes of The Late Late Show<\/a>. It would be so great to see more of those episodes again.
Oh my God, Tom Snyder.\u00a0Boy, I remember when he had The Tomorrow Show and I was working at the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis. We signed off at a quarter of one or one o\u2019clock, and then the only thing left on TV was The Tomorrow Show. I would race home and watch. I mean, he was doing Ed Murrow, even to the extent of smoking on-camera. Then we were lucky enough to get in production with him on the CBS show. I hope that has another life because, I don\u2019t know, you wonder what would become of people like Tom, people like me, people like Jimmy and Stephen, if they didn\u2019t have network TV now. Where would these guys flourish? I think they would probably find their way. But Tom was that guy where just, like, boom, you\u2019re in Tom\u2019s head and you\u2019re going to stay there for an hour. It was great. So I keep forgetting we control that. I hope we can do something with it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Letterman with Andy Kaufman (left) and Jerry Lawler.
\n Photo: NBC\n <\/p>\n

I want to ask you about CBS\u2019s decision not only to part ways with Stephen Colbert but essentially to exit the late-night talk-show space. CBS didn\u2019t just decide to part ways with Colbert; it canceled the franchise you and your team built. CBS very famously had been unable to have any success in late night before you arrived. Not even Pat Sajak<\/a> could get an audience in the slot. You\u2019ve talked a bit<\/a> about what happened to Colbert specifically. But is there a part of you that is disappointed or sad or even angry about CBS essentially flushing away something you created?
Well, before we discuss \u201csomething we started and we created,\u201d I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s accurate in my case. I remember Jack Rollins, who was my manager forever, one day saying to me, \u201cDavid, it\u2019s like a paper cup: You have a drink of water, then you crumple it up and throw it away.\u201d And of everything Jack provided for me in my life, that\u2019s the silly thing that stuck with me. Try to hang on to that: Everything changes. There\u2019s a time and place for everything.<\/p>\n

So it didn\u2019t even dawn on me, when Stephen announced that he was being taken off the air, that the whole franchise was gone. Then the more I thought of it, it clearly was mishandled. It clearly was not, \u201cOh, he\u2019s bleeding money.\u201d There are ways to make money. There are ways to hide money. I mean, I spent most of my life hiding my money in Panama. You know that. We all know that.<\/p>\n

Of course.
CBS could have figured this out. And to unload him after they made a deal with the administration for 60 Minutes? It smelled bad. Let\u2019s just take them at their word that \u201cNo, it didn\u2019t smell bad. We were losing money.\u201d Okay, but find a way to make it not smell bad. It just looked ridiculous.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s no surprise. I can remember Jay Leno used to say to me, when we were going head-to-head, [imitates Leno\u2019s voice] \u201cNah, there\u2019s plenty of room. There\u2019s room for both of us.\u201d And I kept thinking, Well, no, there\u2019s not room for both of us. Then suddenly, there were three shows and maybe more. But as we\u2019re seeing now, there really isn\u2019t much room left for anybody.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s depressing.
Yeah. But this format will always exist, just perhaps not on network television any longer. Because it is just dirt cheap to produce compared to prime-time programs and half-hour comedies and such.<\/p>\n

You mentioned Jay Leno just now. Do you speak to him at all these days? A lot of time has passed since you were competing against each other for ratings.
The last time I spoke to Jay \u2014 or maybe we just texted \u2014\u00a0he said his face had caught fire<\/a> or something, and it sounded hideous. I mean, of things that might catch fire, perhaps the last thing you\u2019d want to would be your face. So it was alarming. I think we exchanged sentiments about \u201cGood luck, and be careful.\u201d Something like that. But I haven\u2019t spoken to him in a long time.<\/p>\n

For anybody who went to California in the same period that I was there, Jay, without question was the gold standard; he was the North Star. There was nobody funnier than Jay. And people who see him now \u2026 I talked to a friend of mine who saw him do an hour, maybe a two-hour show, some kind of corporate gig. Just tremendous, just hilarious, just nonstop as funny as you\u2019re ever going to get. So that\u2019s the good thing about Jay.<\/p>\n

We rubbed each other the wrong way. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t have any regrets about our relationship, and I don\u2019t think he has any regrets about me, either. But God, he\u2019s just really, even at this point in his career, probably still the best.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very glad we\u2019re in a world now where all the major late-night hosts seem to like one another and there\u2019s no animus \u2014 except maybe between Conan and Jay.
I know. How did that happen? Because when it was me and Jay, it was the \u201cLate Night Wars.\u201d There was bloodshed! We hated each other! But now every day, they have lunch together. I don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Conan, you once famously gifted him a horse<\/a>. Has he ever gotten you any fun gifts?
Conan has been very generous. A few years ago, after I was on his podcast early on, he found a historic musical instrument, an old version of a National guitar<\/a>. I can\u2019t play the guitar, but I love the idea of the National guitar. And he gave me one, and I\u2019m so pleased to have it. He\u2019s been nothing but kind and really a nice guy.<\/p>\n

I think we\u2019re already way over our scheduled time. Sorry about that.
Oh, no, no, no. Don\u2019t apologize to me. You\u2019re doing me a huge favor. It\u2019s another opportunity to genuinely talk about myself. And I have to keep looking for people who haven\u2019t heard me talk about myself, so this is great. Listen, Joe, I have to go take a shower now. This has worn me out.<\/p>\n

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