A humble Letterman says good night
33-year career concludes with four presidents, a cavalcade of stars and a long look at the past
— David Letterman ended his 33-year career as a latenight television host Wednesday, ushered into retirement by four presidents who declared “our long national nightmare is over” and saying there was nothing he could ever do to repay his audience.
The show ran 17 minutes over the usual hour, much of it because Letterman took the time to thank the people who worked for him. As the tuxedoed Foo Fighters performed Everlong — a song they first played on the Late Show when Letterman returned after heart surgery in 2000 — a long montage of photographs from three decades of television history zipped past on the screen.
“The only thing I have left to do for the last time on a television program (is say) thank you and good night,” he said.
Letterman presided over 6,028 broadcasts on CBS and NBC, the transplanted Hoosier making top 10 lists and ironic humour staples of television comedy and an influence to a generation of performers. True to his self-deprecating style, he said Stephen Hawking estimated that tenure delivered “about eight minutes of laughter.”
Letterman will be replaced in September by Stephen Colbert, who he endorsed by saying, “I think he’ll do a wonderful job.”
The taped intro of U.S. President Barack Obama and former presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush referenced president Gerald Ford’s declaration to the country when he took office following the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon. Letterman sidled up to Obama to say, “you’re just kidding, right?”
Ten stars from Steve Martin to Tina Fey delivered the final top 10 list of “things I’ve always wanted to say to Dave.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus, with Jerry Seinfeld standing nearby, said, “Thanks for letting me take part in another hugely disappointing series finale.”
No. 1 was Bill Murray: “Dave, I’ll never have the money I owe you.”
Letterman joked in his monologue that he’s been on the air for so long that the hot show when he started was Keeping Up with the Gabors.
“You want to know what I’m going to do now that I’m retired?” he said. “By God, I hope to become the new face of Scientology.”
From his start on NBC’s Late Night in February 1982, Letterman’s comedy was about more than telling jokes. He attached a camera to a monkey’s back, tossed watermelons off a roof and wore a suit of Alka-Seltzer to plunge into a tank of water. He shifted to CBS in 1993 when NBC gave the Tonight show to Jay Leno instead of Letterman, a slight he never forgot or forgave.
Letterman even began his final monologue Wednesday by joking, “It’s beginning to look like I’m not going to get the Tonight show.”
The tricks subsided as Letterman mellowed with age and fatherhood. His audience welcomed him back after a heart bypass, listened as he became the first late-night host back on the air after the 2001 terrorist attacks and saw him acknowledge to inappropriately having sex with a subordinate.
“When I screw up now, and Lord knows I’ll be screwing up, I’ll have to go on somebody else’s show to apologize,” Letterman said.
Letterman, before saying goodbye, thanked virtually everyone involved with the show from CBS Corp. chairman Leslie Moonves to his researchers and crew members.
“It’s so obvious every night and again tonight that they were so much better at their jobs than I am at my job,” he said.