Imagine if you woke up one morning and some fundamental part of life was gone. You stepped outside to get your usual morning newspaper and it wasn’t there; not just that it hadn’t been delivered that morning, but the concept of newspapers had ended. You got in the car and reached to turn on the radio, but couldn’t find anything but static on every station because radio was no more. Things that you had grown so accustomed to after having them around for so much of your life, to where it became all too easy to take them for granted, had just suddenly stopped. This is sort of how I feel about knowing David Letterman’s last show is on tomorrow night. It might not be the show that I watch every night anymore, but I’ve taken comfort in knowing it was always there.
I’ve been with Dave since he was still doing “Late Night” back on NBC. This was a problem in high school since staying up until 12:30 to watch TV was tough to do without my parents noticing and having something to say about it. It got easier in college, as long as my schedule didn’t have any 8:00 AM classes that term. It was worth the effort when I made it that late, though: Watching Letterman frequently enough to be fluent in some of the running gags made you feel like you have membership in one of the coolest underground antisocial circles around. The Monkey Cam, Conspiracy Guy, the originally random (and far superior) Top Ten lists, throwing stuff off the roof, Toast on a Stick, Larry “Bud” Melman passing out hot towels with his interviews...there was nothing like it. This wasn’t a talk show the way Johnny Carson had defined it. This was the show that spoke to every snarky little punk in America.
When Dave moved to CBS for The Late Show and was suddenly on at a reasonable time, it was all I could have hoped for. The show still had the same anarchistic vibe in the background, though tamed down for a more mainstream audience. The Late Show provided Dave with a bigger playground, a wider cast of characters, and more real estate for his legacy. It came so second nature to him after decades of shows there were times when it seemed like it was easy for him to just phone it in sometimes and still be at least good, but he was never better than when he was angry or impassioned. I still think the night when Dave came back on the air after 9/11 was just as important for national morale as anything else that had been done at that time.
I’ve paid more attention to the show as his retirement has neared, knowing that new shows were quickly becoming a limited resource. Last December when they ran through, for the last time ever, the holiday tradition of having Darlene Love come on to bring down the Ed Sullivan Theater with “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” I choked up while watching it...and quickly posted the video on my Facebook timeline so I’d always be able to find it.
I vaguely remember the temporary vacuum left behind after Johnny Carson retired and... *ahem* ...Leno took over. I wasn’t a huge Johnny Carson loyalist, but I had watched the show enough to appreciate what a change his absence would bring. It felt weird knowing this show, this tradition, this scheduled part of the day had just ended and was gone forever.
I think that emptiness is going to be a lot more noticeable this time around.
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