Just thought I’d put this up in case anyone had any observations about the close of David Letterman’s extraordinary 33-year run.
Personally, I didn’t see the last show, but I did read this blow-by-blow description of it.
And in fact, I didn’t see him all that much over the years, either. When he started out, I was already a dad with young kids and a pretty intense job that started at 7 a.m. every weekday.
But I’ve seen him enough to appreciate his brand of humor, which one of my favorite books of the 80s, “The Catalog of Cool,” described (I think; I don’t have my copy at hand) as “Perry Como on mescaline.” (Actually, according to a Google search, that description may have come from TIME magazine.)
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He should have retired ten years ago.
His schtick was that he was mocking, anti establishment kind of guy.
Last decade or so, he IS the establishment, mailed in a lot of TV shows, had his adultery scandal with several co workers etc.
I never liked him.Cher said it best when she called him an ahole.He didn’t conduct interviews.It was usually about him.Depending on how big a deal you were or whether or not he ‘liked’ you,he routinely insulted his guests,and used them for his rapier ‘wit’. Tiresome TV.
Agreed.
He was the Bill Maher of the 80s/90s
Right.SMUG.
He has some talent., can be entertaining, but I often wished he was half as funny as he thought he was. He was sometimes abrasive to his guests, but isn’t an insensitive jerk like Leno.
Wow, with these kinds of reviews, it’s a wonder he was on the air that long.
So who were his fans? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
The sort of young men who watch TV late at night, before heading to the bars on Harden Street. A popular ad demographic.
I really enjoyed not watching Letterman. At 11:30 every night, I would check my watch to make sure that I didn’t watch him. Now that he’s retired, all the great memories of not watching him are just rushing back over me.
Good-bye, Letterman. I’ll miss my evenings of not watching your show.
who were his fans?
Per the ratings for the last 20 years – I doubt anyone could find any.
Kathryn, I think you’re off in your assessment of Dave’s audience if you meant the present. Your characterization might have been true in the only period when I watched Letterman, which was in the 1980s, when he was doing all the sorts of things that revolutionized late-night TV and even television culture in a wider sense. But by this last decade, many viewers had dropped off (like me and Brad), so his overall numbers were down. More significantly, he no longer was capturing the younger demographic. One source I consulted indicated that already by 2009 the median age of Dave’s viewers was 54 (compared to Jon Stewart’s 41 and Colbert’s 38…these were the two shows that seemed to take most of the younger viewership away from traditional late-night TV outlets).
Finally, there’s this chart that illustrates quite dramatically the drop in viewership among the 18-49 demographic. In spite of those dwindling “youth” numbers, Letterman still was drawing twice the viewership (in raw numbers) of either Colbert or Stewart, so obviously he had a LOT of 50-and-overs watching in the last decade.
Of course his schtick grew rather repetitive and uninteresting in the final years (as Andrew indicated), but just to answer Brad’s question in the comments…a lot of my friends have been posting affectionate tributes to DL’s legacy on social media, and more than one of them felt it worth the effort to travel to NYC in these past few weeks to see the show live before it went dark. I would not have gone that far, myself, but I think it’s hard to deny Letterman’s legacy. Kathryn, I enjoy Bill Maher, but 70 years from now, Maher will be a tiny footnote in a history-of-tv-comedy textbook (if they have textbooks 70 years from now!) whereas Letterman will get a whole chapter to himself, I am sure.
Okay, douchebags who grew up watching him. 😉
I’ve been surprised at the accolades he’s received. He did last a long time but not without controversy. And he had a habit of interrupting his guests. There were times I would tune in when I heard a certain guest would be on but would be disappointed that I didn’t get to hear much out of the guest. He did get better with some of his guests in recent years.
Remember when he had a morning talk show? My roommate and I would watch it between our (inevitably) 8 am math or comp sci class and later liberal arts classes. I think that’s the last time I watched him with any regularity.
He was fresh then.
I used to watch Letterman regularly. Then we got more channels.
Exactly!
I always enjoyed Letterman, loved his sense of humor. I just got old twenty years ago and discovered I enjoyed sleep more than late night TV.