Late Show with David Letterman

I recently watched the Late Show when Janet Jackson was the guest. She had a very toppish top on that kind of embarrassed Dave. I laughed like never before. Despite him being embarrassed, he deliverd some lines that were simply perfect. "Need help with the zipper?" "I'm 54, I'm not used to these kind of things." Paul: "You have always loved fast women, Dave."

Well, Dave cracks Leno everytime. He is just more personal than mr standup.

I'm "only" 34 but I've been watching Letterman since I was about 13. He in fact has one of the few shows I can tolerate to watch on TV. I can always count on him to be entertaining. He clearly has it down to a science now and doesn't deviate much from his standard ritual whereas years ago it was always something new and different. That said, his ritual is actually reliably entertaining. Clearly one of the attractions to watching him for so long is the comfortable feeling one has with having the same show play around the same time of night for so many years. Of course, now I use TiVo. The bottom line is that Letterman is truly the best thing going for TV and is a reliably good and entertaining show.

Dave is King of Late Night. If rumors are true, Carson chose Letterman to replace him, but NBC exec's decided otherwise. I can believe this. Letterman's run of 10 years on late-late night TV was brilliant, though a bit "cheap".

Well, with this show, some of the "homey" feel of the small show has gone, but the humor and style has stayed the same. From classics such as "Stupid Pet Tricks", to new skits such as the adventures of Mujibur and Sirajoul (apoligies for spelling) - two guys who ran a shop next to the theater where the Late Show was on, Dave finds a way to make anyone entertaining to everyone. It is rare that he can't find a chemistry to work with someone on stage with him, and that's the secret. Steve Allen, Jack Paar (to an extent), and Carson all had that gift. With the larger budget, Dave got bigger, grander, and funnier, while maintaining the "individual" appeal of a smaller budget show. There was Taxi Tic Tac Toe, the cross country trip of our two friends listed earlier and the van of gifts. The only thing missing was "Larry Bud Melman". Calvert DeForest shows up from time to time, but very rarely, and not with the same type of style that we had from Bud.

Dave is the King. It's a shame he had to leave the old court and build a new one.

I have been a big Letterman fan for years. I would tape shows when I was only 13, never missed a show. I agree that Letterman had his years where you could tell he felt like a failure and didn't put much into it. But I will add that he is much more real than Jay Leno. Jay Leno is your typical phony talk show host. You really saw how real Dave is if you saw his show on January 31, 2005 remembering Johnny Carson. I saw both his and Leno's shows on Johnny. Jay seemed much more scripted and fake. This was probably due to how the death of Johnny Carson hit the two, being that Dave was close with Johnny. (Johnny even wrote jokes in retirement and sent them to Dave to use). I have noticed lately that Dave's comedy is turning back around to the old Dave. Hopefully he realizes that he is appreciated and keeps up the turn around!

As far as American talk show hosts go, I find David Letterman the least pretentious and the least fake out of all of them. He seems to mostly say what he thinks and not JUST for the sake of being shocking or funny.

Letterman is mostly a likable guy and can at times be very witty, and of course satirical, which is something about him (as indeed his writers) that I enjoy. Yes I know, he is at times cocky and a bit of a show pony, but he's a talk show host and he's meant to have a personality and in my opinion he's the best there is.

I enjoy the little sketches like "Great Presidential Speeches" and "Will it Float?," I always enjoy watching Biff Henderson's little adventures and of course hearing from the always wonderful, Alan Kalter.

It's a nice little piece of late night entertainment and while some episodes are obviously going to be better than others depending on the guests - you know you're always going to have a bit chuckle.