Read 'Highlights from Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by Jason Zinoman' on the Comedy Buff blog. Published 2026-02-14. “Did you hear McDonald’s is now serving breakfast? Now there’s a dream come true.”

Classic Dave Did you hear McDonald’s is now serving breakfast? Now there’s a dream come true. How Dave addressed politics “Letterman was never particularly interested in politics. Instead of joining the ranks for or against Vietnam, he incorporated news about the war into a prank on the saleswoman at the campus bookstore, asking her with a straight face if she sold napalm. “It’s a gelatinous substance that burns on anything. The U.S. armed forces used it in Vietnam,” he explained blankly as his friends nearby cracked up.” Socially distanced “Dave didn’t let people close to him,” said Jeff Lewis, a fellow Sigma Chi. “I asked him about it and he said, ‘If they got to know me, they wouldn’t like me.’” Lewis recalls him being concerned about the social events: “He said, ‘Listen, don’t be upset if I don’t go to the parties.’” International Fungo Ball League “On the afternoon show, Letterman delivered periodic updates on scores for the “International Fungo Ball League,” a fake sport where a point was scored when one team pushed a cast iron ball out of the stadium and onto the opposing team’s bus. Letterman delivered these descriptions in a news anchor’s voice full of stentorian authority.” Unusual turns of phrase “At the same time, his gift for unusual turns of phrase was evident. After playing a clanging sound effect, he asked her to guess it. “It sort of sounds like horse dentures falling into rusted Howitzer shell casings.” Letterman replied enthusiastically and said that, for getting the answer right, she had won a poisonous hunting arrow. “Maims first time every time,” he touted.” Dave the weekend weatherman “His first major exposure was as weekend weatherman. He quickly attracted attention by doing the same thing he was getting punished for at the college radio station: making up white lies in the middle of forecasts. With a deadpan delivery, he said the “higher-ups” had removed the border between Indiana and Ohio to make one giant state. “Personally,” he said, “I’m against it.” Taking a stand “We here at Channel 13,” he began, naming the actual station he worked at in Indiana, “would like to take this opportunity to say that we are diametrically opposed to the practice of using orphans as yardage markers in driving ranges.” Dave the insult comic “While Cook had pushed Letterman to go to Hollywood, their marriage didn’t survive the trip. “He said that his first wife, Michelle, was constantly complaining they lost every friend they had because Dave would drink and start making jokes about what’s wrong with them,” said Steve O’Donnell, one of the most critical writers during Letterman’s late-night career.” Number one enemy of pirates “Number one enemy of pirates is mildew,” he said, setting up a punch line. “Mildew scuttles more missions.” Covering local events of no particular significance “They also wrote a several-page pitch for “Have a Nice Day” that now reads like a blueprint for the filmed comedy on Letterman’s talk shows: “We seek to cover local events of no particular significance as though they were of great national importance.” Taking the magic out of the magic trick “She wrote one piece where Letterman held a chart explaining how a magician pulled a rabbit out of a hat—the kind of bit a talk-show host might deliver after a monologue. Playing off the fact that the secrets behind magic tricks are notoriously disappointing and simple (part of the reason magicians never tell them), Letterman explained, in a solemn scientific tone, with much technology and jargon, the endless complications of the trick. The elements of the joke reveal the intersection of Markoe’s and Letterman’s humor: the shared enjoyment of comic inventions, the silly snatches of language (the rabbit was transported to the Stanford Linear Accelerator), and the wry attitude toward anything show business. Poking fun at the sober voice of authority, they delighted in taking the magic out of the magic trick. This was a tactic they would return to again and again.” Airline humor “Less than two minutes into his set, he described heading to an airplane bathroom, which he called “the lavatory of the aircraft,” and observing a sign on the wall that read, “Do not place metal or glass objects in the toilet.” Letterman took a long pause, put his hands in his pockets, and relaxed his shoulders, then said, “That always ruins the trip for me.” Letterman on Carson “After saying he was from Indiana (which earned some applause), Carson asked if he had worked in radio there. Letterman didn’t answer the question. “I know we have some folks from South Bend,” he said instead, to applause, before muttering, with an oddly nasty note of sarcasm, “Beautiful there, what a town.” Carson appeared surprised and delighted by this unnecessary crack. Why would he sneer at the crowd or that town? Then Letterman moved into his joke: “The one thing I’ll always remember as long as I live, growing up in Indiana, is Dad teasing me with the power tools.” Dave's dog “All beef—not a speck of cereal.” Letterman paused. “My dog spends the day rooting through the garbage and drinking out of the toilet,” he said, sarcasm rising. “Chances are he’s not going to mind a speck of cereal.” Conan found Dave's morning show disorienting when he first saw it “For audiences who associated morning television with soap operas, game shows, and friendly talk, The David Letterman Show was a jarring change of pace. Conan O’Brien stumbled on the show as a high school senior. He described the disorienting experience of seeing Letterman for the first time: His hair resembled an ill-fitting vintage leather motorcycle helmet. His front teeth had a massive gap that looked almost painted-on as a joke. He was wearing the requisite broadcaster’s tie, but khaki pants and Adidas sneakers. His set looked wrong, as if he had thrown it together minutes before the show—strange photos of dogs decorated the wall behind him. And then there was his manner. His smile was not ingratiating, but mischievous and ever so slightly malevolent. He was not comfortable in his own skin at a time when everyone on television, by definition, was comfortable in their own skin. And on top of it all, he was doing a comedy show in the morning. What the hell? Who does a comedy show in the morning? What’s wrong with this guy? Who let this happen?” Using reality as an element of sketch comedy “We were working with reality as an element, instead of the wholly created fantasy of sketch comedy,” Markoe said. They wanted the stars to be ordinary people. “Famous people were on The Tonight Show and Merv Griffin,” Letterman said. “We wanted real people.” At the time, this was a radical idea.” The Impostor character “Markoe wrote a character called the Impostor that became one of the early running gags of both the morning show and Late Night with David Letterman. Letterman would introduce a surprise guest who was famous, but wasn’t necessarily someone everyone would be able to recognize. (A respected novelist was perfect.) Then Ed Subitzky, the bespectacled, bald, and extremely mild-mannered former National Lampoon writer, walked out and sat down to talk to Letterman. He answered a question, then paused, confessed that he was a fake, and ran out of the studio, apologizing to everyone in the audience. Letterman was left onstage looking surprised. His advice to Subitzky the first time he played this character was simple: “What we are looking to achieve here is stupid.” Pushing the medium &amp; borrowing from Charlie Chaplin “Gurnee helped David Letterman understand the possibilities of the medium. He proposed ending a show with the host walking up a ladder and exiting from the top of a screen, and then opening a new one the next day by climbing down. Letterman tried it out. He took another bit for a cold open from Charlie Chaplin, in which he started on a close-up of Letterman and then opened wider to show him hanging upside down.” The disaster (or masterpiece) that was the marriage anniversary party “On one late-August episode, the show incorporated a marriage anniversary party for an actual middle-aged couple, Sam and Betty Kotinoff, onstage. Letterman brought out a band and a cake, and the Kotinoffs held sparklers right before the credits rolled and papier-mâché rose petals and confetti fell. But when the confetti hit the sparklers, they burst into flames. Letterman was thanking his guests on the air when the fire began, quickly spreading. Before the host knew what had happened, Mr. Kotinoff started stomping on the ground, but from the viewer’s perspective it was unclear why. Gurnee noticed, however, and panned down to discover several small fires heating up right under the feet of the couple, who were surrounded by about fifty of their friends and family. Letterman now realized what was happening and started stomping as well. A stage manager with a fire extinguisher rushed onto the stage. The crowd scattered. In the midst of this chaos, Gurnee shifted from an overhead shot to a wide one back to Letterman’s anxious face. Instead of downplaying the disaster, Gurnee turned it into an action film. Gurnee ended with almost a close-up of Letterman, looking at the floor. The singer crooned. The band played. The show went to black, and Wheel of Fortune began. Downstairs, Tomorrow host Tom Snyder was watching Letterman’s show on the monitor with Stu Smiley, and remarked that the show was not going to be on the air for long. He wasn’t the only one. Letterman despaired. Gurnee, by contrast, was elated. “What he perceived as good for the show and what I perceived sometimes didn’t always jibe,” Gurnee said. “It just doesn’t. I love when things screw up. I don’t like to see people made a fool of. But life is that way. That’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking for things that you wouldn’t even think of doing.” Filling up network time with strangeness “She didn’t want satire; she was looking for something weirder than that. It was a small decision, but one that reflected the core aesthetic of the show**: Late Night didn’t invent something out of nothing. It took what was already in the world and made you see it in a new way. The point was not to mock Frankenstein so much as appropriate it**. At rehearsal, Tiedemann asked Letterman if he was bothered that few would get the nod to the movie, that he would start his late-night show by confusing a large proportion of his audience. Letterman replied, “For me, anytime you can fill up network time with something like that, I put it in the win column.” Dave's version of the monologue “In his opening remarks, what other shows called the monologue, David Letterman spent an inordinate amount of time sarcastically hyping and effusively praising the show. “What a power-packed, historic extravaganza we’ve assembled for you tonight,” he said at the top of one show.” Dave's indifference “Mostly, Letterman projected indifference verging on boredom. A common phrase on the show occurred when Letterman would stop in the middle of a boast and say, “If that’s not enough—and by gosh, don’t you think it ought to be?” Having more fun than humans should be allowed to have “Letterman also regularly said, with a deadpan that could look positively morose, that he was “having more fun than humans should be allowed to have.” In his first year, the central joke of Letterman’s performance was a preposterous celebration of just how incredible this awful-looking show appeared to be.” A dog starting the show tonight “In the second week, Late Night began an episode with a familiar talk-show vignette: the desk and a microphone. But there was something different here. The host was absent, and in his place was a dog sipping a glass of milk, which went on for a full minute, a seemingly endless span of time for television comedy, before the glass toppled over, the milk spilling. Cue the start of the show.” Cut to the Letterman in a pirate hat “A leading candidate for the most flamboyantly strange comedy bi