A David Letterman Talk Show Narrative, Part 1 of 4: Late Night

The Letterman Podcast's host Mike Chisholm asked if I might put something together to help commemorate his 100th episode.
Rather than select highlights and best-of conversations, I decided to try to craft a behind-the-scenes narrative of Dave’s talk show history as told by many of Mike’s podcast guests - the writers, producers, musicians, and network executives who worked for and with Dave throughout his 35-year tenure at NBC and CBS.
The narrative is distributed in four parts:
Part 1: Late Night on NBC, 1982-1993
Part 2: The transition from NBC to CBS, 1993 - • A David Letterman Talk...
Part 3: Late Show on CBS, 1993-2015 - • A David Letterman Talk...
Part 4: Epilogue and bonus clips - • A David Letterman Talk...
The roster of the guests selected include:
Amy Cherin Humes, Assistant to the Director
Bill Carter, Author
Carter Bays, Late Show Writer
Chris Harris, LS Writer
Chris Schukei, Assistant to the Music Director
Craig Thomas, LS Writer
Daniel Kellison, Late Night, LS Producer
Dave Rygalski, LN Writer
Felicia Collins, LS Musician
Fred Graver, LN Writer
Gabe Abelson, LS Monologue Head
George Schweitzer, CBS Chief Marketing Officer
Gerard Mulligan, LN Writer and Segment Producer, LS Writer
Jeff Martin, LN Writer
Jeremy Weiner, LS Writer
Joe Grossman, LS Writer
Jonathan Green, LS Writer
Lee Ellenberg, LS Writer
Matt Roberts, LS Head Writer, Executive Producer
Paul Shaffer, LN and LS Music Director
Robert Morton, LN Producer, LS Executive Producer
Rupert Jee, Proprietor, Hello Deli
Stephen Winer, LN Writer
Steve O'Donnell, LN Head Writer, LS Writer
Steve Young, LN and LS Writer
Tim Kennedy, LS Technical Director
Tom Malone, LS Musician
Tom Ruprecht, LS Writer
Vinnie Favale, CBS Vice President, Late Night Entertainment, East Coast
Will Lee, LN and LS Musician
Some details become blurred from long-dormant memories - a Viewer Mail letter is actually a separate, stand-alone comedy piece; a timeline might be off by a year or two. But the substance of those memories are precise and vivid, and they offer a heretofore untold look into the creation of material as well as fresh perspectives from the personalities that helped mold a culture-defining legacy.
Great thanks to Worldwide Pants for granting permission to share some of its owned and licensed content and to Mike for eliciting so much essential history from his guests.
The Letterman Podcast:
/ @thelettermanpodcast

[@thelettermanpodcast]

To have Don Giller create and assemble these collaborations is beyond an honor. It’s a dream come true. Thank you Don for your time, effort, care and dedication for archiving and sharing something we all love so much, and for all the help you have given The Letterman Podcast!

[@dongiller]

And you are…? :)

[@BuddyGorey]

😂 A true grifter, masquerading at legitimacy. Dear “letterman podcast” author- you can base your brand around an established brand, but you still have to come up with one. And grabbing at the audience of another commentator is transparent, especially to the kind of media nerd that loves this effort. Anyway Don thanks for the honest labor. Looking forward to a full day’s worth of gems

[@dongiller]

@@BuddyGorey I know your criticism is sincere, but it’s lacking a fuller picture here. Every second of the clips I’ve assembled here originates from The Letterman Podcast. Without the conversations held there, this particular 4-Parter would not exist. The host’s name is Mike Chisholm. He deserves _enormous_ credit for reaching out to these guests and, as I wrote in my description, managing to elicit such wonderful thoughts from them. All I did here was mold those conversations into a hopefully coherent narrative on Letterman’s talk-show history and significance. But the source material all came from Mike’s podcasts.

[@thelettermanpodcast]

@@BuddyGorey This is interesting. So, simply to understand what you are saying; your accusation is the hundreds of hours of content we have created, most of which was done with Letterman staffers, but also folks connected with the show in tangential ways as well, is a grift? What about the relationships we have built with these folks over the last 18 months, and the lovely support they have given our show? More masquerading? And is Don too a ‘grifter,’ by taking our pieces of our footage, spending many hours sifting and sorting to create a cohesive narrative, never-mind what he has built here on his channel over the years? While of course your opinions are valid in this free society, we respectfully disagree with your point of view. Have a super day, despite your wacky ideas.

[@thelettermanpodcast]

@@dongiller A grifter, apparently. Crap. Gotta make new name-tags.

[@tommythevenot7617]

This channel should have a million subscribers

[@fortedrummer3026]

Wow, thank you for your entire effort, Don Giller! 🙏

[@agtake12]

Greatest comedy of our day with the exception of Sid Ceasar😂

[@hwinker]

Welcome "back" Don. And thank you to Mike for instigating this!

[@thelettermanpodcast]

It’s a pleasure. Much like snowboarding, except not-at-all like snowboarding.

[@WarholSuperstar]

AMAZING, Don - thank you so much for this 💕💕

[@dtonesmith766]

Don and Mike you are both in my top 10!

[@thelettermanpodcast]

Shhhh! Don’t tell them that! They will get big heads. ;)

[@costcoshill7941]

Robert Morton is such an interesting guy who really lived it all. I love how he immediately backtracks early in this and goes "well we didn't actually think that" over Letterman possibly succeeding in the AM, and the stories he shared on the letterman podcast (and the carson podcast) were golden. I would love to hear more from producers and other folks who worked behind the scenes like this. Great stuff!

[@thelettermanpodcast]

He’s an absolute pleasure to deal with, and he tells it like he sees it for sure. The goal is to get everyone on the podcast, obviously some are more excited than others. Thanks so much for the kind words!

[@brentgardner5103]

I bet the BoDeans song was "Fadeaway'. Man, I used to burn that one up myself. This was great stuff. Thanks, Don!!!

[@waynedale]

The Donz has created a masterpiece.

[@CptCrash21]

I didn't even know there was a Letterman podcast!!! Awesome!

[@thelettermanpodcast]

Yeah, we kept that secret pretty well.

[@CptCrash21]

@@thelettermanpodcast Now that I know about it, I look forward to a long slow trickle of mildly amusing, even occasionally funny anecdotes.

[@thelettermanpodcast]

@@CptCrash21 yes. And tell your friends.

[@thelettermanpodcast]

@@CptCrash21 also, keep your expectations about knee height and you’ll be fine.

[@icetech6]

Thanks for making this channel :)

[@ram3621]

Would've loved some clips like the "Salt Lick-Burt Reynolds" joke and Viewer Mail Jack Nicholson Batman or Joan Collins 70 yrs young joke.

[@dongiller]

I was under some video restrictions, so what it did was what I was allowed to do - video at 50% opacity with no audio.

[@TheTuubster]

... so, when does the book come out? :)

[@dongiller]

This _is_ the book. :)

[@thelettermanpodcast]

There have been a few offers...

[@MelBrewer]

Who is that at 11:49? Thanks.

[@dongiller]

Stephen Winer.

[@markkdarkk2988]

Interesting, what the guests had to say. But, good Lord, the host is a major irritant with his incessant interjections of "Yeah, yeah," "Yop, yop, yop," the huge head bobbing in agreement with anything from the guests' mouths. I won't make it through the entire presentation. Host guy needs to close his mouth and simply let his guest talk.