Tonight is the very last David Letterman show.


For a few years in the 80s (which happened to be my formative years) Letterman's show was truly the most subversive thing on TV, and it wasn't very well known. Being a Letterman fan really felt like I was in on the ground floor of something special. Letterman started his late show on NBC when I was in 8th grade, and it would be hard to overstate his influence on my personality and my sense of humor.


I thought people would like talking about Letterman's influence, or simply sharing memories of favorite episodes or stunts.

Letterman being dropped into a vat of water while covered in Alka Seltzer

I used to love Letterman. Especially the old NBC show. Larry "Bud" and Elliot were always hilarious. The CBS show wasn't quite the same or as good but very watchable until about 5 or so years ago. Then he got way too political for my tastes in a very uneven left leaning manner and I found myself unable to watch anymore. He was always more entertaining than Jay though.

I remember watching that Seltzer bit in we when it first aired. But my favorite was Dave jumping onto the velcro wall while wearing a velcro suit.

I've thought the world of him since I first saw him do standup on Johnny Carson in the 70s. He's just the best and helped change comedy forever.

I can still watch random Letterman show Youtube clips from years ago and be hugely entertained. I do this a lot with guests like Norm MacDonald and Louis CK or even Sam Kinison.

Rupert Jee highlights last night were pretty funny

Rupert Jee stuff was terrific.


I always thought Letterman's interactions with Richard Simmons were ****ing hilarious.

If Andy Kaufman isn't really dead, now would be the time to reveal it.

will be strange not having him on tv. it's like losing a relative

Great tribute to Dave by Conan during his monologue just now. Even told viewers to switch over at 11:30 to watch Dave instead of the rest of his show.

Dick Cavett was talking about how Letterman's irreverence used to piss people off so much. Probably hard to believe for youngsters as his brand of irreverence has become so mainstream, but at one time it was both new and controversial. Some stars really didn't like coming on his show and getting poked fun at. I'm sure his bosses ****ing hated him ripping on them constantly ("those pinheads at GE").

Is that how he landed on CBS? Did NBC eventually dump him?

He'd been offered slots at both CBS and ABC competing against the Tonight Show. Carson convinced to stay in the later slot by promising him the Tonight Show when he (Carson) retired.

Leno apparently convinced NBC that they could hire him for the Tonight Show and keep Letterman too. Letterman said "**** that" and jumped to CBS.

Carson was so pissed off by this that he that he never appeared on the Tonight Show with Leno but appeared on Letterman's show multiple times.

When I was younger, I had a David Letterman sweater. I didn't know who the guy was, but I thought the sweater was stylin' (as early 90s attire was, lol). I guess I sort of looked like the guy because people told me I resembled him. I had fire red hair growing up.

I finally saw his show when I was around 14 or so. It was the first, and perhaps the only time, I spent a full hour howling at the TV.

Being geeky wasn't cool in the 70s or 80s like it is now. It could be pretty lonely growing up a bookish kid with a weird sense of humor in the South. Letterman made me feel like I wasn't alone in the world, and that there were other bookish kids with a weird sense of humor out there (and that sometimes they inexplicably got TV shows).

Thanks, Dave

I DVR'd his show tonight and watched it but I haven't been a regular viewer in many years. I feel like he's been phoning it in for at least a decade now. I didn't ever watch his show until like 1995 when I was 16 and I probably watched it fairly regularly until around 2000. I thought he was really good. And I loved when he did the taped daytime stuff with Rupert like going through a drive-through and ordering 200 tacos, or going to McDonalds and ordering 20 quarter pounders to build his own 5 pounder. This was of course before cell phones or really the internet as we know it. And video cameras were still big, bulky, and several hundred dollars, so they weren't common. There was a short-lived (before its time) MTV show called Buzzkill in the early '90s but after that you really just didn't readily find public trolling like this. It was just Dave afair. Then Tom Green popped up. The Jackass crew... and now with YouTube you have people all over the world doing it. Maybe that's why Dave has been phoning it in since 2000-2005.

Anyway, I'm sad when institutions of Americana die off. It just reminds me that I'm aging. Another part of my youth has just died off. I felt no sadness when that unfunny turd Leno retired.

His rapport with Norm MacDonald was terrific. Norm was one of the only guys who ever made Dave genuinely laugh. And Norm always had high praise for Dave, even though he had to lampoon him on SNL.

They made a movie about it The Late Shift. Give it a watch it's pretty entertaining

Ha I remember Dave was going to have the actor who played him as a guest on the show but he kept bumping him.

Like Robin Williams he stopped being funny when he quite the coke.

Loved when he has Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lawler on...great bit.

Man my DVR cut off just as they were about to come back for the Foo Fighters. Thanks for posting that, that was cool. I have the sads.

I'm pretty sure Dave said Foo Fighters were his favorite band now, since he heard them play "My Hero" and it reminded him of his heart surgeon that saved his life. Pretty cool.

Can't wait to see Letterman be a guest for Colbert

Does Colbert begin tonight? Is he going to be normal or troll the entire time?

Is more like it for me.

Bye Dave. Never saw much of his show in the later years. But it was great then just good as others have pointed out.

Still recall the great joke he had about Heineken Chunky Style and the aftermath. How long ago was that? Damn the years fly by............