Recently hugged Richard Simmons
Smoking those damn Stogies again
Hugh Grant booked on Leno first
Uh, do we have to keep going? We’re kinda getting sick of top-10 lists–another bad sign. When Dave made the late shift from NBC to CBS, critics raved and viewers flocked. The guy could do no wrong! But that was almost two years ago. Now the backlash has begun.
The Oscars started it. THE WINNER ISN’T DAVID LETTERMAN, The New York Times sniffed about Dave’s Stupid Host Tricks. That opened the floodgates, making it officially OK to say mean things about Letterman and his “Late Show.” Things like “The routine was funny the first 50 or so times, but …” or “It’s not just his hair that’s wearing thin.” Ouch. What a year. His longtime director and head writer are gone. The man who lured Letterman away from NBC, former CBS Broadcast Group president Howard Stringer, fled the sinking network in February. CBS is dragging everybody down with its record-low prime-time ratings. Recent meganews events like the Oklahoma City bombing have sucked latenight viewers into “Nightline.” Jay Leno, once derided as a buffoon unworthy of Johnny Carson’s throne, has undergone a huge image rehab and can even beat Dave in L.A. and Chicago.
For the first time in a long time, Letterman, 48, is on the defensive. “This show has had every possible, imaginable disadvantage a television show can have,” he says dead-seriously in an interview with Newsweek. “Beyond that I can’t say anything.” But he does anyway. “Many, many problems have befallen this network that were not apparent when we came over here.” We’re in Letterman’s totally nondescript office at “Late Show” headquarters, 12 floors above the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, where he just finished taping a show with Larry King and Rob Schneider. He’s in his standard off-camera leisurewear: baseball cap, sweats, a T shirt emblazoned with race driver Nigel Mansell’s name and car. He’s guarded, a little wary, and as usual, can’t sit still. He wants it known that, ratings-wise, he still rules (chart). His executive producer, Robert Morton, wants it known that many of Leno’s improvements are Letterman rip-offs: “We’re the innovators!” Leno counters with his usual diplomacy: “I think we all borrowed from Steve Allen.” Uh-huh.
Trashing CBS has become as much a staple of the “Late Show” monologue as trashing NBC owners General Electric was on the old show. But the shtik seems more ungrateful than funny now, considering the $14 million a year CBS is shelling out for their star. Does he wish he’d signed with another network? “I think they do a pretty nice job at ABC,” he says, waving a half-smoked cigar in his right hand. “If you watch from “Good Morning America’ through the rest of the broadcast day there’s a pretty cohesive feeling, some kind of vision.” Dusting off the old resume, Dave?
Bad vibes: Pathologically self-critical, Letterman is getting more negative vibes from elsewhere than he’s used to. “It’s always a pleasure to watch somebody else get roasted, but when you get roasted it’s just not the same deal.” He’s aware of the backlash. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I’ve seen it happen to everybody else. It’s happening to us now.” Morton dismisses the bad press as the sour-griping of TV columnists who’ve been turned down for interviews: “Every reporter you say no to has a bone to pick.” Letterman insists he’s as accessible as ever. “There was a time when you picked up Truck World Magazine and I was on the cover.” That time may have come again.
Letterman’s people are launching a counteroffensive to combat the show’s slippage and bad media mojo. His May sweeps week in London was a ratings boon, but critics kept up their sniping. “London Bridge is falling down, and so is “Late Show with David Letterman’,” wrote The Dallas Morning News. “Ye Olde Top 10 List” seemed “olde” indeed. Dave was a hit on the BBC, while gossip columnists here delighted in reporting how much some Brits hated him. One BBC letter-writer called Letterman “a xenophobic, irritating, crass little man.” Another said of the show, “This is for morons.” Imagine what they’d say about Jay.
The mood has been “up since London,” says a “Late Show” staffer. But the troubles linger. “He needs a creative boost,” says New York Times reporter Bill Carter, whose book “The Late Shift” chronicled the Letterman-Leno wars of ‘93. “He needs to do different things.”
Addicted to formula, Letterman is on an eternal quest for the next Stupid Whatever Trick: “You get a great idea and you say let’s do it again and again.” On one wall of Morton’s office is a board covered with three-by-five cards listing guests booked for the coming weeks. Above the board are more cards outlining the type of viewers watching each night of the week and the type of guests best suited to those viewers. Monday: white upscale female. Tuesday: rural, country music. Wednesday: comedy. Etc. The guidelines are courtesy of CBS’s research department. “Who knows if it works?” says Morton. “You try!”
Letterman wants the show comfy, not cutting-edge: “There’s something comforting about the familiarity of the show.” He’s nicer to guests these days. The sarcastic irony the old Dave sliced and diced with at 12:30 doesn’t play as well with the tamer 11:30 crowd. Watching Letterman interview Tom Hanks last week was weird: the Misanthrope trying to connect with Forrest Gump. New Dave panders more to the studio audience, going for broad gags like dropping beach balls from the rafters–one of last week’s gimmicks. Says one ex-“Late Show” writer: “The comedy isn’t nearly as sophisticated as it used to be. Everything has to get a big laugh, so you find a way to put Mujibur and Sirajul on the show.” Or break out the canned hams.
Letterman is smoking again, but as he says, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” It doesn’t mean he’s freaking over the show. No more than usual. “What am I supposed to do? Take the day off?” Letterman says with mock exasperation. “I take this seriously. I think you’d be a fool to say, “I got this one under control. I can ride this mule!’ " He’s a worrier, feared for his moods and black temper. It’s a little-known fact that the Krusty the Klown character on “The Simpsons” is based on Dave. “He’s a typical superstar with a superstar’s mentality,” says one business associate. Other people love working for him. Even disgruntled ex-employees revere his talent, the way he can ad lib a brilliant line or save a lame bit.
Night in, night out, “Late Show” is still funnier than Leno. Advertisers are still paying a premium for Letterman’s young, affluent male viewers. He wants the Oscars again, blurting out gleefully, “You can’t be tried twice for the same murder!” his Worldwide Pants production company has a sitcom on CBS’s fall schedule. He can still proclaim, “We’re coming up on two years and we have dominated and we have prevailed.” The high point of those two years? Madonna mouthing off? Drew Barrymore taking it off? Letterman says it was landing Vice President Al Gore. The low point? He thinks about it, then grins into an imaginary camera and utters just two words: “Stay tuned.”
The “Late Show” debuted on CBS in August ‘93, and 7.4 million homes tuned in to Dave–twice Jay’s numbers. This season his lead is down to 494,000 homes. Both shows have had their ups and downs; here’s how the race has been run and won.
GRAPH: Graph shows percentage of America’s 95 million television households watching Dave and Jay each week since August of 1993.
DAVE: Started huge, then leveled off. Boosted by Mom in Lilehammer, Madonna mini-scandal, road trips to L.A. and London. Hurt by “Nightline” and tanking CBS network. Still No.1
JAY: Improved by new set and lengthened monologue. But overall gain minimal despite major lead-in power of NBC hits “ER” and “Friends.” Beats only Dave’s reruns.
