There are a million talk shows these days (there are too many talk shows these days) and every single one of them has the same look and feel. They all have a "rocking" (or otherwise upbeat) intro theme, a loud band, a booming announcement "AND NOW HERE'S YOUR HOST...", a raucous crowd, etc.
But while the goal of every current talk show is to be perceived as a cool party every night, Late Night with David Letterman was the cool afterparty every night. The band was four members, the intro theme was subdued, the crowd was small... in general, it had a quietness about it as if we can have fun but we need to be careful not to wake anyone. Basically, it had a "late night" feel in the true sense of the phrase. It's the middle of the night, lots of people are asleep but we're going to have fun.
Unnecessarily long intro aside, John Cleese came on the show July 6, 1988 to promote his new film "A Fish Called Wanda". A wonderful interview, Cleese talks about the British character, fish, cricket, British holidays, etc. This clip doesn't exactly prove my point but it's close. Who can blame the crowd for being excited when they're making toast. Yes, toast!
My favorite part is the toast.
They later parodied this movie (Fish called Wanda) in an episode of the Simpons entitled "A fish named Selma".
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