David Letterman to Retire

During tonight's episode of the Late Show, David Letterman will announce his retirement in 2015.

One can't help speculating as to how much pressure (if any) he was under to retire. Low ratings have to be weighed against the problem that there's nothing else out there for him to do. I mean, in many ways he can do anything he wants but he always seemed to respect the fact that when Johnny Carson retired, that was it - except for a few minor appearances Carson wasn't seen on TV again.

And so it would officially be retirement - a concept that seems totally foreign to someone like Dave. After he came back from the writers' strike, he candidly joked that, as often as retiring people like to say, "I'm going to spend more time with my family", the reality of that situation is not all it's cracked up to be. And, of course, Letterman was the one who came back on air while the strike was still on-going.

It just seems like some people shouldn't stop working. Andy Rooney died one month after he left "60 Minutes", Fred Rogers was diagnosed with cancer just months after he went off the air. Let's hope this isn't one of those situations.

From the early 90's until about 2008, you would not find a bigger fan of David Letterman than myself. As long as you don't count Disney characters, I believe his is the only celebrity autograph I own. I watched every single episode that I could, night after night. I would tape the best bits of his show and play them back anyone who shared my comedic sense. You'll recognize that reflex as the blueprint of this very blog I'm writing today. You might find this hard to believe but I actually consciously thought during those years, "He's going to retire some day and talk shows don't get reruns so I'm going to watch every second I can while I can." But my viewership quickly diminished from 2008 until now as he became much more politicized and comedy took a back seat to espousing his political views. I don't think I'm alone in this because his ratings started diving around the same time frame. And so now that the retirement is a reality (the announcement at least) it doesn't feel like a major upheaval or an entertainment tragedy. I feel like the Late Show disappeared long ago and this is just going through the motions of making it official.