Late Show - Best of Bill Murray

This is amazing. There isn't enough time or detail in any of the clips to really do them justice but the sheer number... the sheer number of amazing clips from over the years is so impressive...



The full Bill Murray interview (this interview) is worth watching but doesn't exist as a separate clip. You can see it within the full episode here.

Late Show - Best of Rupert Jee

On David Letterman's second-to-last show, Rupert Jee makes one last appearance.

Rupert Jee goes right back to the "old days" of the show where part of the fun was putting people on TV who had no business being on TV - and by extension, making celebrities out of people who were simply "normal" people. And Rupert Jee always seemed like a just a really nice guy.


Watching these clips again, I'm amazed at how quickly it feels like it's from an ancient era. Not due to the video quality or technology, the entire zeitgeist is gone forever. Today the "comedy of annoyance" feels mean-spirited, whereas back then it was just the cutting-edge of comedy. Not only that, this is cutting-edge comedy that still feels new and fresh today - and how often does that happen? I was uncomfortable watching it then, I'm uncomfortable watching it now.

"It was my thumb."

Conan - Letterman Tribute

Well... sort of. I'm still waiting for Conan's ON-AIR Letterman tribute. As of the time of this post, Conan still hasn't mentioned on his show. But he recently wrote a tribute in the form of an article for EW.com.

You can read it here.

A notable portion:

"Dave’s show was that rare phenomenon: a big, fat show business hit that seemingly despised show business. Dave didn’t belong, and he had no interest in belonging. He amused himself, skewered clueless celebrity guests, and did strange, ironic comedic bits that no one had seen on television before. Everything about that show was surreal and off-kilter. Where late night television had once provided comfort, this man reveled in awkwardness. Cher called him an asshole. Andy Kaufman ran screaming from the set. Chris Elliot lived under the stairs. Throughout one episode the entire show rotated a complete 360 degrees, for no reason whatsoever. By 1985, when I graduated from college and was ready to try my hand as a comedy writer, Late Night with David Letterman had been the Holy Grail for several miraculous years."

Tonight Show - Jimmy's Dave Tribute

Jimmy Fallon isn't much of a speechwriter, of course, but it's from the heart. Dave's last show is tomorrow night.

Late Show - Norm MacDonald

Norm MacDonald performed stand-up comedy one last time on the Late Show with David Letterman. If you want to see the entire performance, you can see it here. But an interesting thing happened on his last joke...

[Original Link Broken]

Link to the Moment.

Late Show - Last Show Approaching

David Letterman's career on late night is quickly coming to an end; his last show is May 20th. In an interesting interview, Dave talks about what it all means, his heart surgery, the scandal and reveals that he's been taking anti-depressants.

This was the part that I found most interesting:

As the end nears, Late Show has dug into its vaults to replay a sampling of vintage comedy bits, some almost Dada-esque in their absurdity. (On a recent show, a 1993 clip found Dave cruising Manhattan making mischief with his car phone, as when he alerted a news-radio station that traffic was backed up on Amsterdam Avenue, then corrected himself: 'Oh, I think it was just a red light.')
Those old clips make him nostalgic for the Lettermanesque-ness he may have since outgrown.

'I realize what the old show was, and we haven't being doing the old show in years,' he says.  

'And that's all because of me.'

I have to agree. Not that I've been saying that it's "all because of him" but that my reason for losing interest in the show is because it had changed. It wasn't that Dave was old or that his competitors were so much better or that he couldn't produce "the viral videos", it was that they simply stopped doing The Late Show.

I imagine there'll be many such clip montages in the episodes leading up to the final show, so I look forward to that.