Bonus Episode – 1996’s THE LATE SHIFT w/guest Omar Uddin
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Nice discussion fellas!
I was a Letterman fan from the early days of his NBC morning show & recall what a big deal the late night war was in the early 1990s when Carson decided to retire.
I have to disagree somewhat with the idea that Leno “sold out” when he got the Tonight Show job. It’s called “show business” for a reason. He understood the assignment that a comedy/celebrity interview show at 11:30pm was very different from a show with that format at 12:30am. Ultimately, Dave’s too idiosyncratic & a bit mean spirited for the earlier time slot.
I’ve seen several thoughtful interviews with Leno in the last year or so. He’s still working on the road nearly every week. I would say Letterman is the one closer to Citizen Kane.
Personally, the greatest mystery to me from the world of Late Night was the popularity of Conan, which has eluded me from the start.
If you’ve never seen the PBS documentary on Johnny Carson, I highly recommend it. Jerry Seinfeld summed it up best when he said NBC should have changed the name of the show when Carson retired. He took the “Tonight Show” with him & it never really was the same in terms of cultural impact or importance again.
This was a fascinating discussion. I haven’t seen the movie in recent years and don’t know it nearly as well as you guys, but I probably should revisit it because I was a big late-night viewer in the 80s and 90s.
I started watching Johnny Carson in the early to mid 80s. One of my local stations showed MASH reruns at 11:00, which I started watching when I got into MASH in the final season in 1982-1983, and then I started staying up a little bit later to watch Carson at 11:30. I’d usually watch the monologue and then the comedy bit in the second segment and still get to bed by midnight on school nights. Then a few years later, I got into Letterman after seeing him on the episode where Judge Wapner adjudicated a dispute over Carson stealing Letterman’s red truck. We had a VCR by that point, so I started recording Letterman.
I loved the viewer mail and Chris Elliott sketches the most. I remember watching the famous or infamous Crispin Glover interview, which I have watched again in recent years on YouTube. I can still remember where I was when I watched Carson’s last show, Letterman’s last NBC show, and his first CBS show.
Although Letterman’s NBC show was when he was at his funniest, his CBS show in the 90s was still like a fun party, and it was an exciting time as he was in the Ed Sullivan theater and exploring the nearby businesses, etc. I think by the 2000s, Letterman seemed a little more jaded (though still funny), and I gradually became less of a viewer, though I still watched here and there, especially during his last year.
I was on Letterman’s side during the late-night wars in the 90s. But as I’ve grown older, I think Jay Leno has gotten a bad rap, both regarding the 90s war with Letterman and the 2000s battle with Conan. Leno had as much right to fight for the Tonight Show job as Letterman or Conan, and yet NBC kept trying to push him out for the sin of being number one, and some act as if Letterman or Conan had some preordained right to the show. But at the same time, Leno’s Tonight Show was never that exciting to me.
Anyway, thanks for a very fun and insightful discussion.
I was thirty minutes into Graveyard Shift when I realized this Stephen King movie about killer rats in a pulp mill wasn’t the same thing you guys were talking about.
Anyway, I always feel a bit weird listening to Omar on other shows; jilted but also extremely proud. I loved this discussion and would’ve gladly listened to another hour, despite the fact that I haven’t seen this movie since the early 2000s and the subject matter never interested me as much because I never really followed any of the late night shows.
That said, I had a bunch of credits in my Audible account, so I picked up Bill Carter’s book. I’ll let you guys know when I finish listening to it.
This was glorious! You guys make a pretty good team! Not like me and Rob, but definitely up there!
Rob, I had no idea GROSSE POINTE BLANK was so high on your list! On this we are brothers! Can I read you a poem?
This was a great discussion of a well crafted movie that has somewhat flew under the radar of modern viewers now, despite having an amazing cast. As a Los Angeles resident, I totally agree with you both that even though there are business double dealings, overall this is a cozy film that perfectly captures the laidback, sun kissed vibes of California. I was surprised you two didn’t mention was that this was the second time the great Bob Balaban played an NBC executive. He was Russell Dalrymple on Seinfeld, an NBC president who becomes obsessed with Elaine, joins Greenpeace to impress her and dies at sea attempting to stop a whaling ship.