2 Clips You WON'T See on the David Letterman Primetime Special

Ken Tucker
·Critic-at-Large, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated
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The David Letterman: A Life on Television special airing Monday night on CBS will, I’m sure, hit all the well-known touchstones of the departing host’s career: Bill Murray’s inaugural visit to The Late Show in 1993 (Murray was also Letterman’s first guest on both his NBC Late Night in 1982, and Letterman’s 1980 morning show); Drew Barrymore flashing Letterman while wiggling atop his desk; Letterman’s return to the show after his quintuple bypass surgery, and many more.

But here are two moments I’ll wager you won’t see; they’re among my favorites. We can assume the CBS special will not contain many clips from Letterman’s NBC Late Show. In the moment below, Letterman crosses the hall to the local NBC affiliate channel to interrupt a pre-Today Show Al Roker. Letterman — a former weatherman himself, of course — liked doing stunts like this back then. (Just ask Bryant Gumbel how much he enjoyed such interruptions.)

Note a couple of things here. First, the way Letterman bullies an NBC page merely acting on orders not to let anyone interrupt the news. Letterman yanks at the guy’s tie, and later implies the fellow may be fired — not classy, but man oh man, so Dave. Second, and this is for East Coast news nostalgists only: Dig that the Live at Five newscast is co-anchored by the great grumpy baritone Jack Cafferty.

Now, clip No. 2. Remember when Jay Leno took back The Tonight Show from Conan O’Brien, thus sparking the Great Second or Third Age of the Late-Night Wars? Letterman stood by silently for a while, not commenting on the action, but finally one night, he could hold his tongue no longer.

Hearing him disparage — with humor, but firmly — Leno’s tactics is fascinating. Sure, Letterman is still working through his long-standing grudge against Leno wrestling the Tonight Show from him, when Carson retired in 1992. But it’s also a rare glimpse into the way Letterman deals with tough situations. You just know that his advice to Leno — “You go across the street, get another job, and make them eat their words” — were what he told himself when he moved to CBS.

Looking forward to Monday’s double-dose o’ Letterman, the primetime special followed by the regularly scheduled Late Show, with guest President Obama.

David Letterman: A Life on Television airs Monday, May 4 at 9:30 p.m. on CBS.