For those of you who are too young or too old to remember, the 1980s were a terrible time. We’ve touched on this before, but it might have been the one decade in which it was cool to be conservative. Smug assholes like Reagan, Alex P Keaton, and P. J. O’Rourke were everywhere. I mean, you think you see too much of Donald Trump now?
The late ’80s were particularly bad — Willie Horton ads, the pledge of allegiance, a thousand points of light. Most days, I couldn’t take it all anymore by about 5 or 6 pm (it would have been earlier had I not slept til noon), and I’d spend the remainder of the day just waiting for Dave to come on, so I could laugh bitterly at it all for a little while.
There was very little in 1980s popular culture that was weird or subversive. People talk about how much they love the “Breakfast Club” but it always seemed to me it was about a bunch of justifiably miserable misfits brainwashing each other into being shiny, happy citizens. The 12:30 Late Night show was weird, with Larry Bud Melman and watermelons being dropped off buildings. Once George Clinton was a guest and he told Dave that the show was an inspiration to him, that it was out there in the same way his own act was out there (what higher praise can there be?).
Before I read this excellent article about Dave, I had forgotten how great the beginning of the very first show was:
“Good evening. Certain NBC executives feel it would be a little unkind to present this show without a word of friendly warning,” Melman deadpanned. “We are about to unfold a show featuring David Letterman, a man of science who sought to create a show after his own image without reckoning upon God. It’s one of the strangest tales ever told. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So if any of you feel that you don’t care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now is your chance to . . . Well, we warned you.”
What was your favorite bit ever on Letterman? I think I’ll go with the recurring character Dwight The Troubled Teen or Chris Elliot as The Guy Under The Seats or maybe Father Biff.
dedc79
A pretty well-written story about Dylan’s first appearance on the show.
Paul T
I never watched once.
the Conster
Every appearance by Richard Simmons was WTF, and Rupert with the earpiece.
benw
Don’t have a favorite all time, but a recent goody is Anna Kendrick’s Cup Song. Dave’s reaction afterward is classic.
Gus
Loved Peggy the foul mouthed librarian. I don’t know why an old lady swearing is so damn funny, but it is. Chris Elliot’s appearances were always weird. Loved his Morton Downey Jr. parody and Fugitive Guy.
Valdivia
Having consumed all the pop music of the 80s gladly (I was young, don’t blame me!) it’s fascinating to read that decade through this lens @Dougj.
I loved his top ten lists, and some of the political interviews he did. I loved, most of all, how cleverly caustic he was. He was also very New York, which I dug. I never really watched the whole show though.
Mont D. Law
Dropping things from the roof.
Ben Cisco
David Sanborn and Marcus Miller sitting in with the band was my bit.
Here’s one from the wayback machine with the two of them and Miles Davis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgm_dh2a31Q
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
When I saw it in the 80s, I dug the one-off oddities like the Suit of Velcro or the 360 degree rotation show.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I never got into Letterman in the 80s — there was something just a little too frat boy about the whole thing. My spouse is sad that the era is ending, though.
Gindy51
@Paul T: me neither and I am 57. I just could not be bothered to lose precious sleep over a TV show.
Villago Delenda Est
Stupid Pet Tricks
Valdivia
@benw:
oh cool. Kendrick is so talented. Hard to believe she started out as the annoying friend in the Twilight movies.
Sloegin
Things I remember from the freshman dorm; The Late Show and this weird new comic strip in the paper called Calvin and Hobbes.
Sigh.
gogol's wife
I watched only after he was on at 11:30. I liked stupid pet tricks, and the kid who said “diggity.” I did, however, spot unpleasant weirdness early on in his strange foregrounding of the office assistant named Stephanie. I was like, “What is so interesting about this woman that he features her every night?” We found out later.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
What everybody said, also Eatin’ With Zsa Zsa, LA and London: Oprah Watch/Dave and Oprah’s Superbowl of Love: Chris Elliott’s Marlon Brando, and the time he gave in later years to climate and anti-hunger activists.
And of course his merciless riding of McCain.
Gus
’80s popular culture may have been pretty awful, but ’80s underground culture was truly interesting. Hardcore and punk music and ‘zines were good stuff. They needed that shit pop culture to rebel against.
Elizabelle
Larry Bud Melman handing out hot towels at the Port Authority, to bus passengers.
SarahT
Chris Elliott as Marlon Brando (anything w/Chris Elliott, really), Monkey Cam, Dave’s Mom Dorothy, any appearance by w/Larry “Bud” Melman, Richard Simmons, or Bill Murray, Dave calling Bill O’Reilly a goon, Dave trying to enter the lobby of the GE building… No more Letterman ? Sigh…
Irony Abounds
There are too many bits to decide. The clips last night with Rupert Gee were just money. Killing the singer-songwriter. Stupid Pet Tricks was, at times, simply inspired. Know Your Meats. The Alka Seltzer Suit into Water. Dave’s departure is very depressing. I realize the show lost some sizzle after his heart surgery, but his gift of interviewing guests remained strong to the end.
NotMax
Letterman peaked sometime in the early nineties and has been desultorily going through the motions ever since.
Much of the offbeat of the early years of the late night show came from the cubicle of head writer Merrill Markoe. Letterman brought her along from his short-lived morning show..
Cervantes
True enough, but there was Spy, which debuted in the latter half of the ’80s.
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax: Here’s a great interview with Merrill Markoe. She talks about her work on the Letterman show as well as her theories and opinions on comedy.
F
Jim Kenney won the Philadelphia Mayoral primary, which according to our conservative friends, should have been impossible, since Democrats supposedly vote for people based on the color of their skin, or genitalia, or something.
DougJ
@Irony Abounds:
Yes!
Elizabelle
My late mom tuned in every night to Letterman, a fellow Hoosier.
I feel sad, on her behalf, for his retirement. Also, he seems good at skewering folks who take themselves too seriously.
Don’t watch the other late shows, so not qualified to assess them.
But they dimmed years ago when they became more a forum for discussing the guest’s latest movie, etc. Just studio PR.
Loved Johnny Carson and the comedians he invited. Used to love David Brenner’s routines, really, most of the 1960s comedians’ (except Don Rickles).
qwerty42
His Christmas Specials, with Darlene Love singing “Christmas (Baby please come Home)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfurmGiKZ5k
Chris
Huh. I enjoy the action TV shows of the era (reruns). And while yes, there’s absolutely no way you’ll ever find an equivalent of “The Wire” on eighties television, the impression I got overall is one of massive cynicism towards the authorities. Don’t know if that’s enough to count it as “subversive,” but I definitely don’t get a nice warm and fuzzy vibe of “yay Reagan! Everything’s getting better now that he’s in charge!”
The Equalizer and Airwolf are the two spy shows of the era – and while not exactly anti-spook, they also come with a really thick vibe of that post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-Church Committee disillusionment with the security state (especially noticeable if you compare with the original generation of spy shows from the sixties).
The A-Team – it’s about a group of outlaws, who were made that way by their own corrupt superiors in Vietnam, and now joyfully stick it to the man every chance they get (“the man” here meaning police, military, and intelligence, not IRS, EPA and HHS).
The crime shows of the era (Rockford, Magnum, Murder She Wrote) – mostly about private eyes who often are investigating things that the regular cops are either too incompetent or indifferent to care about. I suppose you can take that as either right wing (“incompetent”) or left wing (“indifferent”) if you had to assign politics.
MacGyver – I don’t even need to explain that one, do I?
And then there’s Miami Vice, where the main characters are technically “establishment,” but which is probably more cynical about the age of Reagan than all the other shows put together.
Again, it’s pop entertainment – it’s not The Wire, none of it’s very deep or political, and it’s not trying to be. But to the extent that they ever commented on politics, the impression I got was that all these shows were less than entirely thrilled with the direction the country was heading. Actually, when I first started watching these reruns, in the early 2000s, I remember often thinking “there’s no way this would ever make it on television today.” (I mean the politics, not the quality of the shows).
JenJen
Check on Meg! And I loved the bits where Dave would ring up a random pay phone in Manhattan to see if anyone would answer it. My favorite was when a guy did pick it up and answered, “Hello, Big Apple!”
Chris
@Sloegin:
That is quite possibly my favorite thing in the entire history of American pop culture.
Chris
@Valdivia:
Yeah, seconded.
Amir Khalid
Dave making a fool of John McCain in 2008, after McCain stood him up and lied about it. The two stage hands reading transcripts of Oprah Winfrey’s show. Dave balancing a hamburger on his head right after seeing Amanda Seyfried’s dog do it.
NotMax
Some of the comedy bits which didn’t make the cut on Letterman’s show.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Pat and Kenny Read Oprah Transcripts; James The Drifter; Charles Grodin’s (early 90s?) appearances; Amy Sedaris, in no small part because so few people got her and Dave didn’t give a shit; Dave Works The Drive Thru.
Elizabelle
OT: for your viewing pleasure, imminently:
C-Span will cover this; says “Awaiting.” Sigh. Might get me inside, off the deck.’
NY Times:
sparrow
@Cervantes: There’s nothing about America in practically any decade that is weird or subversive. Seriously, I see no difference now, or a decade ago, to the 80s. My Greek friends find America pretty damned boring and tame. “All you guys do is talk about shit you bought or ate.”… I have a hard time arguing with them. I went to a recent gathering of neighbors in our condo building and most of the talk centered around what TV shows they watch. I wanted to shoot myself. And it’s always like that. I sometimes wonder why I haven’t become an alcoholic yet.
dubo
I remember my friend in 1992 opining that he should take over the Tonight Show: “Funnier than Jay? Letterman’s funnier than Johnny”
A guy
I was in college from 83-87. Watched him a bit then but not since. In my world he’s a nobody. Maybe his final guests will be the staff members and subordinates he admits having sexual relationships with.
Cervantes
@sparrow:
Indeed.
Would you go so far as to say that the whole damn country is just too … conservative?
JustRuss
Thanks for the reminder of how surreal Late Night was for the 80s. I saw Larry “Bud” Melman live in 1984, he actually did a tour playing college campuses and other venues. I don’t remember much of the show, other than laughing my ass off. Saw PJ O’rourke about the same time. He was actaully pretty funny, but not as funny as LBM.
gene108
Velcroing himself to a wall…
Stupid pet tricks…
Having random pizza places / diners, etc. become regular features on his show…he’d just talk to the guys working there…
The first time I saw Letterman, I was in the sixth grade. My brother had programmed our new-fangled VCR to record his show.
I laughed really, really hard.
kd bart
Shame of the City
Viewer Mail
Dancing Waters
Chris
@Cervantes:
One could call it a center-right nation, if one were so inclined.
kd bart
I must add Larry “Bud” Melman’s trek through the Americas down to Tierra del Fuego. I remember Larry calling in from somewhere in Central America pleading to come home.
boatboy_srq
@Paul T: Hate to say it, but same here. Weeknights were spent sleeping, studying, or rehearsing; Friday/Saturday were spent sleeping, performing or out. VCR-enabled time-shifting was tolerable, but the Late Show watched midday just lacked something so it never made it to tape.
@Valdivia: Agreed, on all counts. I still don’t understand the fascination with late night television (Letterman, SNL etc) that Gen X is supposedly universally afflicted with and that permeates discussions of both Gen X and the 80s. Then again, the contemporary fixations on FaceBook/Twitter/etc escape me as well – mostly because I don’t live molecular-bonded to my phone any more than I did to my TV.
jayboat
The Alka Seltzer suit dunk and The Velcro Suit jump are forever etched in my memories of the 80’s.
jacel
@NotMax: There was a similar article in GQ Magazine back around 1985, which sold me on Letterman’s show before I had ever seen it. One of the bits the writing staff didn’t get on the air back then was hosting an emotional reunion of Hall & Oates — a duo that had never stopped working together at that point.
One of my favorite bits from Letterman’s Late Night was a commercial for “Captain Dave’s Weasel Farm and Theology Camp”. “Oh, enough of this mumbo jumbo. Let’s go looking for weasels!” Far too often I need to restrain myself from saying that at business meetings.
rikyrah
My all time favorites were the velcro suit. And the Alka-Seltzer suit.
I could watch both those skits over and over.
WereBear
Memorable because my first husband FIRED HIS STEALING A$$. So I didn’t believe a word he said when a couple of years later the scandal broke and he was all over the place.
The Amy Fisher Scandal
I also read Mrs. Buttafuoco’s book, about leaving him (she calls him a “psychopath”) and rebuilding her life.
I loved every incarnation of Letterman’s comedy, from the day show (By popular demand, a man drinking from a hose) right to the present day, though my viewing has drastically fallen off when I had sleep trouble and no VCR.
But he’s one of the greats. And the part where he told the story of the ransom demands and the secrets of his private life was freakin’ incredible.
shell
I’ll go for the obvious classic, The Top Ten List. It was so funny when NBC tried to prevent him from using it on his show when he moved to CBS, claiming it was THEIR intellectual property!
Starfish
Heathers is weird and subversive and from the 80s.
Elizabelle
The mid-day show: PBO on MSNBC, just getting into the meat of his remarks on climate change.
Commencement address, the Coast Guard Academy
Not covered by CNN or Fox. Cause climate change is not a serious national security issue.
WereBear
Pat and Kenny! I loved that.
The sheepdog herding sheep into a taxi. The Suits in tanks of water. Will it float? Hairpiece, not a hairpiece. Grinder girl.
Elizabelle
ETA: And MSNBC just cut away from PBO speech too. F*ckers.
mikej
Chris Elliot was the highlight of every show he appeared on. Brando singing Bananas to the tune of Alley Cat was infectiously stupid. It’s a pity The Cabin Boy isn’t the cult classic it deserves to be.
And of course Paul was more than just a band leader. Bermuda, it’s a nutty, nutty kind of place, crazy coo coo kind of place, Bermuda.
NotMax
@shell
Which may< have been lifted from an unsold pilot of a music and comedy show named "Top Ten" that aired once on NBC in 1980.
Culture of Truth
I’m partial the velcro but as well. Anything with Jack Hanna. Also when he interrupted the Today Show shouting into a megaphone “My name is David Letterman and I’m not wearing any pants!”
different-church-lady
You are aware that Alex P. Keaton was fictional satire, yes?
beltane
I was a Deadhead during the late ’80s, which amounted to a cultural boycott of the era. The early to mid ’80s, at least, had a terrific underground scene in all realms of culture: music, cinema, arts, fashion, etc. NYC, where I spent my teen years, was a pretty wild and debauched playground in those days. There were plenty of people hating on the Wall Street is God scene even back then if you knew where to look.
Bobby Thomson
@Chris: Rockford was a 70s show, and I never saw any hint of cynicism in 80s prime time. shows. Other than Cheers and early Hill Street Blues, they all sucked.
Bobby Thomson
Viewer mail, especially Flunky the viewer mail clown, and the revelation that “they” are television’s own Van Patton family.
NotMax
@mikej
Chacun à son goût .
While was never a regular viewer of the show, Chris Elliot was the impetus for me to cease watching it.
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
Does M*A*S*H count?
Memorably — and not at all painlessly — it went off the air in ’83.
dr. bloor
Zevon.
And the velcro suit, of course.
beltane
Madonna’s “Material Girl” sums up the mainstream ’80s ethos perfectly.
ruemara
Super Dave. Father Guido Sarducci. Dave and the velcro suit. His release of the during break footage when GWB used a producer’s shirt to wipe his glasses, like she wasn’t even human.
SarahT
@Elizabelle: SO disrespectful, right ? Grrr…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: I’m a fan, but Chris Elliott is definitely not to everyone’s goo
To me the best staffer bit was the producer who would insult Dave with a lethal deadpan delivery, Jude Brennan, I think her name is. And the spectacularly loopy Alan Kalter (sp)
GxB
“K-Mar the Discount Magician.” Oh yeah, and who here remembers Brother Theodore? That was some WTF TV right there. The guy had a fascinating (and tragic) life though.
WereBear
Both the book and the movie, The Late Shift, is a fascinating tale. How NBC lost Letterman to CBS.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ruemara: Barbara Gaines. That moment really shows the Idiot Princeling of Walker’s Point for what he is.
IIRC BG accepted an emmy as executive producer and said, I started out as a receptionist twenty years ago.
delk
Paul Shaffer as Cher doing “O Holy Night”
Her hands were in a muff.
lol
The original Robocop is probably still the best satire of the excesses of the 80s.
SarahT
@mikej: Chris Elliott rules ! I have every episode of “Get A Life” AND his barely seen Cinemax special,”FDR: A One Man Show” on tape ! No VCR, of course. Please, Comedy Central, IFC, whoever – show “Get A Life” !
different-church-lady
It’s hard to explain: Bill Cosby, Tito Puente, a cab driver hailed off the street at random, and a ladder…
I watched the first show. A couple of weeks later I was hooked, but somehow not for life. My TV habits fell off, and Dave became safer and mainstream-ier.
But those summers when I was an older teen doing my dawn-to-mid-afternoon summer sleep pattern… every night Dave and then NBC News Overnight were my twin television passions. Just a terrific one-two punch of outsider television that somehow was being broadcast on a major network, even if it was the wee hours.
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah. He’s the reason that, much as I appreciate Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, have been procrastinating about sampling Schitt’s Creek.
Lavocat
Two words: monkey cam.
What the world needs now is more monkey cams.
And cowbell.
Cervantes
And never more weird than when “Brother Theodore” was on.
Cervantes
@different-church-lady:
Linda Ellerbee is a national treasure.
Elizabelle
I liked earlier PJ O’Rourke. He was pretty funny, and wrote Holidays in Hell, with a sharply observed essay on vacay at a fundamentalist theme park, Heritage USA.
PJ was Lena Horne’s son in law, for a few years in the 1990s. (His former wife, Amy, is director Sidney Lumet’s daughter.)
Maybe he got more sour with age, cuz he got tired of hanging out with the angry, nasty conservatives.
kindness
If you are gonna go through the Dave Panthology you must list his 6(?) month stint with a Morning Show. I actually watched it. Wasn’t as good as his evening show. Also you must give dibs to Johnny Carson because no one here will remember Steve Allen’s predecessor.
Let us all hope that whomever takes over from Jon Stewart does a better job than Larry is with taking over from Colbert. (Not Larry’s fault, the format just is sucky that’s all)
And lastly, Colbert will be fine filling Dave’s shoes.
A
Linnaeus
My take on the 1980s is, well, a little different than DougJ’s.
Hunter Gathers
‘Can A Guy In A Bear Suit Get Into A Strip Club?’
His love affair with Beavis and Butthead
Him ripping Jay Leno a new one after Conan lost ‘The Tonight Show’
Colbert has big shoes to fill. I just hope that Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DBA makes an occasional appearance, along with Esteban Colberto.
Yellowdog
Who could forget Andy Kaufman and his appearance with Jerry Lawler. Was it scripted? Was Lawler in on the whole gag? With Kaufman, you could never tell. It was later revealed that it was all an act, but in the middle of it, Dave is unperturbed and delivers some good lines. Classic Late Show.
Bonnie
The Top Ten List and Dave, himself. The band is second favorite.
raven
I was hitting the mid-life crisis in the late 80’s. Grew my hair long, went back to Dead shows and almost became Widespread’s road manager. Then BAM, it all fell down. Lost everything , went back to school and quit drinking. Didn’t much give a fuck about all those “issues” and never watched Letterman then or now.
Bobby Thomson
@Cervantes: that show really dipped in quality after Larry Linville left and Loretta Swit insisted on them softening her character. Its best and longest run was in the 70s. But I guess it half counts.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Dave got me through college and a long time thereafter. I owe the man. I hope his life has been as good to him as it could be.
Chris
Random question –
That’s an eighties thing? I thought it had pretty much been crammed down the country’s throat (in its current form) in the fifties and the whole nonsense dated from back then.
Brachiator
I think I liked Letterman more towards the end, when he indulged stuff that was important to him, not just going through the motions. Some personal highlights:
His return after 911, when he spoke for himself and all New Yorkers.
The night he devoted the show to one of the last appearances of terminally ill Warren Zevon.
The night he invited a musical guest, The Heavy, to give the audience a little more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQKsKbXN1A4
The Paul Shaffer band was always tight.
Letterman was in that tradition of Steve Allen and Johnny Carson. And like Carson, he was a lot smarter than he let on.
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t think this is the right description, as people have noted above.
THIS is the thing. In the 80s, the cool guy was an asshole. The difference between the hero and the villain tended to be that there was at least some depth of nastiness the hero wouldn’t sink to, which meant he had a heart of gold, right? A fair number of media satirized and resented this, like the infamous Revenge Of The Nerds movies, but the point was still made – assholes were cool, popular, and got lots of sex.
Getting sex, of course, was the definition of value as a male, and only by doing so, generally by proving he can be a bigger asshole than the popular assholes, could a rebel really prove his worth.
I give you an example widely loved and viewed with nostalgia: Ghostbusters. Peter Venkman was an asshole. He used women, cheated the system, was not all that bright, and treated even his friends with mild contempt. He was defined as the cool one, even if he wasn’t actually the hero. Ray and Egon – you might like them more, but they were nerds and very definitely not cool. They did not get the girl. Heck, Egon was offered a creepy girl and refused, thus proving how incredibly uncool he was. I like the movie, but it portrays well the disturbingly unhealthy cultural background of the 80s. Winston, of course, was black and thus a minor character and not cool even though he was probably the most healthy and well rounded.
Look around you now. We are facing the consequences of this, the damage in politics, attitudes towards women, attitudes towards kindness, and respect for science. The younger generations seem to be moving in different directions, but it’s no accident that the 80s kids – my generation – are one of the most likely to vote to fuck over anyone and everyone. It’s no accident that older people who made their mark in the 80s, like all the senior journalists in cable news, are casually convinced that only hurting people is a good idea.
maurinsky
@Valdivia:
Kendrick actually started on Broadway, although my first experience seeing her was in the movie “Camp”, where she absolutely killed “Ladies Who Lunch” when she was like, 14 years old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8y9pNqjtb0
I watched Letterman for years, loved the Top 10 Lists, stupid pet tricks, dropping things off the roof, and his partnership with Chris Elliott and all the weird shit Elliott did on the show. I loved that he made temporary celebrities out of people who were in the offices across the street and owners of local businesses.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Monitor, with Lloyd Dobyns and Linda Ellerbee, was certainly subversive during its too short time on the air in the eighties.
Sadly, only a handful of people ever watched it but it was must-see TV for me back then.
mai naem mobile
I like Dave.but to be honest I’m more interested in how Stephen Colbert is going to run the show.
Fridaynext
I had the same experience with Letterman that DougJ did. I watched him on a 5 inch screen, black and white tv for most of my college and graduate school career. I loved most of his bits, certainly all my favorites have been mentioned already. But the best moments were the “improvised” ones. I use scare quotes because who knows. They seemed real at the time. Jerry Lawler and Andy Kaufman. Everything with Richard Simmons. Harvey Pekar. But the one that makes wake up screaming in both laughter and fright is a bit that started with Dave getting into a huge bowl of milk with a suit of Rice Crispies and ended, as I recall, with the entire line up of White Zombie getting into a big bowl of milk.
But I can’t find any reference, clip, or still of this anywhere on the intertoobs, so maybe I have created a memory of something that didn’t happen.
Anyone else remember this?
Cervantes
@Fridaynext:
See here.
Bobby Thomson
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve always hated Ghostbusters.
NotMax
Some other sitcoms not mentioned above containing at least an undercurrent of subversiveness which aired fully or partially during the 80s.
WKRP in Cincinnati
Night Court
Barney Miller
Taxi
Murphy Brown
KXB
@Chris:
Agree with much of what you wrote. Airwolf in particular had a number of episodes where the lead characters would point out how US policies would often cause more problems than they solved. Wiseguy was another edgy show that broadcast networks would not air today. Star Trek – The Next Generation premiered in 1986, and managed to not just exceed the commercial success of the 3-season original – it also launched a new model of TV. Before cable companies started writing original shows, they just showed reruns and movies. Networks were the only game in town. But ST;TNG bypassed networks by syndicating to local stations. No notes from network executives.
As a kid in the 80s, with few friends, parents who spent their evenings shouting at each other, or smacking me around, and getting beat up by my brother on a fairly regular basis, TV was my most reliable companion. I may have been stuck in the suburbs of NY, but for an hour or two each night, it could take me elsewhere.
As for Letterman – he is one of the few TV personalities that was able to change as the audience did, without entirely shedding the character that drew us to him. No, he never did the Alka Seltzer suit on his CBS show, but he turned his little area of NY into a carnival show – launching people out of cannons, spraying people with sprinklers attached to cameras, or just piling guys dressed as Spiderman into a Subway.
Fridaynext
@Cervantes:
Thanks , I did find THAT, which is pretty cool. I should have been more clear. I can’t find the part with White Zombie rolling around in a bowl of milk. The clip you linked was from 1987. White Zombie was a band then, but probably not famous enough to be on Letterman, yet. Letterman did repeat stunts once in awhile, especially in response to viewer mail, so I am guessing he did so in the mid-90’s.
Anyway, I will choose to live with my fantasies.
jurassicpork
Mike Flannigan says, White guilt produced white privilege in Waco.
Tone in DC
A few 1980s movies were a bit subversive. At least to my sensibilities:
Blade Runner
48 Hours (I think people forget how frank some of that comic dialogue was)
Heathers
The Hotel New Hampshire
The Terminator (no nukes vibe in an 80s flick, just a bit subversive)
I, the Jury (this adaptation had one or two things that were NOT in Spillane’s book)
Hardware (machines gone wild; made in 1989 but released in 1990, IIRC)
Matt McIrvin
Chris Elliott: Television Miracle!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QJ7SU7Jfq4&list=RD_QJ7SU7Jfq4#t=88
Cervantes
@Chris:
The Pledge itself is not, of course.
DougJ is referring to the presidential campaign of 1988, when George Herbert Walker Bush time and again asked the following “question”:
“Him” was his opponent, Massachusetts Governor Dukakis, who, in 1977, had vetoed a bill that sought to impose fines on Massachusetts teachers who did not lead their students in reciting the pledge. Dukakis had asked the state’s highest court for an advisory opinion; and based in part on a US Supreme Court opinion, the court recommended a veto because the proposed law would violate the First Amendment rights of teachers.
Said the consummate demagogue.
There are decent people who have a soft spot for Bush. I am heartily not one of them.
Cervantes
@Fridaynext:
Better than living with someone else’s, at any rate!
Matt McIrvin
Also, Dog Night in the control room.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Can remember a rare moment of candor during that campaign when Bush admitted out loud (afterwards) that a photo-op visit to a flag factory was a bridge too far.
ellie
I liked when he read letters, I think it was called Viewer Mailbag or something.
I loved ’80s New Wave music. New Order is still my favorite group.
Fridaynext
@Tone in DC:
A few I recall:
Buckeroo Bonzai
Liquid Sky
Sid and Nancy
Jim Jarmusch movies like Down By Law and Stranger than Paradise.
John Waters movies that were a little more mainstream than his Female Trouble years of the 70’s but still had a little something (The original Hairspray and Polyester)
Blue Velvet
Blood Simple and Raising Arizona
Sex. Lies, and Videotape
Early Spike Lee, She’s Gotta Have It, School Daze
A bunch of cool John Sayles movies
The God’s Must Be Crazy
Dressed to Kill
KXB
@Tone in DC:
48 Hours – I’m having trouble thinking of any “comedy” in 2015 that could have the 2 main leads hurl abuse at each other like that – and not in an endearing way. Now, there would be a slight wink to the camera, but when Nolte bluntly says, “roamin’ around the streets with an overdressed, charcoal-colored loser like you.”, you’re not laughing. Or in the honky-tonk, when Murphy does in his own fashion the “I’m your worst nightmare. I’m a n***** with a badge.”
Fridaynext
@Cervantes:
Well, now, I wouldn’t go THAT far.
agorabum
@Gus: other underground Stuff was the hip-hop and techno, which really sprouted in the 80s. Also, don’t forget because it is so lame now, but MTV. There was a lot of weird stuff going on at the fringes. But the MSN and the networks were not weird (but they aren’t really today either – it just that the fringe / long tail of strange is so much larger and open with all the weirdos able to find each other online)
The Dude
I’m torn between Dick Assman and Mujibur and Sirajul.
Quick Letterman story:
Flash back to the late 90’s, when three high school classmates and I travelled to a driving range on Roosevelt Island. It was early on a weekday during senior year, and we were on a school-sanctioned outing under the flimsy pretense of being a part of an extracurricular Golf Club.
We were goofing around with excessively long puts on the practice green when David Letterman and an unknown buddy appeared. Dave immediately produced a $100 bill from his wallet and put it on the ground. “If one of you can hit that put you can have the $100. If none of you can you owe me $100,” he announced. So we all take a serious crack and all miss. After the last of us missed, he chuckled, said that he admired truants, and then walked off with his money still on the green.
Good guy, that Letterman.
Fridaynext
@Fridaynext:
And Spinal Tap.
Jumping Jeebus on a pogo stick, how could I forget Spinal Tap!
Keith G
@Cervantes:
Although short lived, and somewhat obscure, St. Elsewhere was a TV show that had a subversive core to its writing. and on a much more intermittent basis, the same could be said for Hill Street Blues.
About David Letterman, what I appreciate about him was his imperfections and the fact that for much of his time on TV he seemed to be a work in progress.
Early on, I found it a bit uncomfortable that he would rely on sexist or homophobic tropes, but as time passed he did drop those, although not fast enough for me and I did stop watching for a while. Nonetheless, I valued his voice even when I found it occasionally irritating.
trollhattan
Was never a regular watcher (that timeslot, jeez) but even viewing occasionally every few shows would offer a new revelation for what television could be. And we’re all the beneficiaries with the generation of comedians inspired by what Dave did and does. No Dave; no Colbert.
First encountered him on his brief daytime show, when my GF told me “You HAVE to watch this guy. I can’t believe he’s doing this for housewives during the day.” And she was right. What seemed like yet another daytime chat show ala Merv and Mike quickly went off the rails when the very young Dave waded into the audience, picked someone out and asked if she was hungry and said “You know, I’m hungry too, can you go up to the commissary and get us all some sandwiches and chips?” And sent her off with ten bucks, with cameras trailing. So many veils were pierced in that show it was like watching a belly dance recital.
Border collies herding sheep through the theater, into the elevator and out the front and into a waiting cab. Setting loose a few dozen Dalmatians in the theater, just for the sheer mood enhancement. Monkey cam, monkey cam, monkey cam!
Thanks Dave, we literally couldn’t have done it without you.
Citizen_X
@Tone in DC: I will add Repo Man, which is what I always point to as the most accurate representation of the 80s. MY 80s, at least. Runaway nuke scientists and everything.
redshirt
Name this quote:
“I’VE GOT BOOTS! AND I CAN KICK!”
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Annin Flags, in New Jersey.
Bush carped about the flag factory in dozens of campaign speeches, claiming credit for increased sales in the Reagan years — and then before the first debate he actually showed up at the factory with “journalists” and “news” cameras in tow.
(No, Virginia, “Fox News” did not invent prostitution.)
trollhattan
@Citizen_X:
GREAT movie. “The life if a repo man is intense.”
“What are you reading?” “Diuretics.”
“The more you drive, the less intelligent you become.”
“Come-on, let’s to do those crimes.”
“But, what about our relationship?” “Fuck that.”
Must I mention “Polyester”? “Stop Making Sense”?
trollhattan
@The Dude:
Man, how great was that?
Shana
@Gus: Maybe because I was so into the underground/college radio music of the 80s I thought it was terrific. Although the political side of things was terrible and the main stream pop culture was shitty. Dave had REM on for their first national tv exposure which was cool. As I recall they played So. Central Rain which didn’t have a name yet.
trollhattan
@Fridaynext:
Wow, somebody else who saw “Liquid Sky.” Thought I was the only one. What a mad, insane movie.
I think it was still the 80s when I went to a screening of “Lucifer Rising” hosted by Kenneth Anger, where a couple rows of satanists arose and chanted to him as he came on stage. Not the weirdest thing that happened that night either, but it certainly set the tone.
gogol's wife
@Cervantes:
He must have been using that “chunk of rancid pork” line in the Merv Griffin days, because it’s been my catchphrase since at least then. Love me some Brother Theodore.
different-church-lady
@redshirt: “OK, I think I’ll just go check on the Top Ten list…” [Leaves set, Hal cuts to commercial]
geg6
@Brachiator:
That Zevon show is maybe the most amazing tv I’ve ever watched. Dave should go down in history just for doing it. Simply amazing tv.
Dave retiring is extremely sad for me. I’ve seen him on all his shows, but the original Late Night was simply divine. Like you, Doug, Dave got me through the 80s intact. And I forgive him for his dalliances with staffers because if I’d been lucky enough to work with the guy, I’d have slept with him in a minute. I have always found him devastatingly attractive. It’s the attitude. I can’t resist it.
Thoughtcrime
@redshirt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dYjdKbMT_c
Valdivia
@maurinsky:
oh I had no idea. it was just the first movie where she got a lot of notice, that Twilight franchise being what it is. Right after she did Up in the Air for which she totally killed. I will check that Camp link.
ETA: Though the 80s in the US where all pop and less subversive, the rest of the world saw a lot of subversion in their cultures. In Latin America and Europe you had really interesting things going on.
Cervantes
@gogol’s wife:
Yes, he was.
swkellogg
Mr. Curious.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Once, during the NBC years, there was a segment called something like “Jokes the Censors Wouldn’t Let Us Use”. From that segment:
Have you ever noticed how the sticky stuff on the floors of adult theaters tastes kinda like root beer barrels?
delk
@Shana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykp0Vq77IBw
mac007
I just remember staying up late as a kid and watching Dave drop a concrete block through a 12-foot-tall stack of plate glass. My ten-year-old self thought that was the most hilarious thing ever.
skjellyfetti
As the owner of a pristine ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ t-shirt, I frequently think that were it not for the NBC incarnation of Dave’s show, I very likely would have wound up dead by my own hand–or maybe Reagan’s… Late Night basically externalized my own internal insanity and it gave me comfort to know that I wasn’t the craziest cock in the coop.
That being said, Dave and his suits were huge favorites. The suit of suet was just wrong; the suit of Alka-Seltzer was cool until one learned that Dave(?) almost died in rehearsal because of the CO2 produced by all those Alka-Seltzer tablets. They finally were able to pull it off by providing a SCUBA tank for Dave.
I loved the early catch phrases:
“They pelted us with rocks and garbage.”
“I hate the itching, but I don’t mind the swelling.”
I don’t think I ever saw any of the CBS shows, mainly ’cause the acid finally wore off and then the government took my television–never letting me have another…
Trooptrap Tripetrope
I loved Letterman for years, up until he included one extremely homophobic joke on one of his Christmas shows. It truly horrified me, and I never once watched him after that.
Tree With Water
“The legend didn’t come close to matching Letterman’s enthusiasm in his moments following the performance. As Letterman walked over to him, Dylan seemed to recoil and avoid eye contact with the 68-year-old retiree. This was no Julia Roberts farewell — that’s for suree”.
That’s from a review posted at Salon.com. Poor Bob. I’ve read he insists that people not make eye contact with him backstage at concerts, too. I hope that’s not true. There’s churlish, and there’s there’s sad… still, who knows? Maybe he’s the happiest guy on the planet… He long ago figured out “it’s simply that one should never be where one does not belong”. Maybe he found the place he does belong, and it simply doesn’t include the rest of us.
James E Powell
Nobody mentions Stephanie. Is she off limits or did no one like her appearances? I thought she was hilarious.
Tone in DC
@KXB:
True. I think Walter Hill wrote that script. Murphy and Nolte may have improvised some of that stuff, but still… Hill pulled very few punches. Most of the characters in that flick had a bit of a nasty streak.
Is the movie just gratuitously offensive? Or is it possibly 1983’s Jeremiah Wright/Chris Rock doing standup/George Carlin in his prime? Some of that, uh, frankness can be good, and even necessary, on occasion. It is not hard to overdo it, I admit.
I’ll take Hill’s eighties cops and robbers over a lot of the movies these days.
Tone in DC
@Citizen_X:
LULz. Forgot about Repo Man.
And Dressed to Kill, Raising Arizona, Blood Simple and Blue Velvet.
John Revolta
Wasn’t ever a big fan due to what I thought was an annoying tendency of his to “punch down”…………..I gave up on him after I saw him give some poor confused cabbie an award for having the highest blood pressure of everyone they checked that day. Still, he did turn me on to Brother Theodore; after I saw him on the show I ran down that weekend and saw him do his weekly show on 13th street. THAT was really something.
Once I found myself alone on a long elevator ride with Paul Shaffer back when the show was about to move to CBS. Trying to not look like an idiot, I asked him “So, Paul, are you guys gonna stay in New York or are you gonna move to LA?” He smiled a bit and said, “Oh, I think we’re gonna stay in New York”.
The doors opened and we walked into the lobby. I was just thinking “Hey, okay, my brush with fame went pretty well!” We got about ten feet into the lobby and some guy said “Hey Paul! Are you guys gonna stay in New York or are you gonna move to LA?”
Ah, well.
Chris
@KXB:
I really liked Airwolf (well, season 1, it goes downhill after that) and when I found it later, the Equalizer because both of them had an “outsider” character (Hawke/McCall) who had more of a right-and-wrong worldview, and an “insider” (Archangel/Control) who was more of a pragmatist/shades-of-grey/”I did what I had to do” type… and ended up allowing both of them to make a good case, neither of them coming off as completely wrong. It acknowledged all the filth that had been dredged up by the last decade or so of scandals without diving into “nothing good can come of the intelligence community” the whole way.
Yellowdog
@Fridaynext:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1f2_01URYQ
Brachiator
@geg6:
Zevon’s “Mutineer” became my favorite song of his, from that night.
I hope that Dave, like Carson, has rights to the show.
PurpleGirl
@GxB: Brother Theodore was always a hoot. When I got to college I was so tempted to go to his nightclub and see him. But I never did.
Phil Donahue
@shell: I forgot about the Top 10 brouhaha. The Top 10 Things Overheard on the NBC Tour was a classic.
PurpleGirl
@kindness: I was a weird kid. Among my favorite shows back then: Jack Paar on the Tonight Show, Steve Allen (I’ve always wanted a GooGoo Doll – smak smak), Johnny Carson’s afternoon game show, Mort Saul, Open Mind with David Susskind.
I largely stopped watching the late night talk shows when Carson left. I watched Letterman on the morning show and liked him. But late night really bored me. And Jay Leno just couldn’t hold a candle to Carson.
Major Major Major Major
I can’t believe nobody mentioned Is This Anything?
Schlemazel
Letterman was funny & many of the bits were pretty good but his failure is the real death of great talk shows. He was not a great interviewer. If he liked or respected the guest he did a decent enough job, nowhere near as terrible as Leno, but when he didn’t like a guest or just lost interest for one reason or other he was horrible, still not as bad as Leno but bad. What made Carson great was that the show was never about Carson, it was always about the guests. I don’t remember ever thinking that Carson didn’t like a guest or was bored with one. He generally played the straight man & let the guests have the best lines to which he would react. Leno’s show was all about Jay & how funny and great he was, Letterman at his worst had the same problem and at his best still was too much the center of attention. I’ll miss Letterman but not like I miss Carson.
I have not seen much of the late night chats now but know there are bits that Craig Ferguson did that were great and “Unnecessary Censorship” is Kimmels funniest stuff but I have no idea how they interview. My assumption is the format is broken & they are now all about the host.
David Koch
Sandra Bernhard, Andy Kaufman, Pee Wee Herman, Brother Theodore, Larry Bud, Howard Stern, the helium show, Sam Kinson explaining how to use poppers, Tina Turner, all the young rock acts that Carson would never have, Teri Garr, Viewer Mail (he used one of my letters on-air (no joke)). this is all I can think of off the top of my head. Also too, he was the first person to interview Obama on a national pgrm
Miss ya, Dougie
David Koch
Jimmy Kimmel Gives Tearful Goodbye to David Letterman
https://youtu.be/y29ELOsXSI0
Death Panel Truck
I drank a lot during the Eighties, so I don’t remember much. ;-)
Prime time TV sucked balls for the most part. The music was terrible, so I had to go back in time to find something to listen to. It was the decade I discovered Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, so I should thank the Eighties for that.
grondo
I remember the scene in The Breakfast Club where the Misfit (Ally Sheedy) came out after being made-over by Molly Ringworm. All I could think at that moment (and ever after) was, “what a frigging let down!” It was the moment the Straights won.
DavidTC
@Amir Khalid:
I have, completely randomly, been to exactly one taping of the Late Show.
It was that one.
It was amazing to behold.
KithKanan
@grondo: I can never watch that without thinking “you looked WAY better when you were being yourself!”
David Koch
ok, this make me sad. I hate endings.
Jack Hughes
Larry Bud Melman behind a little stand with toasters and small appliances in front of the Soviet embassy yelling “C’mon and defect!” while gesturing at the swag on the table.
Tree With Water
@Death Panel Truck: If there was ever a decade where a thinking person had a reason to abuse alcohol, it began that first Tuesday in November of 1980. It was an absolute hell of a night for those of us who knew better than others what Reagan’s election portended… and even I had no idea how much worse it would get, even knowing what I did. Jesus, what a night.
David Koch
Backstage photos
DougJ
@grondo:
Yes, exactly!
Splitting Image
No love for Sledge Hammer!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pipr3nSTXY
redshirt
I watched it.
It was strange since I haven’t watched a TV in so long.
But then I knew Dave, and it was odd, since it means I’m old too and I should be thinking about my own glorious retirement. Which – ALAS! – will not be as glorious as Dave’s.
otmar
Another subversive movie: Brasil.
Vanya
@otmar: Yes to Brasil. Also “Blue Velvet”, and a lot of great stuff came out of Britain in the 80s – “My Beautiful Laundrette”, “Withnail & I”, anything Peter Greenaway made. I haven’t seen a film this decade as good as “Withnail & I”.
KXB
@Tone in DC: @Tone in DC:
The easy use of green screens and CGI makes too many modern action movies look like cartoons. A little bit is OK – such as the first Matrix movie. Films that rely upon stuntmen and real cars crashing, such as Ronin or the Bourne films, more closely resemble some of the better aspects of 80s actions films.
As for being crude and vulgar just for the sake of it, Judd Apatow movies fall into that category, for me anyway. 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad were fine, but everything after that seemed a retread.