Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 1, 1993 TAG: 9309170424
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Of course nothing short of the pope on roller skates could live up to all that hype. ``Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a promo, this is the actual show,'' Letterman told the audience, a reference to the relentless campaign CBS has staged to ballyhoo its $14-million baby. But in crossing over to CBS and the earlier timeslot he coveted, Letterman seems to have sacrificed some of his status as a maverick and a rebel operating just outside the boundaries of normal TV.
His pants even matched his coat - that's what CBS has done to him. Dave seemed to be wearing an entire suit, not his old NBC outfit of suitcoat and khaki pants. Some of the old goofiness was dimmed, as if Letterman were not only growing up, but growing old.
We want him young and nuts, don't we?
From a production standpoint, the show looks great, but then it always did. Letterman paid tribute to the workers who renovated the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, where ``Late Show'' is taped, by bringing all 200 of them onstage while Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra (formerly ``The World's Most Dangerous Band'') played ``Look for the Union Label.''
Naturally there were several jokes at the expense of Letterman's former employer, NBC, the network that lost him by neglecting to offer him ``The Tonight Show'' when Johnny Carson left it last year. ``This morning I woke up and next to me in bed is the head of a peacock,'' Letterman said.
Earlier, during Letterman's monologue, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw appeared from the wings, snatched two of Letterman's cue cards away from a stagehand and told Letterman, ``These last two jokes are the intellectual property of NBC.'' NBC executives had claimed that some of the recurring bits on Letterman's old show belonged to them.
But yes, there was a top ten list, rechristened ``The Late Show Top Ten'' and introduced with overly fancy new animated graphics that had an unfortunate wet-blanket effect. The list, ``Top Ten Ways the New Show Will Be Better,'' was not one of the top ten Top Tens. No. 9 was, ``No more relying on cheap GE jokes (unless we're really stuck).''
Paul Newman stood up in the audience and took a bow, part of the homage paid Sullivan, who introduced celebrities in the audience during his old weekly variety show. ``Where the hell are the singing cats?'' asked Newman, pretending to be in the wrong theater. Later, guest Bill Murray seemed loud and tortured in setting up his jokes (like spray-painting ``Dave!'' on the front of Letterman's desk), but there was a spectacular shot of him opening the theater doors so that a horde of reporters could rush forward to mob Letterman. Anyone tuning over to ``The Tonight Show'' with Jay Leno during Letterman's hour would have to be struck by how tired, how stodgy, how drab the program seems in contrast. Letterman's director, Hal Gurnee, imposes a visual energy on the program that no other talk show has. Letterman's is the action show of talk shows. Murray said mockingly of NBC, ``God, is it dead over there,'' and that seemed to sum it up.
Letterman's arrival at CBS has made executives and other employees almost giddy with excitement. If he can eventually build an audience larger than that of Leno, Letterman not only will have avenged the wrong he thinks NBC did him, he also will wrest from that network a dominance it has enjoyed for nearly 40 years, and bring tens of millions in additional revenue to CBS.
A big splash by Letterman would also help dispel CBS's image as a network catering mainly to older viewers, and could help bring desirable younger viewers to the network to sample its prime-time offerings.
Because Letterman had decreed that the theater audience in the theater was to be made up only of the general public - no press and no network executives - a gaggle of very bigwigs watched the show live from McGee's, a bar next door to the theater. Engineers rigged the TV set in the bar so that it carried the live feed from the theater.
Watching and enjoying cocktails were CBS officials. Observers indicated the muckymucks left the bar happy, though whether from the show or the cocktails could not immediately be determined.
\ Washington Post Writers Group
\ Tom Shales is TV editor and chief TV critic for The Washington Post.
by CNB