Last night I watched with strong interest the final Late Show with David Letterman. It was funny. It was epic. It was whatever the opposite of fail is. Not too sentimental (but a little)…it was simply awesome.
I inherited my Dave fandom from my older siblings. They used to record episodes on VHS and I would watch them incessantly. From the time I was 9 years old I was a Dave fan. Around middle school (about 1988) I inherited a black and white TV. It was handed down from my siblings and from then on I would watch the show as much as I could get away with.
Once I got into high school I would rarely miss the show. I was there for the switch from NBC to CBS. Somewhere between college and having 4 kids my Dave TV fandom turned into adulthood and I didn’t really care about the show on a day to day basis. (For Dave fans- I’d say this happened a year or two after his heart surgery.)
While I’ve been in and out as a viewer since then, over the
last few weeks I’ve really enjoyed getting back into the show. So many of the greats coming back one final
time. Norm McDonald’s last set was one
for the ages (pretty sure Norm was the only decent Dave impressionist as well,
Joe Piscopo? -come on).
The finale was just exactly what any Dave fan thought it
would be (inexplicably on a Wednesday night), funny and as lacking of sentimentality as the show could muster "save a little for my funeral." An incredible amount of comedic talent from the
last 30 years was on the show: Bill Murray, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Jim Carey, Tina Fey, and Steve Martin to name a few. All were there seemingly out of simple respect for Dave. They showed
up for one line each of a top 10 list. The iconic Foo Fighters, showed up for the sendoff as well- because of course, they
were Dave’s favorite. They played, but were on screen for just a few moments. There were no show
tunes, no folks lauding Dave-there was nothing phony – just funny insults to
Dave in the form of Top 10 list. That
was Dave all the way.
There were clips from the Presidents of the United States on the
show, but only in their proper place, as bit characters insulting the host. To
put it in perspective customers at a drive through at a Taco Bell in 1996 received
more air time on Dave’s last show than all of the combined presidents of the
United States from the last 35 years. That
says something.
So much has been made about Dave over the years, about his ironic take on the world and sarcastic manner. I think this cultural commentary is true, but I also think these discussions ultimately
hide a greater truth about us and why we respond to entertainers. I don't think it was the irony and sarcasm that drew us to Dave Letterman for so long. While I don’t
know precisely where Dave’s goodness comes from, there is something that shines
through the jokes, sarcasm, insults, bad behavior and the like. Something is there
that allows us to sense his overall goodness.
For example, in some of the final moments- before his sign off Dave pointed
out his mother, his wife and his son (in which his son appeared to be in
complete terror) to simply thank them. You could easily see the truth from watching; that the man truly loves
his mother, his wife and son.
On the old NBC show Dave would to do an annual Christmas show complete with a fake family. Part of the joke was about the phoniness of entertainment folks
that pimp their families on TV shows. Yet I don’t think for a moment
that was what Dave was doing on his final show.
It was not phony. It was
true. It was real. Dave was simply a man
who loves his mother, his wife and his son. Irony be damned.
Some may say these final moments of sentiment were in and of themselves ironic since this was exactly the type of thing that Dave
hated and made fun of all these years. But
I think that it was the opposite. In the
end, what actually mattered to David Letterman was not irony, but truth. In one
of the final moments of his final show, when he could say anything at all to anyone in the world, the
King of Irony David Letterman chose to say the following: To his wife and son in the most sincere way he could muster,
“I love you both, and really…nothing else matters.”
That was certainly not sarcastic, or ironic. It was Dave’s
heart at its core. It appeared to be the
truest part of David Letterman communicating. Un-ironic, un-sarcastic, ready for sign-off.
Then a minute later he showed a fake picture of his son smoking a cigarette. Which was pretty funny so whatever…
