Post by Bradley Schauer, University of Arizona

Much of the press coverage of David Letterman’s retirement has framed it as the end of an era. According to this account, the traditional late night talk show – pioneered by Steve Allen in the ’50s, brought to its classical peak by Johnny Carson, and reaching its creative apex with Letterman’s baroque, ironic approach beginning in 1982 – has been rendered obsolete by a new emphasis on social media and viral videos. Even Letterman himself recently admitted that his show’s failure to embrace YouTube and Twitter was a problem: “What I’m doing is not what you want at 11:30 anymore… I hear about things going viral, and I think, ‘How do you do that?’”

Letterman in a suit of velcro, 1984.

On one hand, the differences between Letterman’s show and those of his youthful competitors are overstated. Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and the rest still adhere closely to the traditional late night formula: monologue, desk piece, two guests and a musical act. And Letterman, particularly in the first 2/3 of his career, specialized in short remote videos (Dave works the Burger King drive-thru) and spectacle (Dave wears a Velcro suit) that would have lent themselves to online distribution. Much of Letterman’s declining ratings with young viewers can be simply attributed to his age: a 68-year-old who makes jokes about the Andrews Sisters and Lorne Greene is never going to win the 18-49 demo.

On the other hand, Fallon’s YouTube clips do receive exponentially greater hits than Letterman’s, and it is due to more than Fallon’s aw-shucks charm. Letterman’s inability to go viral is a byproduct of his unique approach to the talk show format, one rooted in traditional modes of viewership. Whereas the newer shows’ short, self-contained segments are constructed for easy accessibility and viral distribution, Letterman rewarded the dedicated viewer. It was not only funnier if you watched the entire program, it was funnier if you watched every night. Strange jokes that were barely funny on their own became hilarious as they were repeated, out of context, across an episode and for weeks afterwards. In this way, Letterman’s show was truly cult television, creating an insular community of viewers that prided themselves on their separation from the mainstream. It was no surprise (except apparently to Letterman) when the more accessible Jay Leno began beating him in the ratings after the honeymoon period of the mid-‘90s.

Along the same lines, Letterman’s funniest moments were rarely as funny when decontextualized from the show’s offbeat comic sensibility. More than anti-comedy, Letterman’s humor is typically a blend of two contradictory impulses: irony and sincere pleasure in the mundane. The purest example is “Will It Float?”, the recurring segment in which Letterman and Paul Shaffer would earnestly debate whether or not an item would float before two models threw it into a tank of water. The audience enjoys the overblown, ironic trappings associated with the skit (including a theme song and a hula-hoop dancer), but is also encouraged to take genuine pleasure in the question of whether or not the item will, in fact, float. Letterman satirizes the entertainment industry by valorizing the trivial. But the mundane does not make for effective YouTube clips – Stupid Pet Tricks can’t possibly compete when put up against the entire internet.

The newer shows’ heightened emphasis on celebrity guests is another important distinction. The usual observations about Fallon’s obsequiousness vs. Letterman’s disdain for modern Hollywood celebrity culture seem roughly accurate. The key difference, though, was that Letterman was the undisputed star of his show, his personality and sense of humor dominating and permeating every aspect. Fallon and the rest follow Leno’s example, acting as genial emcees who each night willingly take a backseat to their guests. And while Letterman was rarely as severe to guests as his reputation would indicate, it was usually clear whether or not he was interested in what they had to say. If he was, the interview had the potential to become a genuine conversation that revealed more of the guest than the faux-spontaneity of Fallon’s parlor games or James Corden’s skits.

On the set of NBC’s “Late Night with David Letterman,” 1982.

Letterman’s show at its best had a loose, improvisational quality that hearkened back to Steve Allen more than to Carson. Especially during the low production values of the NBC years, it was as though Letterman were hosting the funniest public access show of all time. He was unafraid to use a sense of duration as comic fodder: for instance, cold-calling a CBS executive and then waiting over a minute in awkward silence for the secretary to see if he was available. As the years went by, and Letterman stopped attending rehearsal, the spontaneity only increased, with the host showcasing his gift for language in rambling shaggy dog stories told at his desk. (In his excellent show, Craig Ferguson would take these qualities to their extreme, ensuring that he would never be considered for the 11:30 slot.) Again, this type of humor does not work when reduced to internet clips where viewers demand instant gratification.

The outlook for late night talk shows is grim, with ratings only about half of what they were 15 years ago. I remember my students in 2010 vehemently supporting “Team Coco” during Conan O’Brien’s ouster from The Tonight Show, only to admit that none of them actually watched the show, but knew O’Brien entirely from YouTube clips and Twitter. Networks seem to value YouTube hits, but it has never been clear exactly how they are monetized in any substantial way. Taking into account the fragmentation of the post-network era, and the relative interchangeability of this new generation of late night hosts, it seems as though David Letterman’s legacy will be as the last real star of late night television, and, in all likelihood, as one of the last great American broadcasters. If there is a new David Letterman out there, his or her type of comedy will not find a welcome home on network television.

“Stooge of the Night” may be pretty feeble stuff when compared to the biting progressive satire of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. However, when considered within the context of network late night television, the segment is startlingly bold. Unlike Stewart and Colbert, who preach to the choir, network host Letterman’s audience is a demographic mix that skews much older and more conservative than Comedy Central viewers. Late night talk shows tend to avoid overt commentary on political policy, particularly in such a direct, cringe-inducing manner. For “Stooge of the Night,” the senator’s official head shot and Twitter feed fills the screen for at least a full minute, an agonizingly long interval during which Letterman offers a few tame riffs (“[Iowa senator Chuck Grassley] enjoys ceramics, big band music, and his ‘A’ rating from the NRA”), but is also content to let the audience sit in awkward silence. (“Let’s just leave that up there a little longer,” Letterman says of the photo of Sen. Jim Inhofe’s rictus, as the audience titters nervously.)

In a sense, Letterman’s decision to enter this particular debate should be uncontroversial, as an estimated 90% of Americans support background checks on gun buyers. However, recent polls also suggest that only 65% of Americans believe the Senate should have passed the Manchin-Toomey amendment. And indeed, “Stooge of the Night” has drawn the ire of the conservative blogosphere. However, Letterman has already been targeted by conservatives for his alleged liberal bias, a charge that dates back to a 2009 monologue joke about Bristol Palin and Alex Rodriguez, which Sarah Palin (most likely willfully) misinterpreted to be a “sexually perverted” joke about the “rape” of 14-year-old Willow Palin. After that exchange led to Letterman’s vilification by the conservative media, the host has continued to aggressively confront right-wing pundits like Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump, while fawning over Rachel Maddow. (Having said that, Letterman has also not shied away from criticizing Democrats, for instance recently challenging Al Gore on the hypocrisy of selling Current TV to Al-Jazeera.)

With “Stooge of the Night” Letterman operates from a position of power, not only as arguably the most iconic late night host in television history behind Johnny Carson, but more importantly, as a man with job security. Unlike NBC, which forced Jay Leno to retire (again) to make room for Jimmy Fallon, CBS is allegedly content to allow Letterman to choose his own retirement date. Leno’s impending departure offers Letterman the chance to top the ratings for the first time since Conan O’Brien took over The Tonight Show in 2009; Letterman could benefit from “the Jimmy wars,” snatching up Leno’s older viewership while the two younger hosts cannibalize each other’s ratings.

Letterman’s more confrontational political approach runs the risk of alienating conservative viewers, but it also offers a point of departure from the Jimmys, whose interactions with politicians are more obsequious and inoffensive (e.g., Fallon’s “Mom Dancing” skit with the First Lady). Fallon’s “nice guy” demeanor, similar to Leno’s, may ultimately prove a better fit for the wide general audience sought by the networks – “Mom Dancing” has over 15 million hits on YouTube – but Letterman, even the checked-out Letterman of recent years, will continue to produce television that is frequently sharper and more thoughtful than his network competitors. Letterman’s prickly personality and disdain for the celebrities he interviews has been his trademark from the beginning; applying this cantankerous attitude to politics adds an additional layer to the generally innocuous late night talk format, aligning it more closely with the popular Daily Show and Colbert Report.

Critic Ken Tucker argues that Letterman alone offers “a core of seriousness that has enabled [him] to surge ahead of his genre colleagues in moments of national drama, whether it’s presidential politics or the entertainment industry’s vexed reassertion into post-9/11 American culture.” Bill Carter quotes an anonymous executive who wonders “how the younger hosts will handle being in the heat of a presidential election where they have to be accountable and ask tough questions.” With his contract up in 2014, it’s unclear if David Letterman will be around for another presidential election. But as one of Letterman’s key comic strategies is excessive repetition (both of comedy bits and key phrases, extracted from their context) it seems likely that “Stooge of the Night,” at least, will appear in all its awkward glory for at least another month.

By naming Conan O’Brien the heir to Jay Leno’s throne, NBC replaced a comedian known for his broad appeal with one in the mode of Leno’s old friend/nemesis, David Letterman.  Like his idol Letterman, O’Brien was innovative, unpredictable, and polarizing — the antithesis of Leno’s genial, if bland, humor.  While NBC wanted to keep O’Brien from leaving for ABC or Fox, and thereby further fragmenting the late night landscape, they also retained their commitment to The Tonight Show as one of the remaining bastions of “broadcasting” (as opposed to narrowcasting).  O’Brien was thus expected to adapt his quirky humor to the tastes of an older mass audience.  According to Bill Carter’s new book The War for Late Night, NBC executives (particularly Dick Ebersol) became annoyed with O’Brien for what they understood as his refusal to adjust to the earlier time slot during his brief run as Tonight‘s host.

In reality, O’Brien’s Tonight Show was considerably watered down from its 12:30 predecessor — the bawdy, sophomoric edge of Late Night (against which O’Brien would hilariously play an aghast straight man) was buried in favor of another side of O’Brien’s persona — the pleasant, inoffensive goofball.  O’Brien’s Tonight Show had tried to appeal to a wider audience, and ended up satisfying few.

Despite NBC and Leno’s assertions that O’Brien’s low ratings played a key role in the late night shake-up, Carter’s book makes clear that the disastrous performance of the prime time Jay Leno Show was almost solely responsible — that and the unusual “pay-and-play” stipulation in Leno’s contract that guaranteed him a spot on the NBC schedule.  The 12:05 slot on NBC would have been an excellent fit for O’Brien, but his relationship with NBC had grown toxic due largely to undiplomatic behavior on the part of NBC execs like Ebersol and CEO Jeff Zucker.  Carter depicts the execs as unable to empathize with the sensitive artiste O’Brien, and as understanding late night purely in terms of numbers (in the same way, Leno is portrayed as obsessed with minute-by-minute ratings fluctuations, while the other late night hosts take a more holistic, organic approach to their craft.)

The NBC debacle served to catalyze O’Brien’s young fan base; people who avoided watching broadcast TV but knew O’Brien through the internet became ardent members of “Team Coco.”  O’Brien’s post-Tonight theater tour solidified his cult, folk-hero status.  Unlike O’Brien’s Tonight Show, which tried to win over skeptical Leno fans, Conan is aimed squarely at Team Coco.  It presumes an audience that already finds Conan charming — how else could O’Brien get away with singing (and taking a guitar solo) on a duet of “Twenty Flight Rock” with Jack White at the show’s conclusion?

O’Brien’s return to narrowcasting was never more evident than in his choice of first guest.  Even Seth Rogen himself wondered what he was doing there: “I’m so glad everyone more famous was busy right now.”  Rogen and his stories about medical marijuana and his fiancee’s “titties” targeted the 18-34 demo, with no regard for older audiences.

Overall, the TBS premiere was refreshing in its ordinariness, its willingness to be unremarkable.  There was little of the sense of “event TV” that characterized Conan’s Tonight premiere – which, for me, was a good thing.  The elephantine first episode of O’Brien’s Tonight, front-loaded with overlong, not-especially-funny remote segments, seemed like it was trying too hard.  Conan was enjoyably brisk in comparison — with each guest on for about six minutes, even O’Brien remarked at how quickly the show flew by.

The Conan premiere’s lack of showy excess is partly a function of the program’s industrial status — it’s hard to celebrate a move to basic cable, after all.  Yet working for TBS should be an artistic boon for O’Brien – the channel’s lowered expectations will allow him to further build his niche appeal and foster the underdog status that suits his self-deprecating style.