In the Kingdom of Letterman

By Richard Zoglin

Now that the dust has settled, it all seems so obvious. Of course David Letterman was the logical person to take over the Tonight Show when Johnny Carson retired. Of course NBC made a mistake in betting on Jay Leno and letting Dave slip away to CBS. Of course Letterman's hip, edgy 12:30 a.m. sensibility could be adapted for a more mainstream audience at 11:30 p.m.

& And, of course, hindsight is easy. As Bill Carter reveals in The Late Shift (Hyperion; $24.95), his richly reported book on the network battle over Letterman, NBC's blunder was, if not excusable, at least understandable. When the network negotiated a new contract with Leno in 1991, in part to keep him from jumping (ironically) to CBS, it guaranteed him the Tonight slot after Carson left -- not an unreasonable promise to the man who had been capably filling in for Carson for four years. Letterman, who preferred private sulking to office politics, never let top NBC executives know how crucial the Tonight Show was to his own conception of career growth. So NBC wrongly assumed it could give the job to Leno and still somehow keep Dave happy.

Letterman's ascension at CBS as the undisputed king of late night was confirmed by the Winter Olympics. Appearing each evening with his Top 10 lists and Gillooly gags, Letterman's Late Show was the Official Comedy Wrap-Up of the '94 Games. Ratings for his second Olympic week soared to 8.9 (compared with an average 5.8), the show's highest ever. What clinched it for Middle America was Dave's mom, who was sent to Lillehammer to report on the Games and banter on the air with her son. What a guy: he not only has higher ratings, makes more money and provides more laughs than anybody else in late-night TV -- he's nice to his mother too.

The formidable influence of Letterman, the man and the mystique, could be felt when he showed up last Monday as a guest on Conan O'Brien's show. Dave's gracious praise for his successor on Late Night -- "You've really done a great job to carve out a wonderful identity for yourselves" -- was like the Pope's benediction. O'Brien needs it; after six months, he is as awkward and clueless in front of the camera as the day his show was born.

That same night, Greg Kinnear took over as host of Later, NBC's post-Late Night half-hour recently abandoned by Bob Costas. Kinnear, the snickering host of the E! channel's Talk Soup, has done exactly what might have been expected with Costas' low-key, single-guest interview show: turned it into another Letterman knockoff. He has added a studio audience, an opening monologue (video clips of the day's news followed by Kinnear wisecracks) and lots of prepared shtick to keep the interviews from bogging down in, say, real conversation. For Julia Louis-Dreyfus, he introduced a taped bit purporting to reveal that she is actually bald. For Martin Short, he took out a script of ! The Bodyguard and asked Short to read for the Kevin Costner part. The program's redeeming feature is Kinnear himself, who is confident and comfortable in his first talk-show gig. If he doesn't replace O'Brien within six months, NBC really does need psychiatric help.

Letterman, meanwhile, has done a masterly job of refashioning his show to appeal to a broader audience. He has easily outclassed the square, high- pitched Leno (who has taken to selling monologue jokes by appending the line "You'll be tellin' that in the morning") and has converted thousands of onetime skeptics into Letterman lovers. Only to his old fans has he, in the process, become less interesting.

The changes in Letterman's show and persona have been important but little noted. His old four-jokes-and-out opening monologue has been expanded into a more traditional (and less funny) Carsonesque one. Bandleader Paul Shaffer, whose Vegas-inspired repartee with Letterman was the heart and soul of the old Late Night, has retreated oddly into the background. In every way the show is bigger, louder, flashier -- and less adventurous. No more weird phone calls to Moscow or South Dakota; no more barging in on Joan Collins before her Live at Five appearance. Now Dave's cameras pay "surprise" visits to shop owners in the neighborhood, who seem all too prepared for instant celebrityhood. He brings on the cast members of Cats for bits and welcomes Tony Bennett to help sing the Top 10 list.

Dave is in a better mood too. The grumbly, peevish Letterman of Studio 6A days could sometimes be a drag. But the upbeat Letterman who has resurfaced on CBS seems defanged. He still takes shots at network executives, but there's no passion in it anymore. With actresses like Debra Winger and Jennifer Jason Leigh, he seems positively awestruck. It is hard to imagine Cher coming on the show and calling this David Letterman an asshole.

Oh well, Dave's on Broadway now, and there are more seats to fill. His show is like a Pinter psychodrama that has been reworked with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Nothing wrong with that, but why is this man making fun of Cats?