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Other authors named David:
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Vote: | A lot of folks are still demanding more evidence before they actually consider Iraq a threat. For example, France wants more evidence. And you know I'm thinking, the last time France wanted more evidence they rolled right through Paris with the German flag. |
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Vote: | A Mardi Gras riot happened in Philadelphia. The people were nuts, they went berserk! I haven't seen that much looting since the Clintons left the White House! |
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Vote: | And now the really difficult part: We have to rebuild Iraq into a strong and independent nation that will one day hate the United States. |
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Vote: | Charlton Heston admitted he had a drinking problem, and I said to myself, "Thank God this guy doesn't own any guns!" |
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Vote: | Congratulations are in order for Woody Allen - he and Soon Yi have a brand new baby daughter. It's all part of Woody's plan to grow his own wives. |
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Vote: | Congratulations to Saddam Hussein on being elected to another seven-year term. It was very close. He received 99 percent of the vote, and one percent of the vote went for last-minute candidate Frank Lautenberg. |
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Vote: | Dick Cheney said he was running again. He said his health was fine, 'I've got a doctor with me 24 hours a day.' Yeah, that's always the sign of a man in good health, isn't it? |
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Vote: | Don't forget it's daylight savings time. You spring forward, then you fall back. It's like Robert Downey Jr. getting out of bed. |
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Vote: | Every day is President's Day when you have an intern! |
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Vote: | Everyone has this sense of togetherness right now. For example, one guy on the subway today, he wanted to share my pants. |
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Vote: | Experts say that Iraq may have nuclear weapons. That's bad news - they may have a nuclear bomb. Now the good news is that they have to drop it with a camel. |
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Vote: | Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees. |
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Vote: | For the love of God, folks, don't try this at home. |
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Vote: | He's a ruthless dictator but he also thinks he's a playwright. Saddam wrote a play called 'Zabiba and the King' ... attendance has dropped off since Nathan Lane has left the show. |
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Vote: | Here's a little known fact - Arnold is the first body builder to run for governor since Janet Reno. |
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Vote: | Hillary Clinton, our junior senator from New York, announced that she has no intentions of ever, ever running for office of the President of the United States. Her husband, Bill Clinton, is bitterly disappointed. He is crushed. There go his dreams of becoming a two-impeachment family. |
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Vote: | I cannot sing, dance or act; what else would I be but a talk show host. |
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Vote: | I had no idea this thing was televised. Boy, is my face red. |
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Vote: | I know these jokes aren't great, ladies and gentlemen, see this is the problem you run into when you're between impeachments. |
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Vote: | I'm just trying to make a smudge on the collective unconscious. |
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Vote: | Iraq's elite Republican Guard is doing so badly they're changing their name to the Democratic Guard. |
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Vote: | Iraqi's minister of information did not show up for his press conference today. However, he claims he was there and he said it went very well. |
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Vote: | It's official, Arnold said he will enter the race for governor. At least that's what everybody thinks he said. |
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Vote: | It's so warm now, and Thanksgiving came so early - is it just me, or does it not really feel like Ramadan? |
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Vote: | Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, everybody loves them. But I thought this was interesting on the box, "Konsult Kardiologist". |
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Vote: | Last night the United States dropped four 2,000 pound bombs on Saddam Hussein. I don't know anything about explosives, but, my God, do those things even need to explode? |
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Vote: | New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn't make a sudden move. |
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Vote: | New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. |
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Vote: | Next in importance to having a good aim is to recognize when to pull the trigger. |
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Vote: | No one knows if Saddam is still alive. They keep showing old footage of him on TV saying that it's live. You know, it's like the same thing we do with Dick Cheney. |
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Vote: | People say New Yorkers can't get along. Not true. I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab. One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine. |
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Vote: | President Bush has been silent on Schwarzenegger. Of course, he can't pronounce Schwarzenegger. |
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Vote: | President Bush has said that he does not need approval from the UN to wage war, and I'm thinking, well, hell, he didn't need the approval of the American voters to become president, either. |
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Vote: | President Bush says he needs a month off to unwind. Unwind? When the hell does this guy wind? |
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Vote: | Ted Kennedy is endorsing John Kerry and I'm wondering, do you really want the endorsement of a guy with a Bloody Mary mustache? |
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Vote: | The big debate right now is if Saddam is alive or dead. He's dead, then he's alive, then dead, then alive. It's just confusing. Today they showed videotape, and Saddam was speaking at his own funeral. |
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Vote: | The Security and Exchanges Commission is going to be investigating Vice President Dick Cheney. They'll begin that investigation as soon as Congress finishes investigating the Security and Exchanges Commission. |
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Vote: | The weather here is gorgeous. It's mild and feels like it's in the eighties. The hot dog vendors got confused because of the weather and thought it was spring, so they accidentally changed the hot dog water in their carts. |
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Vote: | The White House is giving George W. Bush intelligence briefings. You know, some of these jokes just write themselves. |
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Vote: | The worst tempered people I have ever met were those who knew that they were wrong. |
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Vote: | There is no off position on the genius switch. |
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Vote: | There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | Today is a big day in TV history. On this day forty-one years ago, the Beverly Hillbillies aired for the first time right here on CBS. They took a little break, then in 1992, they moved into the White House for eight years. |
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Vote: | Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines. |
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Vote: | USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population. |
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Vote: | We have defeated Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The good news is Iraq is ours, and the bad news is Iraq is ours. |
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Vote: | We inadvertently bombed the Chinese Embassy. But Clinton now is working very hard. He has sent a letter of apology to the Chinese. And, he's also given them a gift certificate for future nuclear secrets. |
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Vote: | We make a lot of fun at President Clinton's expense. But this transition is going to be tough because it's been 25 years since this guy has gotten laid in the private sector. |
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Vote: | Wherever we've travelled in this great land of ours, we've found that people everywhere are about 90% water. |
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Vote: | Yesterday Senator John Kerry changed his mind and now supports the ban on gay marriages. I'm telling you this guy has more positions than Paris Hilton. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | Yesterday the Iraqis and U.S. troops pulled down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein. They pull it down and it lands right on top of Geraldo. |
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Biography
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David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American talk show host, comedian, and television producer. Letterman's ironic, often absurdist comedy is heavily influenced by comedians Steve Allen, Ernie Kovacs, and Johnny Carson.
Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Letterman's father, Harry Joe Letterman, was a florist who passed away in 1974; his mother Dorothy, a Presbytarian church secretary, is a regular personality on his talk show. He has an older sister, Janice, and a younger sister, Gretchen. He graduated from Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis and attended Ball State University, receiving a B.A. in telecommunications in 1969. At Ball State he was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He also began his broadcasting career at Ball State's student run radio station, WAGO - AM 570 (Now known as WCRD "Cardinal Radio Dave", 91.3). A rare aircheck of Letterman on WAGO can be heard here.
Career Letterman began work as a radio talk show host and on television as an anchor and weatherman for what became WTHR in Indianapolis. He received recognition for his unpredictable on-air behavior, which included erasing state borders from the weather map and predicting hail stones "the size of canned hams." One night he reportedly upset his bosses when he congratulated a tropical storm on being upgraded to a hurricane.
In 1975, Letterman moved to California with hopes of becoming a comedy writer and started writing material for sitcoms, such as Good Times. He also began performing stand-up comedy at The Comedy Store, a famed Los Angeles comedy club and proving ground for young comics.
Letterman had a stint as a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show Mary, a guest appearance on Mork & Mindy, and appearances on game shows such as The $20,000 Pyramid. His dry, sarcastic humor caught the attention of talent scouts for Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, and starting in 1978, Letterman became a regular guest host for the show.
Letterman was given his own morning comedy show on NBC, The David Letterman Show. The show was a critical success, winning two Emmy Awards and receiving five nominations, but ended up being a ratings disappointment, and was cancelled after a brief run during the summer of 1980. However, NBC kept Letterman under contract, and in 1982, his Late Night with David Letterman debuted on the network.
Letterman's show, which ran late on weeknights immediately following The Tonight Show, quickly established a reputation as being edgy and unpredictable, and soon developed a cult following. The show was markedly different than the soft-sell talk-show competition, and Letterman the interviewer could be sarcastic and antagonistic, to the point that a number of celebrities have even stated that they were afraid of appearing on the show. Letterman's reputation as a testy interviewer was born out of moments like his verbal sparring matches with Cher, Madonna, and Shirley MacLaine.
The show often included quirky, genre-mocking regular features, such as "Stupid Pet Tricks", the Top 10 List, and a facetious letter-answering segment on Fridays. Other memorable moments included Letterman using a bullhorn to interrupt The Today Show TV program, which was on the air conducting a live interview at the time, announcing that he was not wearing any pants; interrupting Al Roker on the live local news by walking into the studio; and the outrageous appearances by comedian Andy Kaufman and comic book writer, Harvey Pekar. In one highly publicized appearance, Kaufman appeared to be slapped and knocked to the ground by professional wrestler Jerry Lawler. (Lawler and Kaufman's friend Bob Zmuda later revealed that the event was staged.) Letterman also made use of the Manhattan location of his NBC studio, often staging comedy bits on the streets and businesses surrounding the theater.
Letterman remained with NBC for eleven years. When Johnny Carson announced that he would retire in May 1992, a protracted, multi-lateral battle erupted over who would replace the long-time Tonight host. Eventually, executives at NBC announced Carson's frequent guest-host Jay Leno as Carson's replacement. Letterman, a protégé of Carson's and who had frequently credited Carson with boosting his career, was reportedly bitterly disappointed and angry at not having been given the Tonight Show job which he claimed to have been promised many years earlier. In 1993, after receiving advice from Carson, Letterman moved to CBS to host a new show, The Late Show with David Letterman. In 1996, HBO produced a made-for-television movie called The Late Shift, based on a book by Bill Carter, chronicling the battle between Letterman and Leno for the coveted Tonight Show hosting spot.
The Late Show competes in the same time slot as Leno's The Tonight Show. Letterman has garnered the critical and industry praise; his show has received 67 Emmy Award nominations, winning twelve times in his first twenty years in late night television. Leno consistently beats Letterman in the ratings, a lead that's grown over the years to two million viewers (5.8 vs. 3.8 million) as of 2003. Yet Letterman has consistently ranked higher than Leno in the annual Harris Poll of Nation's Favorite TV Personality; as of 2003 Letterman ranked third in that poll, behind Oprah Winfrey and Ray Romano, while Leno ranked ninth.
Letterman started his own production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated, which produces his show and several others, including Everybody Loves Raymond, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and several critically acclaimed, but short-lived television series for Bonnie Hunt.
In January of 2000, Letterman underwent quintuple heart bypass surgery. During his recovery, friends of Letterman hosted reruns of the Late Show, including Drew Barrymore, Ray Romano, Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Kathie Lee Gifford, Regis Philbin, Charles Grodin, Julia Roberts, Bill Cosby, Bruce Willis, Jerry Seinfeld, Martin Short, Danny DeVito, Steve Martin and Sarah Jessica Parker. Upon his return to the show on February 21, 2000, Letterman brought onstage all of the doctors that had performed the operation, including Dr. O. Wayne Isom and physician Louis J. Aronne, who makes frequent appearances on the show. In an unusual show of emotion, Letterman was nearly in tears as he thanked the doctors. The episode earned an Emmy nomination.
On September 17, 2001, David Letterman was the first major American comedy performer to return to the television airwaves after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In his opening monologue, an uncharacteristically serious and very emotional Letterman struggled with the reality of the attacks and the role of comedy in a post-9/11 world, saying, "We're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervor...religious fervor...and if you live to be a thousand years old will that make any sense to you? Will that make any goddamn sense?"
In March 2002, as Letterman's contract with CBS was expiring, ABC expressed the intention to offer Letterman the time slot for long-running news program Nightline with Ted Koppel, citing more desirable viewer demographics. This caused a minor flap that ended when Letterman re-signed with CBS and offered public apologies to Koppel.
In late February 2003, Letterman was diagnosed with a severe case of shingles. As a result, and for the first time since his bypass surgery, Letterman handed the reins of the show to several guest hosts including actor Bruce Willis, former professional tennis player John McEnroe, actor Luke Wilson, bandleader Paul Shaffer, comedian Bonnie Hunt, morning talk host Regis Philbin, rock musician Elvis Costello, Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond, comedians Tom Arnold, Bill Cosby, and Tom Green, as well as other prominent Hollywood performers.
In early 2005, it was revealed that retired King of Late Night Johnny Carson still kept up with current events and late-night TV right up to his death that year, and that he occasionally sent jokes to Letterman. Letterman then used these jokes in the monologue of his show, which, according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally (a onetime producer for both men), "[Johnny] gets a big kick out of." Lassally also claimed that Carson had always believed Letterman, not Leno, to be his "rightful successor." (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6841123/) Letterman also frequently employs some of Carson's trademark bits on his show, including "Carnac the Magnificent" (with Paul Shaffer as Carnac) and "Stump the Band". On Letterman's first show following Carson's passing, all of the jokes in the opening monologue were reportedly written by the late Carson.
...(more on Wikipedia)
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "David Letterman".
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