David Letterman to retire in 2015. Stephen Colbert to take over.

I never watched his show much, or any late night shows for that matter, but the fact that he was always there was comforting. Kinda like something familiar. I'm to young to remember anyone before him, but I'll miss him for sure.

 

12 weeks makes sense to me, looking at the calendar. 12 episodes? No...

 

I wish I could stay up late and catch these last few shows. Gonna miss Dave.

 

I went to taping of a Letterman show like 10 years ago, which was cool. Michael J Fox and Ray Davies were the guests. I had to explain to my friends who the latter was (we were in our mid-20s and I'm the perennial "music nerd" of the group as I'm sure most of you are).

At this point I like to think I've evolved identifying my personality through pop culture but as a New Yorker and comedy fan I saw "Letterman vs Leno" as a marker of taste. Letterman is the caustic, east-coast dry wit more "real" while Leno was the hacky dad-humor safe west-coast comic. Of course it's not that simple and comparing TV stars is silly but Letterman was an iconic figure in my early taste making.

Colbert has kind of done that role even though his show was obviously wildly different. But both are/were TV people that many would point to and say, yeah, that represents where I'm coming from.

 

He's done in 2 months....which is 8 weeks from now/since the Norm M interview where he mentioned it.

 

I have a DVR and every count down episode is being enjoyed the next day after work.

Some really great stuff so far as all of these remaining guests so far have also been huge David Letterman fans.

Sadly, these last few episodes are just reinforcing just how much I am going to miss this guy as well...

 

Dave will still be able to be seen on Youtube.....Last CBS show is May 20th.

 

After watching last nights show David made it obviously apparent that he regrets his decision to leave. Jerry Seinfeld was the first guest and it was a IMO one of his best on the show. He had Dave show him how he runs across the stage just before his entrance. Jerry tried it and he was slow compared to Letterman's sprint. Later while on the couch Dave and Jerry switched seats and Jerry interviewed Dave. When Seinfeld asked him why he was leaving and what he was going to do Dave had this really sad regretful look on his face as he starred down toward the audience. Basically it sounds like this is what Dave's wife wants being that their son is 11 now.

The show is certainly not as funny as it used to be. The writers that do the jokes from what I can see don't know what works best for Dave IMO. But funny aside I'm going to miss him almost as much as Johnny simply for the fact that he is the last link to Carson, the King Of Late Night TV.

I wouldn't be surprised after what I saw last night that Dave renounces his retirement or it's a short lived one. It wouldn't exactly be breaking any new ground there would it?

 

I watched it last night and it seemed obvious that he thought he made a mistake a year ago. Dave started talking about Jerry's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and Dave said, "You could do that show once, twice, three times a week, You could do it five days a week or whenever with no effort." Jerry said Dave could still do his show with no effort, and that's when it hit Dave.

I miss the days of Carson as well. I think people born after 1960 only think of Carson as an 80s, early 90s guy, when he was being forced out by NBC (as far as I know). I have great memories of Carson and Dave's NBC years as well. I think it's good that he'll be moving on. God only knows what CBS will come up with, but if it's like their new "talent," I'll be finding other late night programming.

 

Dave had said before that he and Les Moonves had an agreement that when Moonves made "the call" Dave would step aside.

Frankly, Dave's ratings have been poor, especially in the demographic. It wouldn't surprise me if we eventually learn that Dave got "the call" from Moonves asking him to step aside. Moonves has already said that under Colbert, Late Show will be a profit making machine.

So I'm not sure it was a decision that Dave made all by himself. Yeah, he really stopped participating in his show years ago, but he still really seems to enjoy being out there in front of the cameras and audience.

 

I had heard a rumor that Dave was asked to step down.

 

From what I've seen of Letterman's show in the past few years, that's what he's been doing.

 

He sure does still enjoy it. And that was Jerry's point last night. Maybe Jerry was giving him encouragement to do something on the internet as he himself is doing and doing it well.

 

I've been a Dave disciple for years. The recent episodes have been gutwrenching for those of us that have been around. Great stuff! I'll be sad when Dave is gone. IMHO, Late night tv is over. I 'm taking the next day off from work. Hosting a "Goodbye Dave" Party. Will be bittersweet.

 

Dave was the reason I bought my first (Beta) VCR in his second year on NBC. The machines were not cheap but I would get home at 7 PM..grab a drink and relax with Late Night. There are not any broadcasters around today. End of an era.

 

Did you buy it from Sears? They were a grand back in the day.

 

Dave has never said he is retiring. He's leaving The Late Show, but he's never said he was giving up performing. Same as Carson. I do think it's possible that Dave will, like Carson, end up retired because he can't find anything else he wants to do. But he hasn't stated an intention to retire.

I also think there's a strong likelihood he was asked to leave. I think there was some hope he might improve his ratings when Fallon took over (as he had against Conan). Instead, the opposite happened. At minimum, I believe he quit knowing that if he didn't, it wouldn't be long before he was asked to leave.

 

What's the deal with the NBC shows? CBS Late Show can't show any clips from the NBC show, only pictures. Also, none of the NBC channels show old reruns of Late Night anymore. Is Late Night with David Letterman going to be a "lost" show now? It seems in limbo. It would have been cool if one of the NBC channels did some sort if marathon or maybe a deal with Vh1Classic like SNL 40.

 

Johnny Carson was the Beatles.
David Letterman was the Stones.
Jay Leno was Freddie and the Dreamers.

 

if theres any bright side ,at least we won't have to see Todd anymore

 

It was pure class of Dave to bring Tom Snyder back in 1995. Dave felt bad for taking Tom's job in 1982 and promised Tom he'd have his job back someday. How many people in late night keep their word? Certainly not Jay Leno. NBC is a joke these days. I don't care about the ratings. Ratings mean squat about quality, look at the music charts. At one point, NBC had Johnny Carson followed by David Letterman, followed by Bob Costas and they managed to screw that up. Eff 'em.

 

NBC got in a pissing match with Dave when he left. Hence "viewer mail" and the "world's most dangerous band" was deemed NBC's intellectual property so we got the "CBS Mailbag" and "The CBS Orchestra." Also, NBC syndicated Late Night reruns to A&E in an attempt to sabotage ratings of Dave's new show. Who would watch the Late Show at 11:30 if you could watch classic Dave at 7:00?? I do believe NBC sold a bunch of Late Night's to Good Times video as well.

 

At 68 years old, Dave was going to be retiring soon anyway. Les Moonves and Dave seem to have a good relationship. The way CBS handles their late night shows and the way CBS is buried on the dial in many markets, I don't expect Colbert to beat Fallon in the ratings, even if Colbert has a MUCH better program. Look at the way CBS handled Craig Ferguson. He was arguably the funniest and most innovative guy since Dave in 1982 - and he competed well against Conan, but the network did NOTHING for him.

 

Technically, in his announcement he plainly said "I'm retiring."