madcougar

That billboard was from 1997 when Letterman fell behind Leno and Nightline.

Thing is even at No. 3, that Letterman's numbers were still light years better than what CBS affiliates were doing before Letterman. In other words, the piece of the pie he brought was smaller than Leno or Nightline, but was still more than CBS had ever had, so they were content.

madcougar

I considered this a nice little FU to people who only tuned in to the finale and/or who only watch the show on DVR. I decided to stay up to watch since it was the last one. I had also DVRed the show for later. I got worried the box would cut off at 11:35 and I would miss the end, but I got to see all of it.

madcougar

I watched the first 20 minutes for the first time ever... I guess it was nice, but it seemed... disingenuous as the guy is from England and had no real relationship with Letterman. It also reminded me what I hate about the Jimmys... they're too kiss-assy. I don't want to watch that.

madcougar

I don't know. Not being a regular viewer for the last 10 years, he looked very old to me. Not that he still doesn't have chops, but the guy looked worn out. I think he knew it was time regardless of ratings.

Nth Power

I thought Conan gave a nice thank you to Dave:

Kal-El

I saw that Conan opening monologue and I thought it was very gracious of him to tell the viewers to just record his show and watch Dave's live.

Mike86

That Conan tribute to Dave was great. Very nicely said and genuine words about how important he was. Kimmel's was nice too.

Xbox69

Even though I was watching it live, it was also recording via my DVR (ATT U-verse). I had only padded it 5 minutes extra.

As he went into his farewell speech I glanced up at my DVR and saw that the red light (recording) was no longer on. It stopped recording! ...but I quickly realized that I could simply hit RECORD and it would resume -- AND, since I had not even changed the channel the entire hour+ the show was airing, I knew that the RECORD function was going to go back and archive (as the 2nd recording) the guide data for the next show.

Split across 2 segments. My DVR didn't miss a beat. A couple of min. overlap with the 5 min. padding actually.

wz42

Wow...I didnt realize that and could have sworn that pic was of that (I think?) car dealer that resembled Letterman.


Seinfeld is doing Getting Coffee in Cars with Comedians. I kinda thought Letterman would go for something like that where, due to it's nature, the ratings system wouldn't matter. Like my Saturday night weekly show thought I mentioned earlier where no one could be expected to pull in good ratings.

That's cool. Is there a YouTube link to that interview?

Double_Oh_7

Stuff likes this always goes long. If you didn't plan for it, that's on you.

SuperJim88

I thought Leno's finale was better than Dave's. He had the two hours special, plus two weeks of build up to run the archive footage and segments. Don't get me wrong, I love those archive segments, but if you have all these chances to run it, then don't waste time in the last show. You have 10 A-list celebrities for your Top-Ten list, why couldn't you get them in a round table and shoot the shit for a little bit. What a waste of 10 celebrities' time. If you are truly thankful of your staff, then they should be asked to come on the stage for their 30 sec of fame. I think Leno was much more sincere in that regard.

After the show ended, I really felt CBS blew the chance on this one. If SNL 40's anniversary is a 3 hr and 10 min show, then Dave's 30+ should warrant a 3 hr special as well. It should have been ran yesterday right before his final show. Make it an entire night of Dave.

Mike86

I disagree. To me I liked that we got new material up to the end pretty much with Dave and the show didn't overly rely on archive footage. The archive footage was fun to see and was fitting with the tone of the final episode and I feel the way it was done worked very well. As far as Leno being more sincere I disagree there too. I think Dave came off as sincerely grateful to the people who've worked with him for years and to his audience, but he's never really struck me as an overly sentimental guy. So I think they just had different ways of expressing their gratitude. It would have been nice to see a longer final show I agree. At least two hours would have been nice, but in a way the last three episodes this week acted as one large finale.

madcougar

They had a retrospective on Letterman a few weeks ago on primetime that didn't exactly do gangbusters. I think that CBS is kind of in a tight spot here. If they do something huge (which I'm sure Letterman didn't want anyway) and raise the bar too high, they may make it harder for Stephen Colbert in September.

madcougar

Now this is sad...

Fist of Doom

A nice farewell, I guess. #Whatever

EctoCooler

Yeah, but it's Jay Leno. Meaning all those segments and archive footage was shit.

mwbmis

Oh come on....Dancing Itos.

whotony

CNN ran a very good retrospective the other night. Clips and interviews.

robin2099

Can't lie going to miss Dave. I remember watching him on Late Night reruns as a teen and was hooked by the stuff he was doing. Goofy stuff like the suit of Rice Krispies, baked potato night, the monkey cam etc. You could tell that he was so groundbreaking in his comedy for the time that people may consider Carson the greatest but I think Dave earned that title. Pretty much every late night host now follows the formla that Letterman set. Now that he's gone it feels kind of weird. But honestly it was time to go. He was up there in years and I'm sure CBS wanted to get someone younger in there before the 18-49 demo completely jumps ship to Fallon and Kimmell.

Jcheckel

Letterman didn't even want that special a few weeks ago, that's why none there was nothing new from him or much if anything new from his people in the show. Since he didn't want anything to do with it CBS just had their news department put something together. The last few weeks he showed the clip packages that would've been what made up a larger special.

Lokimok

I've been somewhat disappointed by most of the final guest appearances from the last few weeks, but this was a surprisingly satisfying finale. The right mix of new material & clips. And Dave was into it. This was the best monologue I've seen from him in a long time. He seemed to really enjoy the show - & after watching that behind the scenes segment, I bet he will occasionally regret his decision.

I've always been more of a Late Night fan than a Late Show fan (proof is that I immediately recognized Colleen Boyle in the audience the other night & was very pleased that someone else did too & had Dave mention it later). The finale gave me just enough Late Night clips & stills with the majority of old clips being from the morning show that I'd never seen. The montage was really well done with almost everyone you would want represented with special attention to those no longer with us & those of most importance to the show.

I think it's going to be a while before this really hits me & I feel the void.

The Antipodean

I thought it was a great finale, not ridiculously over the top and mawkish (Johnny Carson, I'm looking at you) and a great reminder of why Dave mattered. I'm really hoping that at some point we get a great "Best of Letterman" Blu/DVD set with some of the hilarious highlights over the years because as far as I can tell there aren't any.

Red Dog

Great send-off. I haven't watched any late night TV for 20 years, but those late 80s/early 90s, I watched so much Letterman (probably have a bunch of a VHS tapes in storage of his best episodes). Pure gold. Thanks for the laughs.

big e

Although it sucks for people like my mom who can't stay up to watch it live and has to DVR the show.

Red Dog

I thought it was ironic that they did the Wheel of Fortune clip----only because of CBS's failed try of Pat Sajak in Late Night prior to Dave.