Though it's easy to forget when you're drowning in a sea of Jimmys, David Letterman was once the god of late night — the people's comedian, if you will. In a recent NYT interview, Letterman acknowledged that shift in a blaze of honest commentary on his career. "They didn’t push me out," Letterman told Dave Itzkoff. "I’m 68. If I was 38, I’d probably still be wanting to do the show."
With Letterman's final Late Show stint on May 20 swiftly approaching, the long shadow of Letterman's influence is making itself as obvious as possible for those of us too young to remember his inimitable reign. On May 4, Letterman-approved CBS alum Ray Romano will host David Letterman: A Life on Television — a 90-minute retrospective including classic moments from Letterman's three decades (!) of Late Night shenanigans.
If this just-released teaser is any indication, expect a wide variety of clips and interviews (including Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Bill Murray, Tom Cruise, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, and many more) that should certainly remind you just how lame — by comparison — Letterman's formal rival Jay Leno really was/is.