Jimmy Kimmel recently announced his plan to show mad respect for David Letterman by airing a rerun on the night of Letterman's final Late Show. In an email to the New York Times, Kimmel said he "would probably be crying all day, which makes it hard to work." Naturally, news outlets picked up the story with vigor — winning views with the proverbial nice guy narrative.
Jerry Seinfeld was not impressed.
In a recent interview with Access Hollywood's well-tanned Billy Bush, Seinfeld brushed off Kimmel's rerun tribute as simply not enough. "Why not put up a test pattern if you really want to respect the guy?" Seinfeld told Bush. "That's a real tip of the cap."
For the record, this is a "test pattern":
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 203 115"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
As it stands, both Jimmy Fallon and Conan O'Brien will be airing new episodes against the Letterman sendoff. The Daily Show and The Nightly Show will be taking the entire week off so that Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore can cry. All tears aside, Letterman has his own thoughts on how his final night as a CBS god will go. "I want people to be happy that they spent the time to watch it," Letterman told NYT in a recent profile. "Of course, Johnny [Carson]’s last show was historic. This one won’t be. This one, people will say: 'Ah, there you go. When’s the new guy starting?'"
The new guy starts September 8.