From: ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.letterman
Subject: Re: WHATS WRONG WITH THE SHOW
Date: 7 Sep 1992 22:07:02 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.berkeley.edu

In article <7SEP199212542880@erich.triumf.ca> music@erich.triumf.ca
(FRED W. BACH) writes:
>    Dear Letterman fans,
>
>       How would you characterize the differences between people
>       who liked the old Carson show and people who like the Dave
>       Letterman show?   Was there a large fraction that liked
>       both shows?  I don't really know.
>
>       I was a Carson fan.  I liked Jay as a guest host, but I
>       often found better guests on Dave's show.  Generally I find
>       the humor a problem on the Letterman show, however.  I think it
>       is often too silly and aimed at a much more childish mind.
>       I liked the music way better on Carson with Doc.  Dave's flying
>       sky-cam takes some nice shots, but the whole bit with the
>       roving cams comes across as pointless.  There's just not much
>       intelligent, thoughtful humor, the kind of humor where the
>       skit does a clever (adult) parody of some real-life situation.
>       I guess that's my chief complaint-- much of Dave's humor
>       seems to me to be like what a small child would do, or like
>       what a drunk with a camera would do at some wild party.
>
>       But the guests and most of his top-10 lists are very good.
>       There is usually some thought that shows through in the top-10
>       lists, although a I see a lot of goofiness, too.
>
>       What do YOU think?

I tend to think of Carson fans as midwestern fossils whose view
of the world comes from Parade magazine and the 700 Club.  I suppose
a minority of these might also like Letterman, e.g. DL's mother.

The only superior thing about Leno is his monologue.  His "headlines"
bit that he ripped off from Letterman is also descent.  Both Leno
and Hall also seem to get more bigger name guests than Letterman.  But
this may be due to their locale, LA, where alot of the stars are.

If you liked the music way better on Carson with Doc, then you are
simply not of the culture that likes Letterman.  Your taste in music
probably matured 30 or 40 years ago and has remained there, rejecting
and/or ignoring anything different that has come since.  I'd guess
you've effectively tuned out a generation's worth of pop culture.

As far as the top-10 lists go, they are far from being consistantly
very good.  But I'd grant that's it's probably as difficult to come
up with a great top-10 as it is to hit a major league curveball.
It is extremely rare that all 10 items on a list are very funny.
It's a great list if half are, and outstanding if three quarters are.

Letterman's humor is generally not childish, it only sometimes seems
that way on the surface.  So that if this is merely your perception,
then you're not getting the entire joke.  In other words, you're on
the other side of the cultural divide or "generation gap".  The Family
cable channel runs reruns of the sixties series Batman, probably
completely unaware of its campy and satirical intent.  This is equivalent
to taking Larry "Bud" Melman seriously.  If you don't understand what
his mere presence makes fun of, then you're not going to get alot of
the show.

This isn't to say Letterman succeeds everytime.  The hallmark of the
show, and what really separates it from virtually everything else on TV,
is it's inventiveness and innovation.  The staff and show seem to
thrive on trying virtually anything and it's a testament to their
brilliance that it works so often.  Sticking cameras anywhere, calling
payphones, flying falcons across office buildings, setting off
fireworks in the studio, doing skits with stage and production staff
and news and sports people, doing shows from their production offices.
What other show attempts so much?  Carson was so formulaic and
predictable that it seemed that if it wasn't for it being past their
bedtimes, his prime audience would be the rest home crowd, since it
wouldn't excite them too much while they were spoon fed their strained
vegetables and drooling into their bibs.