Dateline: March 19, 1996 - 8:30AM - NYC.
Dave Does The Stern Show!
After years of just calling into the Stern
show briefly by phone, CBS late-night star, David Letterman, finally stopped
by for a rare interview. "I never thought
I'd see you in this studio," Howard said as Dave entered
the room. Having just driven from his home in Connecticut in rush-hour
traffic, Dave seemed a little annoyed at the stalled traffic. "I've got important things to do today. I'm coming
in here to be on the radio. I have to help you. You've been nice enough
to invite me in here to entertain America this morning. Everybody else
on the highway is like coming to look at shoes or go to lunch. ...I'm here
on a mission. Get off the West Side Highway... Please, do me a favor, get
off the highway!," Dave joked half seriously.
Having Letterman right in the studio afforded Howard the opportunity
to ask him questions that desperately needed answers. One such topic was
the HBO movie about Dave's move to CBS and Jay Leno's rise to become the
host of the "Tonight Show". "Do
you think "The Late Shift" was accurate?," Howard
asked. "I didn't read it. I didn't see it,"
Dave insisted. "What happened
to the guy (who played Dave in The Late Shift) who was supposed to be on
your show?," Howard asked curiously. "We
ran out of time and he got bumped. ...We never had him back. We'll have
him back for his NEXT project," Dave said as he chuckled.
"I don't know the guy from 'Late Shift' and
we didn't bump him intentionally. We just ran out of time because, you
know, the show was just that good that night," he added.
As for the portrayal of himself in the movie, Dave was critical of the
way they had him with red hair when his hair is light brown, even though
he never saw it.
Speaking of Dave's hair, a caller earlier in the morning asked Howard
to ask Dave about his hair and whether he uses a partial hair-piece to
fill in the bald spot. To prove that he wasn't sporting a piece, Letterman
took off his baseball cap and let Howard tug on his hair. "Maybe
it's not...," Howard said. "If
I had hair work done... and this is how it turned out, wouldn't there be
the biggest lawsuit in the history of litigation?" Dave
said jokingly.
A few years back, Dave yelled at Howard during a commercial on his
NBC show because of comments Howard made about the way Dave's girlfriend
looked jogging in a newspaper photo. Needing closure on the situation,
Howard asked Dave why he did that when he was in the middle of "trying
to be funny." "Your comments were upsetting
to me and my girlfriend. So when you're in a relationship, if you don't
stand up for something that's unpleasant or making your girlfriend unhappy,
you're a weasel, you're a skunk," Dave said defending himself.
Howard has claimed that over the years some of the things he's done
with celebrities and his family on the radio started "influencing"
Dave's show in some capacity. One such example was with diet-guru and now-estranged
friend of the show, Richard Simmons. Dave admitted that it wasn't until
hearing Simmons on Howard's show that he couldn't find anything worth-wild
to do with him. "I would hear him on your
show and I thought gees that's brilliant, Howard's figured out a way to
make this guy enjoyable. Based on that we booked him on the show,"
Dave confessed. "I used to listen to you
talk to your mom. ...So I started calling my mom on the television,"
he added.
Before leaving, Dave told Howard that he enjoyed his visit and that
he'd "like to come in again". As to why he graced the show with
his presence, he summed it up like this. "Over
the years you've done many many nice things for me and the show and it
occurred to me that the only thing you've asked of me was to come and be
on the program..."
©1996 The K.O.A.M. Newsletter. All Rights Reserved.
