Bill Carter might know more about the inner workings of late night tv than any human on Earth

all right y'all thought that I might be fibbing this is proof right now the Letterman podcast we have one sponsor one sponsor only but it is Rupert G in the hello Deli thank you very much for sponsoring our show Rupert it's my honor Mike welcome to the Letterman podcast uh this is an exciting one uh Bill Carter is coming on the show I had a uh a top five uh at the beginning of this endeavor and Bill Carter was on that list um and I'm gonna tell you this he's still on that list actually he really is um man okay I'm gonna get to bill in a second okay uh first off though uh at the time of this release we are right around the beginning of April 2023 which means our one year anniversary is coming up in a mere 20 days uh April 20th of 2022 was when we started uh we started intentionally on that day because it is the anniversary of uh that year in 2015 or that date I should say in 2015 when that happened my encounter with Dave the New York Times all of that crap um yeah I'm really excited about that I I I I I I I had another podcast Host this week asked me um if this show has uh met the expectations that I had for it at the beginning and I gotta tell you it's actually exceeded it significantly um I'm really really grateful and we're going to be doing some anniversary stuff so here's the deal uh we're gonna be doing some giveaways uh we just went over 500 subscribers on YouTube we've got more lots of people it's like three to five thousand people who will listen to this through all the program through all the uh platforms that this podcast is on per episode not per episode like for for the bigger ones um but YouTube is is where I want to really try and bolster some more support here we just went over 500 subscribers on YouTube uh so we are going to in the Facebook group start giving away some stuff what are the things that we're going to give away are some of these Late Show with David Letterman rejection postcards this is a rejection postcard to somebody who has applied to be on The Late Show and uh was given the No No not so much you know thank you for submitting your interest in The Late Show with David Letterman unfortunately we feel that an appearance is not quite right for you at this time Etc et cetera et cetera rejection postcards kind of cool we're gonna we got a few of these that we're gonna give away uh I've got a couple scripts that we're going to give away as well also a late show windbreaker uh that you only got if you were on staff know at the present there's no chance that I'm going to give away one of my Lettermen um you know the the the the the letterman jackets but we do have some cool stuff that we're going to give away so now that we've gone over 500 um I think we're gonna start around the anniversary time giving some things uh away so please join the Lettermen podcast Facebook group that is uh one of the primary ways we are going to get entries into that so um exciting happy anniversary to the Letterman podcast is coming uh got a couple other special things planned that we're not even going to talk about um yeah just very very grateful for this show uh for the people that uh we've met and gotten a chance to talk to and some of the stories that have come out now speaking of which oh before okay before we get to bill um Rupert G and the hello Deli it's getting to the end the hello Deli is up for sale uh we don't know what's gonna happen we don't know what kind of transition is going to be there we're not sure what's going to happen after that uh Rupert has the uh only is the only place to get Late Show with David Letterman merchandise mugs t-shirts all sorts of cool things and Rupert t-shirts like I don't know how long it's going to be but soon he's not going to own this place anymore and the end of an era is coming uh grab grab yourself go to hellodashdaily.com to grab your stuff uh while you still can I promise you there will be people who will regret people four or five years from now that come back and watch these episodes uh of the Lettermen podcast and realize oh my gosh I could have gotten uh some cool Rupert stuff or some cool Late Show with David Letterman stuff go get it right now hello deli.com our one and only sponsor and we Rupert may we love you so much and we're so grateful for the last 30 some odd years um man you guys have really uh it's quite a remarkable story and I hope that um I hope that there's some uh some markings of the occasion I hope I hope there's a full documentary made about you guys I really really do I love you both very very much thank you for all the support that you've given to us um yeah so much love from the Lettermen podcast to Rupert and May at the hello Deli and we'll throw Irene Hoffman in there too because we love you too buddy I appreciate you so so much for everything that you do that's uh Rupert's Rupert's gal um Bill Carter so I don't know how many times I've read The Late Shift it's a lot and the war for late night there's a line oh my gosh in this podcast uh I'm so excited I mean I I know I'm always excited but um being able to hang with Bill Carter whether or not he was just being gentle on me or I was actually hanging with him and and and and that is something that I have always wanted to do I've always wanted to hold a conversation with him I'm going to flat out say this I hope he comes on this podcast a lot more I hope I have a lot more opportunity to interact with this man he's talking about uh what's happening in his career he talks about that in this in this episode um you know his CNN contract is ending he says as he put it in a few short months he's gonna be putting a shingle out there boy would that be fun to figure out a way to interact with this guy more than just about Letterman but about the entire genre of late night which he clearly loves talking about and is nothing short of perhaps the foremost expert on the planet of this uh form of entertainment this genre of entertainment that we love so much um I I I I'm so grateful that I got a chance to have this conversation with him I hope that there are many more down the line um because it literally the tip of the iceberg when when when Don and I finished and Don was there the entire time but I I I he he kind of just enjoyed the conversation um you know you know what I don't want to put words in his mouth but I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the conversation and he just kind of sat back and and uh um but hey one of the things that bill Carter said was uh you know there's The Late Shift uh we talked about the movie uh very cool story some behind the scenes stuff about the movie um he talked about his conversation with Johnny Carson which was um entertaining to say the least but to watch Bill Carter and I don't think I'm being hyperbolist by saying this get as excited as I get about this bring that part and I was cheering for him and it's 30 something years after the fact but when he had this conversation with Johnny Carson it was so um it was so Earnest and and to hear Bill tell these stories and and then of course we talked about Letterman of course but um the war for late night and and his quote and boy is he right he wrote the hell out of that book The War for late night if you haven't read if you've only read The Late Shift if you haven't read the war for late night yet you gotta read it is there gonna be a third book we talk about this we talk about all sorts of stuff um and not for nothing but uh I think we mentioned it in the podcast or it was mentioned maybe before the camera started rolling um but just uh to be aware we're gonna do a shout out to Robert Morton right now to Morty um Dave's former EP and you know he was the inspiration for The Late Shift and uh you know Morty we appreciate you so so much I hope to get you here to have a conversation um sooner than later and uh I just yeah I appreciate um bill so much for giving of his time to do this you know I I I I don't want to go too long on these intros but uh Bill Carter is a guy that I have read that book from cover to cover so many times I wouldn't do the intro with him on camera because he would just fall under the table with embarrassment um I appreciate him so much and uh it was a literal dream come true to talk to him I hope that we can do it again um you know I would love to do an episode with him on Craig Ferguson we did talk about Peter LaSalle a lot uh which I'm grateful that we got a chance to do and and you know he had a he had a an appointment um and I I really feel like this would have been one that would have went two three hours if if he didn't have a kind of a a heart out as we like to say but it doesn't matter I I it was um it was so sweet and so great and every bit they say don't meet your Heroes right I I have not had a situation in this experience with any of the people whether it's the writers or the producers um you know the musicians on the band and people who have written about Letterman uh foremost writers of course you know um zinnamon uh appreciate him so much Scott Ryan of course Big Friend of the show the show you know might not exist without him and then of course Bill Carter now can be added to that list um God damn I'm just real grateful about this so I'm gonna stop talking now um we uh will now present the Letterman podcast is proud to present author um reporter and uh expert on the genre of late night bill freaking Carter get it bill this is a huge honor for me um I'll talk about how many times I've read the books and and things like that as we go through this I'm I'm sure but uh I just really I'm I'm so curious um The Late Shift uh what was your okay what was your position when you wrote The Late Shift you wrote The New York Times right yes I was the chief uh television reporter for the times um when I read I've read that book many many times and I I I've wanted to have discussions with you about the business of the original Late Shift um for literally since I was 20 years old uh you know I'm 47 now so um I I I'm really grateful for this opportunity to do this I want to talk about the business of late night I want to talk about the state of where late night is now because I mean at the end of the day even reading the late shift now you can kind of see the tea leaves uh never mind the war for late night which uh you know we're talking about 2010 but you could kind of see the Tea Leaves of the dilution of what was happening what was uh very very exclusive and became less exclusive and and then more and more and more and more to the point now where it's like well is it even going to be the same thing um I mean I don't know if there's a person on the planet more qualified to have this discussion than with you well it's interesting you mentioned that 27 years is because it's hard to imagine that's how long it's been but is The Late Shift um I I you know obviously there's been a lot of luck great work before then uh you know desperate networks and and of course wait for late night and other things that you've done and never mind all the reporting that you've done but I look at the late shift and when you look back at your career is that definitely one of the high water marks or is it one of the high water marks that just people know about I would say here's how I would define it if the New York Times doesn't owe bit of me it will be in the first paragraph okay there you go so um yeah I mean it was it's something that uh that we all who who love uh talking about and nerding out to this nonsense of late night and and and and the characters within um it's certainly if it's not the Bible it's certainly one of the Holy Works uh of that when you wrote that book I get the sense um and I mean I I'm I'm I wouldn't say I'm quite a voracious reader but I'm an Avid Reader and I love when I read a biography or when I read a book written by a reporter on a subject um when it feels like the reporter or the author is fighting back enthusiasm in order to stay uh logical or true or or or or or non-biased um you're a fan of this stuff you love this stuff don't you yes I I should say I sort of came to love it more in the process because I mean I I was a viewer of late night shows for sure but I wasn't a habitual viewer I wouldn't watch five nights a week uh after I did the book I never missed for I don't know how long and I used to I used to love it when Letterman was on CBS Lena was on NBC Jon Stewart was on The Daily Show and camel was on at midnight because you could watch the start of every show pretty much you know yeah it had a watch like Dave's opening and then you might watch a little of Lena and then go back to Dave and then at midnight you could watch Kim I I literally would do that it was like you know parsing out this room and you could watch the first five minutes of Colbert because it because it the show started at 1:35 so that was a fabulous lineup yeah you were literally the uh the opposite of the no switching no flipping I was looking like crazy yeah um oh man this is so cool to I I love hearing that because I could feel that enthusiasm in the book uh in both books for that matter um and again you know what I I've said it in the intro but I'm going to say it again if you haven't read the late shift or the war for late night uh you gotta get them they are absolutely in my opinion um well pivotal reading if you want to understand the business of this uh particular slice of entertainment but even more so the entertaining the behind the scenes stories that you got was it difficult um getting some of these people to open up so Canada like they're the candidness in these books is astounding um and from especially from you think about a guy like Dave well hey man I'm almost a year into this thing and the culture of the people who worked for Dave uh the apple does not fall far from the tree hard to compliment these people hard to you know um you know without them kind of deflecting it uh um you know and and then notoriously private as well um so on that side but but really you got this kind of candidness in almost every single aspect of all of these different shows you reported on did you develop a trick for that or did you find that people were kind of itching to talk about this stuff here's the huge Advantage I had okay when I started the late shift I had I had been covering the machinations of Dave versus Jay succeeding Johnny in the New York Times so I established some relationships already then I think it was Morty Robert Morton who said to me at some point when I was just covering it he said you know there's been a so much of this in the Press but there's so much people don't know there's so much people don't know that went on behind the scenes and I was like ah that sounds like a book okay yeah and and that made me say okay well the the advantage I have is that there are two peep sides here who want their story told so if you find out something about X and Y does it know it you can go back and forth and that's really what happened a lot like you they started to know that I was incredibly well informed about what was going on and so they wanted to say okay well here's what really happened in that in that circumstance and it made it advantageous to me because I was trying to write not a uh history book where you say according to so and so that I tried to write a narrative it's a story it's a story I'm trying to write a story and so I want to recreate dialogue right and the only way to fairly do that is to have both sides of a conversation say yes you know the Lauren Littlefield and John a Golia came in my office then and they said this to me and I said this to them right yeah so now I would dance so I go back to them and they said yeah we said that and then I can recreate the conversation so that's that was my Approach and I I felt very lucky that I had the people who they loved the story it was so much a part of their lives that they sort of liked it was therapy for some of it for them to get it out you know oh I can imagine it was that's a that's a that's a great Point yeah I mean there's all of this at the time and again I mean we're sitting here at the time of this recording it's 2023.

yeah and to bring it back to I think part of the reason um we had zinnamon on uh not too long ago and and I asked him what it is about um Letterman uh and and and and many of the people who are enthusiasts of of Dave who get this almost like it's almost like a cult-like following it's almost like the Grateful Dead Or you know The Rocky Horror Picture Show or or whatever you get these these programs that come out and not almost it is it is yeah yes it is isn't it and and he I asked him about that and he said um he actually credited your book he said one of the things he goes well if you go back to that time period you could not there was no periodical of any sort that you could get I'm from western Canada it was in like page two or three of our newspaper like it was the biggest entertainment story Johnny Carson was the biggest star in the world yeah and a lot of people the reason the Genesis for this show is the fact that so many people have forgotten Johnny Carson and to me you know back in my formative years during the late shift and that was zinnamon's uh you know the idea of that was that when that all happened it just seared itself it branded itself into our brains and and the reason I I've started this show is because people are they're starting to forget Dave a little bit and I just don't want that to happen I want to transfer that knowledge that's why this show exists um please this is an issue of late night late night produced phenomenal entertainment okay yes but it's very topical it doesn't replay very well so you don't see a lot of that Carson shows have replayed a little bit but they feel old you know they feel old the references are old Etc so you have this kind of ephemeral art form that that was Vivid incredibly Vivid as it first started but unlike episodes let's say of I Love Lucy right which are you know 100 years old yeah you you don't see them replayed it's not replayed very often and so yes Carson starts to fade Letterman and Leno start to fade you know it's it because they're not they're not a presence for another generation the way you know repeats of Cheers or or sci-fi especially look at Seinfeld yeah still playing tremendously over and over again it this is a different art form that's a really good point and and um I I I appreciate that like it's you think about um I mean topical in the sense of I mean I think it's always been a rite of passage for late night hosts to make fun of whoever the current president is and they find something you know whatever it is whether it's Dave calling uh President Clinton Bubba or or whatever it is along the way there's always things and they are kind of a time capsule um when it comes to many of the topics and things like that what I love about Letterman so much and I think the Letterman channel uh which started earlier this year it started almost just a year ago February of of 22.

um as they're starting to open the vault of these these clips that are that are Timeless um you know the celebrity ones the ones I love too are the celebrities who were just kind of up and coming at the time when they were doing a panel with Dave and now they're gigantic like lizzo is the first one that comes to mind you know she did her uh appearance on the very first television appearance on there um but some of the comedy pieces you can insert them anywhere in any time period and they still play and that's the thing that astounds me so much about Dave's work yeah those no and that that's why his originality was more valuable than so Leno's ability for a monologue because that's a tradition that you can see in every late night show but what Dave was doing with the original comedy especially in his first show yeah when it was just wildly Off the Wall stuff and that's where the cult started because people saw that and like who is this guy what is this you know that was so fresh and new and you have massive influence then of all the comics that follow him that is a unique thing and so you you do want people to see that and understand that that was a breakthrough you do want that but in general history is not a big a topic I love it but in general the young people are not that interested in history and you know right now late night is not what it was so there's not the Avid following that it used to have no without question and and um it really is a journey like it is an evolution um and and it's a fascinating one to me um there there I want to talk about um you know the idea of the of The Tonight Show and whatnot maybe this is a good good time as I need to bring it up um I go deep on this subject and I've tried to go deep on it with with with some people I don't think there's anybody um I I believe that in doing this uh I've been preparing for this conversation today with you talking about this I'm so glad Dave didn't get the Tonight Show like with the the benefit of of hindsight I am so glad he didn't get the Tonight Show because we got to see in many ways this Evolution play itself out like how is this gonna work um you know the Tonight Show was what it was but it wasn't it was Johnny and I think your book was if there was anything in the late ship that it was Carson took his show and went home it wasn't yeah you know um he wasn't The Tonight Show and the idea that that that anybody could replace Carson is folly it couldn't happen it just would not be possible to happen even if Dave Didn't Start The Late Show the dilution would have happened we were already starting to get extra channels we were already starting to get um you know the the fragmentation that happened yes but there Dave moving to CBS we got a chance to see the Carson deal extended Dave walked into ownership he walked into um you know the power of of being able to kind of do whatever he wanted that Carson busted his butt for decades to get Dave walked into that in exchange he of course gave CBS a franchise that they you know finally finally something got to stay in late night that wasn't the Tonight Show um am I on the right track with this no of course and I and I've said many times in many interviews that if not for Dave going against The Tonight Show at that point was a Monumental task that everyone had failed at they don't it always it always had failed you needed this unique star to go against The Tonight Show and for a long time for quite a bit actually beat it that is remarkable and I don't think anybody believes that if they've gotten tonight Atlanta would have been able to do that he was not a star of that magnitude he and you can see it now as it's played out over time very popular guy big ratings are but not a star of that magnitude and that's what you needed to build that new franchise and once you did build that new franchise once one guy did it then you say okay what else can we do how else can we make a an impression lately and that starts The Daily Show Etc on all that but I I think you need a day to do that and you're right in the sense that Dave had taken over The Tonight Show he would not have been as free because he would have had and one of the reasons he didn't get it was that he didn't count out of the authority of NBC that's not what he that's not how he was made so putting him into that structure I think would have been somewhat limiting for him at CBS it was like I don't care I can do what I want there they don't stop me I can do what I want got him into trouble sometimes but sure but he but he was he was a signature he was the signature star of CBS yeah that's who he was and so he could do those things and I just think the Tonight Show and The Tonight Show was a franchise it was a franchise before Johnny was a huge star it was a franchise before Johnny the host then makes it what it is which is what Carson told me and everybody else it's about the guy behind the desk that's that's what it is you know who puts a stamp on the show The Host but but if I ask somebody today just a regular person who's the host of The Tonight Show do you think how many people would say Jimmy Fallon I I mean I think they will say there's a Jimmy Fallon has a late night show yes it's a Jimmy uh I mean people don't know that I don't think they people know that yeah certainly not to the degree that it was at the time of the late shift and again that's that's that's what I'm trying to impress the to to people who uh my daughter-in-law came up to me once said you know she's 25 and sweet cute little cute little blonde thing it was so sweet and she she told me about a comedy bit that somebody did and she showed it to me and I just looked at her and I'm like no no you don't understand I went on one of Don giller's uh Clips I said this is lifted directly from Dave and and how Monumental it was everybody knew it at that point there was no uh you know it was the water cooler there was no viral moments it was the water cooler talk the next day and things have drastically changed so so so much and you know this is why we want to talk about this stuff um Carson the biggest star of the world you talked to him at that time I'll get back to the the business of night in the second here but you mentioned it I gotta I gotta ask um you're a reporter and a damn good one but you're sitting with Johnny Carson I didn't sit with him it was the phone okay okay um Peter LaSalle you sat with oh Millions yeah okay we'll get to Peter in a second I I I vicariously I adore Peter and Alice just from the tales that people have told about them but you're talking to Johnny Carson on the phone was it just one call or would did you talk to him multiple times well I talked to him multiple times during my career but for the book there was one incredibly amazing phone call that I desperately needed to get and uh that that's a story in itself if you want to hear that story yes I do sir I would love to hear that well here's the thing Johnny did not want to get involved he was an NBC guy he was very close to Bob Wright head of NBC at the time they've traveled together they were very close friends so he did not want to Elbow his way into this conversation he was clearly a supporter of Dave's people knew that but he didn't want to say it he'd had conflict with Leno over her his crazy manager all of that but he wanted to steer clear of it so I really needed him for a couple of things in this especially I needed him to confirm his conversation with Dave which was the ultimate conversation with Dave I needed that really badly yeah I needed his side of the conversation I had Dave's side I needed his side so as a reporter right like like I'm doing a narrative I can I can write the story and say David Letterman says this happened I can do that but if both people tell me I can just redo the conversation because now I have the evidence of both sides yes so I need both yes so how am I going to get Carson well I made an appeal to his lawyer um Ed hook Stratton yeah the hook and uh and hook Stratton seemed to want to not necessarily help me but to kind of be a player in it like he he liked being involved and we had a couple of lunches at the grill in Beverly Hills which was Johnny's favorite restaurant just me and hook strad and uh and I basically you know was trying to see if he could and he said well I'll ask Johnny and it's going to be hard and he wasn't making any commitments and finally he said uh why don't you uh why don't you type up a list of questions and maybe I'll get them to Johnny and maybe he might respond to some of that if he knows what you want to ask and I said you know so he'll send me back written answers that's not really what I like but it's better than nothing absolutely so so I had this strategy because I thought I know one thing that may get Johnny's real interest and that was a story that Dave told me and Dave told me this story that about I don't know two three years into his at Late Late Night show on NBC when it's when he's a phenomenon and he's on the cover of Rolling Stone and all this is happening for him he uh he's in his office one day and his assistant says that uh Johnny's then lawyer bombastic bushkin Henry bush has come to see Dave and that was not unusual because it Carson Productions had a very small piece of Letterman's show like five percent but and Johnny always paid I mean Dave played fealty to Johnny always so his lawyers here okay I'll talk to him so bushkin comes in bushkin sits down tell us we are so impressed you're doing great it's fantastic all this tension blah blah but you know we think you know we'd like to line you up and sign you up to cost of Productions now we'll sign you up because then when Johnny does retire you'll be in line to get the show and Dave starts to wonder about this and he says something hinky going on yeah does does Johnny know about this and bushing said well no I haven't discussed it with him yet but I think this is a great idea for both of us and immediately Dave was like this is a fire I don't know anywhere near here yeah and he basically says well okay I'll put you in touch with my manager Raul and Jack Rollins and uh and you know you guys can talk about it I I I'm gonna stay steer clear of this but you know what why don't we set up a thing and then he leaves and Dave tells assistant never let that guy know this again basically so so I had this story right and I thought I wonder if Johnny knows that happen oh because Johnny had by then had a massive falling out with bushkin and we said Rob dim and all that yeah so in my questions I include so I heard from Dave that there was this thing where bushkin showed up and offered him The Tonight Show to succeed you right and that was one of my questions and I had like you know I tried not to do too many maybe I did 10 right that's not a question bill that's a trail of breadcrumbs right there that's genius on your part to do that well I I was desperate I really wanted to talk to him so I so I send it off to uh Bush uh hook Stratton and hook Stratton says uh okay I'll get these to Johnny do not expect him to come back quickly he may never respond right he will say to me uh you know tell him you know I I like what he's doing but I can't I just don't want to be a part of it just don't expect much okay and and mate even if he does it's gonna it may take weeks before he decides on this I said okay lots of managing expectations you're basically describing my life with this show right now just so you know thanks anyway but basically I say yeah I thank him for helping and sure and uh in those days I used to work from home every Friday and uh the next day was a Friday and I was home and uh in the middle of the afternoon uh and my phone was not a cell phone with my life phone uh rings and I pick it up uh this is Johnny Carson holy crap you got to tell me about this bushkin story and I was like oh yeah oh yes on many levels from a reporter standpoint from a writer's standpoint but also from a like you can't not be a human when the biggest star on the planet calls you up and immediately starts wanting to talk shop like of course it was fantastic in every sense so I I tell him that story and he says you you know how that guy cheated me and all of a sudden I'm like I understand that Johnny that's why I wanted to run this by you and everything and he said I said Ken I've got you on the phone can I ask you some of these other things and he said well I'm really uncomfortable about it but so we talk a little and I'm pulling threads out of him in this conversation that he's and we're going back and forth about don't say I said that and I said okay whatever and we went back but I said I really got to know about this conversation Dave says he called you he says yes he called me but and he repeats it word for word okay it was identical identical and I was like I talked to him for maybe 40 minutes let's say and uh I hang up the phone and I'm upstairs in the office my wife's in the kitchen making dinner or something and I just said but she came to the bottom of the stand she said that was Carson on the phone right I said it sure was yeah so that's how I got Johnny Carson on the landline you could have been mowing the lawn you could have been getting groceries like like the world back then yeah but I'll tell you Johnny wants to know about bushkin he was going to hear he was going to get to me somehow about that story so oh that is so like uh that is you were the you were the uh the the cat that swallowed the canary in that moment um and that that's the story of a lot of great reporting you got to be lucky and you gotta have something the other person wants yeah if you have information they want really helps them to join in then well I appreciate that and it's I think it's a good time to talk about again like again we're talking about two different eras or you know we've probably seen one or two errors in between you know then and now uh even as a reporter I just appreciate the fact and and today I mean how much of today's reporting is based on rumor is based on unconfirmed you know so one uh you know uh unconfirmed Source things like that you went and sourced everything out in the classic way that journalists were kind of taught to do you had multiple sources for these things but and I will repeat again there's a to me there was a huge difference between my reporting for the newspaper and my reporting for a book and and frankly that's why a book is better I mean you the newspaper gives you the top 10 surface of a story yeah that's all you can get in a newspaper story but if you report it out to like 20 people instead of three then you get all that so and that's really what I was trying to do with the book now if if that story had occurred while I was covering uh if I knew about it when I was covering just day-to-day stuff I would have written it I would have written it on the basis oh Dave got a phone call from Johnny Carson I would have written it just on the base of the Dave said it happened I would have said Letterman said he got a this is how we made decision that would have been enough because it was a personal event he could have told me that story and I would have believed him but in the form that I was doing I wanted to get an actual storytelling going so when people are reading it it doesn't read like a newspaper it reads like a novel kind of like right and the best review I got for that book and I got reviews my mother could have written could not have written and they were crazy over the top great reviews but one review was it's written like a thriller and I was like yes that's sort of what I was doing that was it kind of well and and if okay if to go down that narrative a little bit if you're writing it like a thriller what we're talking about is basically the climax of the book which is which is uh Carson giving Dave the final you know um nudge in his way right to go to CBS and to get finally saying I won't take this really cockamani offer yeah from NBC the sit out the rest of Jay's contract before I get the show which was a terrible offer and he should never have considered it but he was so crazed to get The Tonight Show and people do not get that now no just they didn't get it with phone in years later Conan goes through the same thing and The Tonight Show was this shining City on the hill or something and they really wanted it so badly and you know in both cases it it just was not worth it so anyway I uh oh gosh I can't believe it I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you right now um I feel like you did that day when you were talking to Johnny because uh you know you're you're well no you're the source of this stuff like so many of my viewpoints and opinions about this stuff came from that text that script that you wrote that it's just amazing uh and by the way even in the late shift which which you know the war for late night I love that book so so so much um as well uh a lot more players in that book but the late shift wasn't just two players it was you had Leno's uh and I feel a very fair uh representation from Leno's Camp of all the good the bad the ugly all that Letterman's but then you also had the network it was also the network there was also Conan in that as well and and some other things but you I thought here's the here's the compliment to your work you have this encompassing uh document that is written with a ton of behind the scenes Network stuff and and network Executives I've met a couple actually and and you know the attitudes and the Egos and the the big all these things that you're negotiating around and they gave you access and they trusted you okay awesome you put out this uh amazing work uh so amazing that HBO made a movie based on it I want to talk to you about that in a minute but I mean this amazing work so amazing that 15 years later whatever it was when there's another cluster going on yeah exactly the same network different Executives for the most part other than maybe Rick and some of these other ones but they also invited you in to get their standpoint that must have been like I don't know if you've if you've even thought about that but to me uh every once in a while I'll read both books like I'll read them one and then the other um the fact that Jeff Zucker gave you the same access after Warren Littlefield gave you that access that must show that must be very gratifying to you that you were fair and and you did put out a a very accurate work because the new regime was willing to even though there's a lot of egg on their face was willing to give you that same access well you said the key word the key word is fair and and I was again lucky I was at the New York Times I had access to them and every story I wrote they would say fair fair you were Fair and I would because I wasn't loading up on anything or anybody I was being fair and with the second book what was interesting with the second book was that was not complementary to a lot of people there was a lot of stuff going on there yeah and they but they all were willing to say I read your first book I know what I know how you do this you know I know how you do it I know you don't mean one way or the other and and so I'll talk to you because they they all believed that I'd done the right thing in the first book so it was able I was able to build on that and and I think the first book I had to achieved some trust but the second book I I had I already had the trust yeah and Zucker I mean it's just a unique story because Zucker when he started uh at NBC's Today Show and was a kid I mean 24 or something like that when he was first executive producer of that show he became sort of a well he was a source for me really I mean you know we would talk and and so and he absolutely trusted me and it you know he we would call and just talk about his career thing so I had a relationship with him so he's okay he knew but that was yeah that book was rough on him very very rough on him in a lot of ways you know because he had to make decisions that were questionable I mean you know he get he promises the show to Cone and he has to give the starter cone and the force Jay out and come up with this 10 o'clock all the things that didn't work but when that book was over he said yeah it was tough to read but totally fair I was like wow what else can I do I mean that's what I was aiming for you know and I managed here's the other thing I managed to keep relationships with all the people that I I can think of except Bush and Helen kushnick of course uh and they always said you know I can't say anything but I mean Warren Littlefield you know who I have a great relationship with you know in the in the uh the first book there's a scene with him pulling up his pants from being on the toilet right because Jay calls me and he's like that's very embarrassing absolutely true someone like I just felt okay I don't have you know after the book I wrote the book I sent the first first people who sent copies of the relationship to where Letterman and Lena I sent them because they'd been totally open with me and I'm like these are the big stars I want them to see what I wrote I don't want them to hear from somebody else here it is and I don't know if Dave read it I really don't I don't know uh but he sent a beautiful note because Dave's a very courteous guy very yes and Leno I was much more worried about Leno uh he left a message on my phone because I I deliberately didn't take the call I was a little nervous about the call so but he left a message and he said something like uh yeah I read the book yeah you know you did a great job you did a great job and uh just make sure you get Lorenzo Lamas to play me in the movie and there was no movie there's no no idea about a movie but that was again he was like absolutely no problem and in my relationship with him actually got way more it's deep because he then used to call me I wouldn't say every day but three days a week maybe yeah say what you know what do you think what do you think what's going on what do you think Dave's been up to and and then he would try monologue jokes out of me yeah and it would say ah this one's a little edgy what do you think is this go too far and I'd be like Jay you can't go too far with me you can't offend me so I'm bad judge for that but you know would be some Michael Jackson joke or yeah but that but that this happened a lot and we just chat we just talked all the time so I was like that's a that's a sign I he feels like I was fair to him he doesn't think I was out to get him and I that's all I was going for that is a fascinating uh I'm really grateful that you you you uh revealed that little part there because it seems to me Mr Leno uh very very much appreciates relationships no matter what like like you think about um and and also but it's very obviously strategic about it like clearly extremely strategic about it when when the when the dust up was happening you know he did something what he just did with you okay well Bill Carter he reports on this stuff occasionally he writes a book on this stuff uh you know I probably want to keep that person um in someone that I talk to you think about what he did with Kimmel um you know and and very similar like when as soon as you started saying that it reminded me of me immediately of of what he was doing with Kimmel at the time no it's it yes but you know because he wanted to have the ABC option at that time yeah you know he he needed to have a situation where he wasn't now going to go to ABC and have another late night guy pissed off at him right it Jay's very sensitive guy and he did not like being accused of you know stabbing Dave in the back and throwing phone and overboard and also he just wanted to be on TV every night that's what he wanted that was his goal he just wanted that and if you unfold him for that you can fault him for that because it got in the way of other people's careers but that's that was his ultimate aim and uh and he felt like the show business is that kind of world you pursue your career that's what you do you're expected to do that kind of thing um and he also felt like generally he's a good guy so people would understand he's a good guy and he's a complicated guy Jay is a very complicated complicated guy and everybody says that Dave is weird right or something right Dave's a very good and Dave is very eccentric and quirky in a lot of ways but I understand him I understand Dave Jay is hard to understand he he's much harder to understand he on the surface it's simpler but there's stuff deep in him and it doesn't he he doesn't reveal himself really actually much he withholds a lot um and and I think he can get really deep into this both guys had mother issues I mean you can get very deep into this but but which I didn't I did not try to do a lot of I thought it was important on a couple of occasions to deal with it but yeah you went there for sure I I just don't think for example I never wanted to deal much with any of Dave's sex scandals I had to deal with them somewhat because he dealt with it on the air gotta deal with that but um that's just not the kind of reporting I don't care I don't care about that you know that's that's a that's a different story I'm writing about the entertainment side of it holy cow um I just got goosebumps as you said that uh you know when when the Genesis of this show and I don't want to make it about this show I want to make it about you because I don't know if I'm gonna have another opportunity to talk to you um but this show is positive like it's straight up positive we're talking where it's a cell the the tagline is celebration of the greatest body of broadcasting work in history that of David Letterman and Company uh period um Dave doesn't ever have to be on this show for this show to exist and do really really well because the company uh that surrounded Dave um you know as as important as the host who happens to be the greatest broadcaster with probably the the greatest wit uh you know the the the six gun shooter of of of of of wit ever great but we are positive we stay away from Scandal we stay away from that kind of stuff because we want to talk about the entertainment and as you were talking about that I went back to in the chapter uh still Dave after all these years in the in the war for late night and and you did report it but you basically and I mean at the end of the day any time never never mind the you know that particular one but I think about Governor Palin you know um you know when she was on by the way there's Governor Palin's endorsement for the Letterman podcast right there oh nice um good luck with that and that is underlined I don't know if there's any uh sarcasm there or not yeah I think so yeah there's another example of of when Dave would deal with controversy of any sort Scandal of any sort um he was so straight laced about it and that segment after the monologue was my favorite for years whether I had a good day or a crappy day whatever when I came home the segment after the monologue where Dave was at the desk and you so expertly said this in war for late night sometimes there'd be a there'd be a blue card with a beautiful piece of Comedy sitting there and he would just ignore it because he just wanted to talk to the people and and and and when controversy came up I think he really Rose to the occasion to talk about this stuff and uh I I he did an expert job at handling anything which is why he didn't have a lot of lingering things that kept going after the fact but being positive that's what your book was it was it was written in a way that uh it talked about negative things but it did not sensationalize them in any way well I tried not to do that I do think Dave's communication skills were amazing absolutely amazing and you know people obviously credit them after 9 11 about that but I mean he would do that on you know when he would discuss the woman who broke into his house for example right he felt very empathetic to her he did not want to hurt that woman yeah ever he you know it was a source of some human or anything but sure and he was able to communicate that while also being entertaining yes um the night of the Scandal uh I was going home on the train and uh Rob Burnett called me on my cell phone in the train and said you need to know what happened at the taping today oh my gosh talk about trust bill um and I was like I gotta get home I gotta get home quick you know and uh uh because I you know he described the thing and I was like oh my God but here's the really bizarre thing is that the next day the next day maybe anonymously someone who had been in the grand jury contacted me holy crap uh have you talked about this before I think I have yeah okay I've I have never heard that I think I alluded how he was dressed at the grand jury or something so I I had a little detail like that oh okay okay it was only that it was only the person didn't reveal anything that was of substance he just said this out of the blue this guy comes in and you know he said for the first I don't know how many 30 seconds I I think I was the only one in the room who thought oh my God that's David Letterman no uh so that was a little interesting odd detail that happened the person did not violate anything no just said he was wearing a lumberjack shirt and looked disheveled or whatever you know uh but I thought that was interesting and of course it sort of it sort of just fed that whole story of Dave just saying you know I'm being black man with this guy I I can either hide the Scandal or I go blow the whistle on him and I'm gonna do the right thing yeah it's gonna cost me but I'm gonna do it and I whatever else you think that was kind of the admirable thing to do uh but it was just another interesting moment where I was sort of inside a little of the stuff that was going on there well and I think I think in that you're you're I mean I don't want to again I don't want to paint an unfair picture against Mr Leno but you look at the way the two have uh to the public anyway presented themselves when trouble happens um yeah you know for lack of a better term Dave Dave owns the he he owns it and he and he and and whatnot and I don't know that I don't know that Mr little can necessarily say the same and again that's not criticism it's just the way the two people they didn't have a lot of Scandal like that you know oh gosh no there and you can say Dave's a more interesting person right he has more things that have happened to him that are interesting uh and Jay I I feel like Jay's a guarded person in a lot of ways I I you know I don't think he's and by the way Chase very generous guy very absolutely my son is a stand-up in LA and uh when he first went to L.A said well you know you haven't come to the club I'll you know I'll talk to him you know he he he was he was a very generous guy your son's a stand-up what's his name and how's he doing at it does he does he love it Dano d-a-n-n-o Carter uh he jumped okay he has a regular uh show that he himself created at a a place in Manhattan Beach every Monday night and then he's done that for 10 years that's been his main thing but he's done a lot he's doing a show he's you know he's been in Vegas he's been in various places uh but again he won't what he always wanted to do had nothing to do with me he's really loving it all to do with me but that's the thing he wants to do with his life and he enjoys it it's not the best job in the world it's very hit and miss as you can imagine absolutely well it's very interesting because I when I did this um first the documentary series about late night and then I did a podcast yes with Mark right Mark was involved um uh and I won a Webby award for that yes which was very nice but one of the things I uh got into which because I because it fascinates me is how important late night was to the careers of stand-ups uh because that's where you you were exposed to to the public you didn't have hour-long specials on Netflix you know and especially Carson if you hit it on Carson it was magic right very much so and then you know Dave would do some of Ben and Jay would do some of it too um I don't know that that's that's not a venue really that works anymore I don't I don't know the comics break out really on on Late Night in any way the way they did but what was fascinating to me and I loved this part of this this is off topic a little but when people talk to me famous Comics like uh Ray Romano and George Lopez and Ellen Ellen I didn't talk to Ellen Ellen by the way I know very well but she decided not to talk about this but anyway they talked about their they a lot of them were long professional Comics they they just took a years for them to get a shot and went and they thought think well you know I know people talk about getting paralyzed with fear the first time they do this but but I you know I've done this for years but they were paralyzed with fear but anyway because it was like as Romano said it was like jumping out of a plane the curtains open you walk out on the stage and you're out there yeah and you can't go back there's no going back you can't get back in that plane you're out there yeah and uh you know and he said and I was done for years and I thought I'm going to be fine but I'm like uh so I love that I love that I loved how important that was in the in the history of Comedy I think Ellen talked about that uh extensively when she was on my next guest on Dave's Netflix show I think she talked about her first Carson shot um yeah and I loved it she was great and she got invited over to the desk so absolutely well and that's just it and I mean you talk about breaking barriers uh barriers that that were even unrevealed at that point but but uh Ellen I I I I I appreciate the contributions that she has made to everything and and somebody um one of Dave's former assistants came on and and we talked about it she uh she works with Busy Phillips now but um Casey saying on came on the show and she talked about Ellen and Fallon and how similar they are I love the comparison that she made to you know um you know we we got into the topic of could a woman host the Tonight Show and be accepted and whatnot and and Casey without I'm paraphrasing but she said oh I think it's already happened but it was a daytime show and it's Ellen and how similar those two are as hosts and how similar the formulas are on those two shows yeah but Ellen it's very interesting that Ellen and as I said I really got paid very friendly with them because I wrote about her before her show came she came to New York and she wanted to talk to me because she loved the book or whatever yeah and we just hit it on I used to talk to her for years but uh Alan I think deliberately steered clear of late night and thought it was much safer for her to to break in daytime but let me tell you if somebody had put Tina Fey in late night oh yeah that would have worked spectacularly I mean I'm in absolutely I would say that for years Tina if Tina wanted it and pursued it and she would be great at it so forget this whole women aren't funny stuff no oh gosh I well and I mean you know you read The Tea Leaves of what's going on in late night right now and uh you know you think about you know Lauren where he's at and there's there's rumors that are going around speculations and stuff some people are thinking Seth might move over to that position I would love to see Tina host late night oh my gosh and maybe do something quirky or crazy with it that would be I do too and I I've sort of written about it and I I I've gone back and forth about whether she really wants to do it or not I think it's you know it's a life-changing thing to do that thing four or five nights a week absolutely so yeah um but I there's no question she'd be great at it I mean I just think she's a phenomenal Talent so oh she's one of my favorite uh entertainers on the planet let's let's right now let's do a plug if people want to read because I think we're getting a really good um you know description of of how your your mind works and the type of writing that you do and and where you are are um are slanted in in the things that you talk about uh where when people want to see you currently where's the best place for people to see the stuff that you're putting out right now right here this is it awesome you're invited every week man you want to make this a weekly thing we'll do it oh yeah um I have had a deal at CNN for the last four or five years yeah uh and I've been exclusive to them in the sense that I I get paid to be on the air occasionally and to write for their website yep that's going to end uh in June that is ending in June and uh I'm at that point I can't really pursue anything until that ends but uh when that does end um I am going to I guess put out a shingle I guess that's how you say it or something and uh and see where I can contribute something wow um okay well this leads to all sorts of other questions um okay first and foremost standing invite if ever you want to just shoot the bull and talk about any of this stuff because I can go forever I'm the Energizer Bunny when it comes to this stuff and I would love to discuss stuff with you more and more and more but I mean oh my gosh I hope that you have a podcast I hope you have a show I hope you have something where where you can take this I'm a huge fan of the transfer of knowledge um and and uh I just hope that there is an outlet for you to get this out there now I've heard rumors for a long time and I think it was actually written that that that it's supposed to be a late night trilogy the books is that there's a third book coming um at some point I wrote because there was uh okay there was a I had a contract uh that had another book in it right uh third book in it and uh I kind of noodle around a little bit about it and I I said this after I wrote The Late Shift I must have had I don't know how many memes with Publishers they wanted me to do another book right away right and I said to them listen I did the late shift because it was a book I wasn't setting out to do a book that was there yeah it was a story to tell and as soon as there's another story to tell I'm going to write another book I guarantee it but there wasn't for many years another story to tell that I felt was a book yes and I did Desperate networks which was a bunch of stories which are very to me very fascinating about the whole television business and I have had a good time doing that and then of course when they named when they told Jay he was going to go to Prime Time and Conan is going to get the show I in instinctively knew that's a book it was automatic okay succeeds it's a book not as good a book probably but if he fails it's definitely a book because my view was this is a bold thing to try this in late night I don't think it's going to work oh good I had that as a question not for Jay not because it was J or anything else I don't think that's going to work yeah I understood the theory cheap much cheaper to do that than an hour-long drama I understood that but I didn't think it would work and so in the back of my head I'm like and then there's Conan Conan going to The Tonight Show if he's a success it's a book if it's not a success so I knew that so I already had the contract when it blew up so there was a that was a book and the Publishers there loved it they loved everything about it they loved the way I did it Etc and they wanted me to do another one and it was like oh now we can do it when Fallon takes over and Fallon when he took over you may remember it exploded the show really absolutely it was so I started to say okay well let me start reporting about it a little bit see what's going on and you know behind the scenes was found that you know there's a story there uh of sorts um I'm already Incredibly Close with Jimmy Kimmel I mean he's a fabulous guy and I've just had a fantastic relationship with him and I know Seth really well and so I'm like okay I'm in place to do those things but I then said what is the story what is the story what's the narrative I'm not gonna just do I need a narrative what's the story and after really after the Fallon thing happened with Trump and he started to fall off his story changed so much that I was like it's not a story about him Reinventing late night you know as the way it seemed to be no uh and I like Jimmy and he's super talented guy a very talented talented guy you know but what is the story so I kind of put it off a little bit and the publisher was like what about and I'm you know they were very patient about it because I say when I'm ready I'm gonna do it when I'm ready I'll do it and then of course it became very focused on Trump and politics you know and I'm like okay well that if you're gonna do that that's different and you're gonna have to report on that side of that and you know so the early stuff I did I basically I have to scrap that right you know I'd already interviewed a few people uh and that and then and then late night started to have this you know erosion Big Time erosion and I was like I don't know that this is the story I want to tell I don't know so um that has not happened for all those reasons and again I would say I have not committed to never write another book I as soon as I see the book I write the book I have to see it though I can't make it up it's very hard to do that and I think you wind up with another very successful book certainly not the kind I want to write because because I want to write a narrative book I don't want to write well we're going to get into the history of how you sell commercials on television that I don't I don't do that I don't want to do an academic history of TV at all so no and no uh well the the both your first two books again the feeling that you got for everybody again you wrote it like a thriller like like more for late night Jeff Zucker you know the Heinz the benefit of hindsight all that the empathy that one would feel for Jeff Zucker after reading that like I was empathetic towards him even though he was painted the way he was like all of that kind of stuff so so I I want to say one thing if I can yes that I talk when I'm when I talk to people and I understand late shifts preeminence in my career Etc but wow I think I wrote the hell out of the warfully oh it's so good when I reread that reason I was like wow I really wrote the hell out of this book I mean uh and that was to me an amazing thing because I was writing it chapter by chapter we had a deadline I was writing a chapter by chapter and uh uh I I tend to be I the reporting is the hard part for me yeah uh because I as I described it to you I want to get both sides of things it's very detailed takes a lot of time can be very tedious if I have it all and you drop it in front of me I can write it relatively I wrote The Late Shift in six weeks or start to finish I I wrote it start to finish in six weeks I had all the material I had it organized in my head and it was a it was a energized stories like it just kept moving so I I that I'm very confident I can do that but the reporting is you know a Shore I I feel you um gosh I have so much I would say this I just talked to the woman who's writing out the biography of Lauren Michaels Susan Morrison is her name she's from The New Yorker yeah and she interviewed me for that um because I actually met Lauren the first year of the show first year I said anime but anyway uh and I thought to myself I could have done this book I could have I could have raised my hand and said let me do a bag the really big official biography of One mic yeah uh and I thought okay that's going to require you to interview hundreds of people okay literally and and she's worked hard and it's taken her years and it's also going to be something you're going to have to at least I think if you're going to do that well you got to do everything warts and all you know what I mean like you got it and I don't know any bad things about Lauren Michaels really I don't no and he's been incredibly generous to me but I didn't I didn't know if I want to I don't know if I want to do the biography form that's different I think it's a different thing from the narrative story form you know so to me book writing is I I always compare it and it's unfair to women just compare it to us but it's like giving birth okay yes right it's brutal and then you get this beautiful thing right you have this beautiful thing yep that lasts the rest of your life yeah so you know that that's really what it's like but most people stop after just a few kids absolutely um I can see that you know like even as you're talking about you know I could write a good biography about Lauren as you're saying that I see you looking at the process of what it would take and going oh like like I can understand where you're coming from believe me she's probably gonna do a better job than I would I don't know I just I just saying I could have done that and people have asked me he'll ask me to do a a a really formal biography of Carson okay yeah and uh again I'm like I don't know about biography and it's been done I mean bushkin wrote a book and was unbelievably revealing like crazy stories in there yeah crazy stories I mean I couldn't resist reading it but I was like wow mean spirited stuff yes but um and uh um Bill zemmy do you know do you know the name billzen I know the name Bill's Emmy yeah Bill's Emmy was written a lot about late night and did this pseudo autobiography that Jay did uh called leading from the chin uh with him but it's a huge Dave guy huge Dave guy actually uh he got a contract to do the formal Carson book uh 15 years ago maybe wow and did it I've been here all the time oh he's talked to the Ex-Wives and he's talking you know the Saudi would say to me oh he's talked to everybody he's got he's got everything but he can't get he can't write the book the book hasn't come out and he's been through like three Publishers he's got big advances and everything it hasn't come out and then he got very ill bill got very ill so that's he's recovered I think but that's how hard it is it's really hard and you know and I thought to myself I'm not going to start a biography of Carson when I know a guy has done all the work and could publish any day if he really want to yeah and smoke on top of your book so all that this has nothing to do with this other than my own you're asking me what I'm doing and will I do another book I might as I said do another book if one appears on the horizon well I I appreciate where you're coming from when you talk about the third the third book there's a lot that we could go a lot of rabbit holes we could do have a like again and I want to talk about Peter LaSalle I want to talk about the HBO movie I want to talk about Helen a little bit too like there's still stuff I mean there's so much meat on this poem bill um but going into the third book I mean right now don't get me wrong fascinating times when Dave retires Scott Ryan good friend of us of our show you know talk about that last six weeks in my yes my 47 years on this planet my golden age of Television is the last six weeks of The Late Show like it was the greatest run right there culmination of a run ever I love that I mean there's so many things that you could talk about the idea of Colbert coming up the idea of Colbert taking of Late Show the successor to Dave going number one but really again and this is where the bigger narrative to me I'm glad that you don't have it right in front of you because to me if you had it right in front of you right now the title would be the destruction of late night um because what does it mean to be number one now compared to what it was even 15 years ago it's a completely different animal the fragmentation is that we've that you know you've talked about in the war for late night um again you wrote the hell out of that book again this is something else I wanted to say based on what he said you wrote the hell out of that book because you had so many more characters I'm a huge Craig Ferguson guy I love him so much and you did such a good job talking about him Kimmel Stuart all of the like all of these extra characters um it was so much bigger of a book in that respect than late shift was and and again I don't know if it got its due uh or not but boy you you did you wrote the hell out of that book people liked it very much oh it's so good I want to say one thing though yes sir uh I would call it the decline in Fall of the late night Empire but anyway uh but but better than the destruction that's good that remember when I started writing about this Carson was dominant and Dave had opened the later period and that was it that was the entire landscape of late night nothing else and within I don't know 10 years there were nine shows or something and if you went if you look at a world and linear television is the real issue because people aren't really watching the new television they watch sports though and they can watch some news though if you were the only late night show if the Tonight Show was back to being the only one you probably have at least survival ratings you probably have a decent franchise yes but you can't have this many now it's impossible yeah and I sort of lament the fact that so many people who work on these shows look at all the writers who've been employed because of the these shows existing and you know I don't I I think the whole a bigger story to me is if I was if someone asked me when I write a book today I would write a book called what the hell happened to TV oh because TV which was a unifying cultural phenomenon yeah for my whole life is now a completely dispersed you know world of like the a universe of tiny satellites or something that very rarely intersect I mean and just small things like you know if you like a show you you like a show like uh uh there was a show called The Bear about this guy as a chef right a streaming show what terrific people talked about great reviews where they did Eight Episodes where is it now there's the second season it takes like 18 months or something to put up after they did only eight you know they made they made 13 episodes of The Sopranos a year yeah they made 24 episodes of Seinfeld a year yep you can't make a better comedy than that you know it's so the world has changed so much in that way that you don't get this flow on my favorite shows coming back and even when the show was really a success it might run three seasons nothing wins eight seasons or ten Seasons so it's so different it's so different and I I I'm not sure it's better I mean a lot of the quality is very good but is it better is this a better system I don't know that's a very interesting topic for me that and may maybe people would say well you know it's it's you know like talking about radio it's over you know TV is over so there's no point trying to recreate it but it just is I don't know that it's better television was better than radio Okay cable was better than Insurance okay uh premium cable was even better than that is streaming better it I think it's a more open question um I want to talk to you about let me tell you about the movie oh there you go so uh Dawn that you know donkey with this here right there it is right there everybody I have that poster on my wall at home oh that makes me so happy okay thank you for seguing back to that because yeah again I'm not gonna have enough time today to talk to all the things I want to talk about but but but the movie is definitely something because I wrote the movie okay I actually wrote this movie and that's a story because I was uh maybe two three weeks after the book is promoted my agent calls me and she says listen are you sitting down and I said yeah we have two offers for movie rights and I was like what yeah there was another guy had sort of an independent producer wanted it and I was like wow you know the whole concept of you know you write a book they give you an advance you never it never really makes it to royalties unless it sells a huge amount so you think I made a good Advance on that book by that terms of the in that period of time but yeah uh but the idea that now someone's going to pay me for movie rights this is found money right and uh so I'm all for that and HBO contacts me and they're all big into this and uh you you get you get uh 10 of the fee for your rights up for a year and they option the right so it's 10 of what the fee will be okay on the first day of production so it goes into development if it goes past development and gets to production that's right actually start filming okay so to me I'm like I just want them to make this yeah and uh and so they asked me what would I you know consult with them on it with the when we hire someone who writes it and all that kind of stuff and I said Absolutely I'll I'll be available to whoever for that you know great so they tell me that they're going to they brought in uh uh Ivan Reitman the the Ghostbusters Ghostbusters yeah executive producer he's going to be the executive producer and I'm like fantastic wow great and rightman contacts me and he says okay you know this is our plan I want to get I think I want to get a writer director I I think if we get a person with a real Vision with the writer drive I'm saying great just make in the back of my head just make the show and uh okay that's great so they then they let me know they've hired this guy and I didn't know who he was but they told me something he had made before and I went and watched a movie that he wrote and directed and it was very good and I said okay I'm all for this great let's go with this guy so this guy then it gets the book and he goes off supposedly to write it and uh months go by which is fine takes a while sure but then many months go by oh and I'm like what's what's happening with this and there's a movie executive attached to the project and he's like I don't know we're we're kind of wondering when he's gonna turn in a script model anyway I think it was eight or nine months went by now remember I wrote the book in six weeks yeah so I'm thinking what what takes it's already written come on anyway uh but again I'm just rooting for the guy come on now so they they call me up and they say he's turning in a script he's turning in a script on Friday and we'll send you a copy I'm like okay great and I say to my wife I do not care how good or bad this is I'm gonna tell them it's great let's make it go for it because I I want the movie to be produced and uh and so they send me the script um it was a Friday and they get the script and I start to read it and I'm like oh the first scene you can't really say this because there was this scene where both Jay and Dave get drunk okay Dave who is famously uh you know is sober gave up alcohol yeah right right Jay has never had a drink in his life yeah exactly he's never had a drink in his life so I'm like you you can't do that you can't mess with a guy's life like that right so I'm like okay that can be fixed you just don't need to show that or whatever sure but I'm reading it and it's very heavily influenced by uh the whole Mike Ovitz part of the story like really you know CAA again I'm like it was this it's just so not important and not that important yeah you know it's interesting but it's in the it's in the story but and I'm reading it and I'm getting more and more like craze like how can I say gee uh it looks good to me just change a few things right yeah how can I say that when I think in fact it's terrible it's terrible and I'm like oh my God what am I gonna do so I'm thinking I gotta talk to them on Monday about this you know so I sat down at my computer was like look I'm gonna write what I think they should start with at least the first scene should still be about Carson retiring that's the driving force so I thought you know and and I've written the book so I know the scene and the dialogue kind of and I don't have a format to write a script I I didn't have like the script writing Forum I was going to ask that question so you've never written a script before in your life we're basically kind of looking at this script as kind of a okay yeah I've seen many scripts in the course of my work so like know the format you know the way you write it description of what what the scene is then the person's in the middle and you write the dialogue I know I knew how to do that but I had no format to do it so I'm just using like the margins and moving them over and but I'm thinking I'll write like five or six pages and you know we'll see if that can help them give them an idea what it could be yeah so I sat there and I wrote those five or six pages and I said you know the second scene really should be this anyway so in that weekend I wrote I think 60 pages okay heck I couldn't stop I can't look like smokes should be this now it should be this of course this scene is worth coming in you're invested so I wrote that and I called the guy calls me on Monday the HBO the guy in shorted the movie and he says so uh have you read the script I said yes he said uh so what do you think and I said I gotta tell you man um I think it's awful and he said well we agree it's completely completely unusable good ah and I'm like oh boy there goes the money right um I said well listen I don't know if this would be helpful but I did sit down and sketch out what I think it should do how you should do it you know and maybe another writer can just use that as a template to write the thing and hopefully not take so long because we're getting so divorced from the events Dave's already on and doing great you know CBS is doing great no yep so I sent it off to CBS to HBO and uh I get a call from the head of HBO Michael Fuchs the next day and he said I never say this I never say this to people because I always say stick to your day job but not you whoa this is what we need you got you gotta write it I'm like really I said yep you gotta write it this is it this is what we want so now I have this new contract that I'm going to say more money here comes more money I get I get I get paid to write it and then I get the fee when they make the movie so all that was fantastic and I wrote the whole script I worked with Ivan I went to LA and hung out for I think a week I took a week's vacation I went I went to hotel and wrote like four or five drafts with him going back and forth great relationship worked really well together they hired Betty Thomas was the director she brought me in on casting it was like amazing experience she brought you in on casting yeah only only a few of the parts because she she really struggled with Dave really really struggled with Dave okay I think the guy was good by the way I thought he I thought he was totally fine what about Kathy were you part of that or was Kathy attached to it earlier no she was in they they yeah because that was uh that was that was an incredible performance anyway so you know did they make the movie I'll get an Emmy nomination there's like crazy uh Wild Thing Happened because the guy didn't write a very good script but but the movie was you know I think a lot of fun I mean you know I think if people watch the movie now they'll still kind of enjoy it it feels very dated the way the television business is dated sure but it's it's got some good moments and uh and it even has a scene with letter uh with uh Littlefield pulling up his pants in itself absolutely oh absolutely I I really like the movie I think it's a lot of fun back in the day um it was cool because it's it's the house that Larry Larry Sanders lives in too right and and uh and and the fact that it's the same it's the same company um or the same network uh I love I'm a huge channeling fan huge Larry Sanderson um and they they loved the late shift and they use stories from the Legends absolutely yes they well yeah they sure did no Morty was in it you weren't in it were you I was not in it but they were in it but uh they used to tell me we're shamelessly ripping you up okay that's okay um I want to talk about uh Helen kushnick a little bit Yeah if that's okay um because in your acknowledgments in late shift uh you know classy beyond measure uh in the way that um you know you talked about her and and how she treated you during the writing process uh afterwards um you know sometimes uh I don't know if there's somebody who who who who uh could it seems like from all accounts not just your accounts you were actually very fair with Helen as well but you hold it like it is it was interesting because when Helen's Helen's stepchildren okay so Jerry kushnick had two daughters yep she cut them out of their lives they were not allowed to go to uh their grandmother's funeral uh when they showed up for their father's funeral she slapped one of them across the face yeah uh she was beastly to those young women and they said listen I know people are saying you were rough on him you could not have been kinder to her than what she really was like they were so over the top and I was like I didn't I didn't know all that stuff when I was writing the book I'm not sure I would have gotten into it but obviously uh I am very sympathetic you know so Helen was a troubled person she had uh a unbelievably brutal thing happened to her yes uh because she had she gave birth to twins and they had needed a blood transfusion the male twin got AIDS and died that is horrific Beyond description okay yeah so I had great great empathy for her for that but listen you you could not talk to anyone in that show anybody involved in that whole process without hearing horror stories horror stories including Jay I mean Jay eventually came around to this incredible you know Epiphany about how she had run rough shot over and particularly you know the story of of her planting yeah the Original Seed The Original Seed putting that story in the yeah she planned the story and Johnny accused them of that and Jason no he didn't do it and she swear we didn't do it and Johnny didn't believe it and Jay was like later on you know I lied to Johnny because you you did this and she then sues the publisher saying that didn't happen that she didn't plant it right it was so obviously Jay if she told Jay it happened and I had the person who planted it now tell me about it so oh there you go completely ridiculous but she that's kind of she was just in a person full of Rage full of Rage but during the process of writing the book I went to dinner with her once she wouldn't let me tape her so I could only take notes after like she ran to the ladies room I took some notes you know use a little bit of that but later she called me every time when a new show came on when Dave came on when Chevy Chase came on yeah he called me you know let's talk about this and she never said off the Record never ever set off the Record never so I'm like this is on the record babe I'm you know and I still was fair to her Fair you were whatever she was saying uh you know I wouldn't go over the top with her ridiculous cursing she was incredible with that but my point is I was not out to get her I I but I you had to like portray this Svengali like figure in Jay's life and how she drove all the action she basically pushed NBC to force Johnny out I mean there's it was huge and I basically said and Jay had every reason to kind of believe in her because she got that show for him okay she did she got that show from me they had no business pushing Letterman out leading me to my question here yeah this is the I have to I have to stop you and I have to ask this question um you look at Leno's ambition in the war for late night and who he became yeah when it came to the the the the I want to be on TV uh I'm gonna make sure I you know hold steady and keep my place if not even be aggressive to stay on TV uh I'm gonna I want my spot and I'm gonna protect my spot do you think he got any of that behavior from Helen no that was that's all Jay that's all right from the okay okay Jay that's Jason was an ambitious guy he wanted that show there's no doubt he wanted that show okay and and his career was was teetering until Dave saved him Dave saved him put him on and he became a big player absolutely yesterday guess for Dave got him the regular spot as the substitute hose for Johnny that all happened but he had no business getting that show because Dave had done all the work to get the show he just wouldn't any sane manager would have said one in one of Dave's contracts and by the way Dave gets the show or there's a 50 million dollar penalty you want you want to keep Dave you you guarantee us that show Dave would never do that because he thought it would offend Johnny but he that well that worked out for Jay but you know the way that was set up he he really had to jump ahead of Dave in the line isn't just no doubt about it Dave was set up to have that show and wanted the show obviously really badly so okay so that ambition was there I mean the tactics and things like that that Helen I think so and I think Jay a lot of people think Jay wanted to have that person to be the tough person and she used the line she said you just want me to keep serving you the stakes you don't want to know how I'm slaughtering the cow that's Helen and she understood Jay Jay wanted that he didn't want to hear about how she would slaughtering the couch he wanted her to slaughter the cow he just didn't want to hear about it anyway we should talk about the Sally because then I gotta go okay yeah thank you very very much for this and okay what what other little thing Joan Rivers was also a part of that as well um and and her exit and all that we could probably you know what we'll we'll table that for another day when you come on before any of that happened she went to Fox and then they had to get a different substitute host you know because she'd been the regular substitute host yeah and they got interestingly they got Jay and they had another person lined up to do it every other week Gary Shandling yeah absolutely didn't say no I don't want to do that I'm not doing that yeah um Peter LaSalle thank you very much for this because Peter LaSalle like again uh I I have you talked to Peter lately not in a while I'm not sincerely his illness has he been okay um from all accounts um you know the uncle you always wish that you had um the guy who just the kindness uh he and Alice Peter Sally is just uh uh you know talk a little bit about Peter LaSalle if you wouldn't mind because you have a pretty deep relationship with him D not absolutely uh yeah you know again a person I didn't know and then when I encountered and he was already at Dave's show it had left Johnny's show and was that Dave's 12 30 show right with Morty and so he was in the whole strategizing about getting the Tonight Show and obviously believed that would happen because he wanted to move back to LA he wanted to live in New York he and Alex did not like New York so we just started talking and uh you know we just struck me as this incredibly cultured and sophisticated man uh who had this in enormous history in broadcasting go back to Arthur Godfrey um so we you know we just hit it off we talked a lot and then you know I met Alice and we went to dinner and uh you know he was enormously helpful to me enormously helpful to me and then we stayed very friendly and every time I went to LA we'd have dinner every time we'd always arrange to have dinner usually at Medea restaurant and uh or one of Wolfgang Puck's place because they were friendly with all the chefs you know yeah but occasionally at their house and they had two houses one in Malibu anyway just a super human being you know with a personal story that he didn't tell but an amazing story uh you know he had a number on his arm you know from a concentration camp I mean amazing stuff to be that appreciative of Comedy because I always used to think this is an amazing thing you know his personal story is so traumatic it should be but the guy is really a sophisticated person about comedy yeah and he you know he really got everybody he got Dave so well you know he got there and he got Jay he so got Jay you know he just so got him and Johnny you know who he had a long-standing Russia he was very straightforward and honest about Johnny too you know and and they were close with Johnny and Johnny's last wife and then that fell apart so he had all these angles for me to talk to him about a million angles and we'd always talk about some late the new late night person he was always looking for talent in late night he he had us a great sense of who would work like he knew he saw Dave and he knew that guy's Elena house that guy he was Dave hosted after only I don't know or appearance some very limited number particularly fast hosting you know they were immediately like oh boys he got it because he was so comfortable as a broadcaster so um I just think the world of Peter Sally and uh you know of course I'm sorry that Alice is gone and I know Peter had a stroke so I hope somehow he's getting by what have you thought I haven't I haven't he's uh he was in the top five I have a top five dream list uh yeah and he's he's on it by the way so I I sometimes talk to uh Debbie Vickers uh Jay's a long time executive producer and another wonderful human being uh and she and Peter are very very close very very close and uh so she gave me a few updates for a while but I have not heard from her in some time but we had her on the uh on the late night documentary series which I did for CNN which I recommend and it was very good the story of late night was very very good and she was great in that and a little story about Debbie she said I don't want to do this I'm not good on camera and I said we need you and I said all right I'll do it for you Bill I'll do it for you and she said but the only thing is you have to promise you won't make me cry I said I'm not I had no intention of making you cry I have no intention of making it right so we're we're doing the interview and here's a question I asked her so tell me about your relationship with Jay she starts and she starts to cry immediately look and she's like I told I didn't think that he could cry it's not much more of a harmless question than that but she was caught up already but absolutely all emotion and it just but she's a fabulous wonderful person and believe me a brilliant producer who managed Jay brilliantly brilliantly got every ounce of talent out of him she was really great so another person I was fortunate to meet along the way and that's a long long list but she's definitely on it well I uh I'm going to be uh uh conscious of your time despite the fact that I do not want to be um thank you so much for this at the beginning of this we were like okay well how long are we gonna go whatever yeah as you could see we could do this forever um yeah I I please please um please consider coming back again I would love to have you back um I've got so many things that I could ask you still uh but well I've told it all now oh yeah no trust me I don't know much more I just wonder what I'll be doing I don't know what I'll be doing in the future but I enjoy this so uh thanks for having me on excellent I appreciate it very very much um if somebody wants to follow you where where are your social channels where are you uh I'm on Twitter uh uh Bill Carter and uh uh I don't do Facebook uh come on LinkedIn I don't really do a lot besides Twitter okay but I do a lot of I do a lot of commentary on Twitter where I get a lot of uh a lot of my shots in so okay okay um and as the shingle goes out uh please know at WJ Carter at WJ Carter at WJ Carter okay perfect um and every just so you're aware any project that you will do we will shout it from the rooftops with what we do uh could not be more respectful of you then I will I will add one last thing okay here here's the thing if you do anyone out there is listening to this and heard all these enormous comments about the late shift if you want to read The Late Shift the easiest way is to now get a digital copy because when the book came out that did not exist there were no digital copies there were no digital books so only in the last few years has a visual book come out and fortunately that is under different uh circumstance from the publishing and I get a little more money out of that so there you go by the digital book then then the uh yeah so the so it's kind of flip-flop from what you'd normally hear and by the way the digital book has some extra a little bit of extra stuff in it compared to the original one you've added some things to it so so I what I it's uh it's by Open Road Media it's called Open Road Media the reason that it's happened is that my agent managed to go and say to the publisher you never sold the digital rights are you going to do digital right and they're like we're not going to do that now and they said well then she said well then can we have them and they said Okay so that's it's more of a 50 50 proposition on that with with a regular book it's 15 after you've sold the bazillion copy so anyway that's why and I would recommend if you do want to read that's the easiest way so that's perfect um highly recommend however you can get your hands on um uh The Late Shift of War for late night and desperate networks by the way which we didn't even get to but also a nice little gem uh okay we'll get to that in the future um okay I'm gonna say thank you right now I'll shoot a separate outro and then we'll say a quick goodbye okay so I'm gonna hit stop recording thank you very much Bill I really appreciate you okay um I got I really got to get to lunch that's why I gotta run okay okay thanks buddy okay bye okay so obviously um I couldn't just end it there uh I mean I think it translates as to how much friggin fun that was and it was it was uh it was a fantastic experience I'm very very grateful for it thank you to bill for coming on and being as as open and Earnest as he was and and I just um yeah I appreciate him and I think there's a lot you know to to borrow a phrase a lot more to come with Bill and uh I'm not just saying I'm hoping there's more to come with him in this program or or some way that I can interact with him more uh more I was more saying clearly there's more to come whether it is another book uh whether it is some sort of a series whether it is some sort of a you know hopefully something will will come and if anything um if more dreams are coming true uh for the old mic guy here uh I'll be a part of that I I mean picking that guy's brain um was nothing short of a delight so that was great uh once again uh Letterman podcast if you wouldn't mind sharing this getting people to subscribe to little bit more you know we want to get to that place again I don't want to talk I don't want to I don't want to have to ask that ever again so once we get over a certain hump I'll never have to ask that ever again uh but but please do like share subscribe ring the bell uh you know uh blow the whistle whatever whatever you do to make that happen um and and yes please join the Letterman podcast Facebook group uh because we're going to be giving some stuff away once again thank you to uh Rupert and May at the hello Deli our one and only sponsor is uh the Letterman podcast is the hello Deli thank you to Don Giller for everything that he does and uh the other people behind the scenes who um help shape what it is that we're doing here with this show I mean at the end of the day we're almost a year old we're just getting started uh we've got a lot more cool things coming out uh keep your uh keep keep keep yourself posted as to what it is that we're doing because we've got some fun things coming um yeah this has been a very special they're all special um but this has been yeah this is one of those episodes uh of uh of the Letterman podcast with Mike Chisholm coincidentally I am Mike Chisholm thank you and good night overcoat and Underpants