Rob Kates

greetings and welcome to the letterman podcast my name is mike chisholm i will be your tour guide on this very boring adventure very boring except to a select few in that select few are folks who would fancy themselves enthusiasts of david letterman uh of late night uh television broadcasting uh comedy maybe i mean we might we might we might be mildly entertaining or funny along the way uh but we usually just stumble into that uh we love doing this show uh when i say we i'm talking about myself and a small community that has already formed the alpha consumers of the letterman podcast are very very happy with how things are going all four or five of us um and uh hopefully we get up to up to a baker's dozen here very soon um we're really enjoying celebrating dave and the things that uh dave and company have have done and uh the the again a broken record but the massive body of work we're just so grateful to be coming together and celebrating um that body of work had some great guests on so far uh got some in the can that haven't been released yet uh former staffers people that were close to the show we've got some great guests coming up now this podcast um it will be it will become as the catalog grows it will become very obvious what it is that we're doing here but because this is one of the early episodes we're going to uh i'll flesh it out a little bit it's not just staffers of the show that we want to have on or people who are guests of the show or even ultimately dave um i believe one of the differences with dave's show uh compared to anything before and frankly really a lot of stuff after is that he is a big time broadcaster that destroyed the fourth wall and made the audience a part of the show he didn't just make the staff part of the show but the audience was part of the show and uh because of that this podcast is going to reflect the community and the people who um maybe had a brush with the show like i always use the example you know letterman would call pay phones and somebody would pick up that pay phone well the person who picked up that payphone many times 20 years later is still talking about it and uh so so those are perfect people to talk to because let's assemble a lot of that stuff let's assemble our reaction uh from dave's broadcasts and um it's affected people it's affected people some of us so much that uh that that that we we take an extra step out i that's what i'm doing with this thing i it's affected me so much that i want to host a podcast based on dave not for anything other than the joy of it don't get me wrong if it turns into something great but the joy that comes from it is even more so our guest today i would say we're brothers from another mother we're in the exact same category this is a guy who started a letterman facebook group and not just a letter and facebook group but some other stuff as well and and he's gotten thousands of people join up with this and together before the letterman youtube channel happened and and we always of course pay tribute to don giller for keeping that content alive and getting that content out there but before that official channel kind of came up after dave went quiet uh we we got together and we we would all just talk about this stuff and we would use facebook to do that the guy that we have on here is a guy that started um one of those groups he's also a guy in television i find it very very curious um and i can't wait to explore this more as the podcast continues how there are a lot of folks who work in television at various levels who love dave and that is a cool thing too so i want to talk to rob about that today and more very very excited to have on the letterman podcast rob cates thank you very much for showing up here and uh and and when i when i knocked on your door you absolutely uh took no convincing yeah absolutely let's do this mike thanks for being here on the letterman podcast rob oh thank you very much yeah it's great to be here i really appreciate uh the invite to be on this show and to talk about dave i appreciate you man this podcast wouldn't exist without you um when i when i had my little story uh and i told it in the latter letter manifesto we're not gonna we're not gonna rehash that anymore um i i posted it in the letter in your letterman group and uh and and it actually led me to creating some relationships that actually if this podcast wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for your group um what inspired you to make the letterman group on on facebook well actually it was it was started by somebody else but i am the co-administrator and i i do a lot of the posting on there but uh i've just always been obsessed with uh letterman with johnny carson with late night in general and with television broadcasting and as you said i work in television i just love the medium of television i love comedy um a lot of that came from my dad my dad got me into johnny carson he got me into some silly tv shows that he liked i mean he liked uh you know laughing or and hee haw and the muppet show and and all the crazy comedy shows so i i've just always been passionate about television yeah i uh i i can i can definitely relate to everything you just said there um you know my father my father watched johnny carson and and uh um and i i appreciated it i always appreciated it especially i loved when johnny would do skits and sketches um i i and characters and things like that um you know and and and i i liked the zany which of course is i think one of the reasons why uh dave resonated with me so much when i was even a kid is he really went down the path into the into the zany in the in the surreal or the weird or the strange um did you and did you and your father used to watch johnny carson together yeah yeah we did sometimes yeah yeah he just he was a big influence on me my my dad really was and uh yeah like i said he just he loved tv and movies and the arts and broadway and everything everything like that and really got me into all of that so uh yeah he he was a big influence and unfortunately just lost him last year my my dad was 89 years old so he had a long life and uh but he yeah he's definitely an inspiration to me even he had some of the johnny carson clothing uh like he had johnny carson pajamas and those were handed down to me i wore those for a while so yeah johnny carson had his own line of clothing for a while i love that i actually i wanted to ask somebody um i i i should have asked mark malkov i'm gonna have the uh the the ability to do that in the next one i was always curious if johnny ever wore any of his own clothing i don't know do you know the answer to that i don't know i i don't know i yeah and i don't know if he wore it on the show or not i don't i read in in bushkin's book it said that that johnny didn't really like um modeling for the ads he didn't really like being photographed that much so that was part of the reason why the the clothing line came to an end but but no i don't know if he actually wore them it's funny these uh these titans that we we appreciate so much these titans of broadcasting um and how you know the the private introverted person that a lot of them are uh but until the red light goes on and then they turn into this completely um i i have some i have some uh some experience in the pro wrestling business and the pro wrestlers that i've met with um that that have made it really big they just talk about how they just they take who they are and they just turn it right up to 10.

well these guys that we love so much they operate at a one or a two when it comes to their extrovertedness and then when the camera goes on they just turn it up to a 10.

that's interesting johnny carson clothing company but didn't like to model his own clothes yeah well yeah as far as introverts becoming extroverts when they're on camera that was definitely it was carson and it was david letterman and they had so much in common and i think that they really related to each other in a lot of ways i mean johnny respected dave of course johnny was like dave's comedy hero and there's so many parallels there i mean even you when you think about um what they've done with their philanthropy i mean johnny carson gave millions of dollars to his alma mater university of nebraska and the media school there was named after him and dave did the same thing ball state university he gave millions to ball state the media center there the school of media is named after david letterman at ball state so johnny and uh dave were alike in in that sense i'm glad you brought that up because uh i've talked to a lot of folks who used to work for dave and and one of the things that that they talk about is his generosity and i mean this isn't something that's gonna let's face it david letterman's never gonna listen to this so it doesn't matter um but but it's good for the public to know like this is a very very generous man but generous for the right reasons um you know generous in all sorts of ways and i'm not going to go into specifics or anything like that but generous in all sorts of ways of giving back and and and giving the things he he believes in but did it for the right reason and didn't really broadcast that johnny carson exactly the same thing um were you because you loved this stuff so much you and your dad love this stuff so much is that what led you to getting into television as a career um well yeah it's a variety of things uh i did i had a roommate in college who actually got me this hat a late night with david letterman hat in 1988 or 89 and then i've got the late show shirt but uh my college roommate was actually at michigan state university ghost spartans he was uh he was in telecommunication and television production and he was a big influence on me too um because he was in that field i had changed my major a few times i mean i thought about business i had thought about music education i'm very passionate about music um i was in the spartan marching band at msu what'd you play uh the baritone barricode how's the trombone go low brass let's go bro definitely so yeah i mean my yeah as i said my roommate bob in college yeah he he really uh was a big influence as far as getting into television and i i didn't really think about it before college i always loved television but i didn't really think about it as a career and now it's been 32 years it's been since 1990 that i've worked behind the scenes for different uh different tv stations what kind of you say behind the scenes let's go a little deeper like what kind of roles are we talking about here your camera are you in the control room are you well what kind of stuff you're doing it is uh it's master control and it's production uh master control is the main thing we do is we're running the commercials that air the local commercials that air during the brakes we're getting satellite feeds we're getting programming we're doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff that that keeps the station running i mean i i ran local commercials for david letterman show for johnny carson show not on the national basis but on a local basis for different local tv stations so that's master control and then production as well i mean i've been a a camera operator audio board operator things like that uh now i'm just doing a lot of directing directing of newscasts uh you know six or eight newscasts per week so uh there have been a lot of changes in tv a lot of uh computer automation um but i'm i'm thankful to be in the business definitely oh that's awesome i love it and i've talked to a lot of excited people i was part of a community uh television show a few years ago and and and um it's just an exciting environment uh the people i find the culture uh of the folks who work in it exciting as well it's it's very neat to talk to um the family that exists on television shows or in television studios and and the dynamics that come with that uh the camaraderie that's there and like any family um you know there's there's all sorts of stuff that comes with that too the dynamics that come with it um you obviously really enjoy working in television have you found that a lot of folks who work in television um gravitate towards dave and company i think a lot of people do yeah yeah there are a lot of uh late-night fans in tv um i remember when conan o'brien first started i was working for an nbc affiliate and you know conan had a little bit of a shaky start at the beginning and he uh you know he found his stride and and yeah i'm i'm a huge fan of conan two and and yeah a lot of people are into late night and and music a lot of people in tv are really into music they'll play in local bands or they're just just big music fans in general and and fans of the arts in in general and and certainly i am yeah i uh i love conan as well um i i remember okay so during the whole late shift um the original late shift late shift part one um and and when he took over um i just remember it was really cool to watch the reaction at the beginning and then the reaction maybe five years in and seeing the evolution of this of this guy um and i just was so happy about that because can you imagine a harder job i don't even know where what i would compare um david letterman leaving late night so he started late night uh you know there was tom schneider and and and they all had different ideas of what would come after the tonight show for for decades really uh there was experiments as to as to what we should throw on there and snyder was kind of the one that really kind of um was the okay the standard let's do that let's do something different than johnny uh calmer that kind of a thing and then letterman came out and blew the doors off the uh off the entire thing and and and um created this thing how do you take over for that guy and and i mean i don't know if they looked at him potentially oh he'll be a pallet cleanser let's use this unknown and but then then he turned out to spread his wings and and fly in his own way um i think about when he hosted the emmys or i think that's probably the time where where conan was was was was really really really hot and you compare that to just a few years before to where he was um what a phenomenal thing and and to take over for dave and he's still the uh he's still the king of of of of the late night program nobody's hosted longer than him right i don't think so no but definitely yeah you're right conan had some big shoes to fill and a lot of the credit goes to lauren michaels because i mean conan had written for saturday night live and lauren michael said hey this guy is really funny i mean maybe he could be a good host for a late night show and yeah it worked out for conan and i'm wondering what his uh hbo mac show is going to be like yeah it's fun to watch him evolve i'm very very happy that um while carson might have been the standard for both guys because conan loved carson as well um but the fact is once carson retired from the tonight show you know uh he he he took off and that was that was kind of it out of the public eye and um i think his last was his i might be wrong on this but i thought his last television appearance was actually on dave's show um when they were in la i think that might have been carson's very last television appearance uh and and that was it and a lot of us thought the same thing was going to happen with dave thank god that didn't happen i personally love long form that's what we're doing here and that's where i feel i i'm a big podcast guy um because of the long form format i like tom schneider back in the day but we we don't really have a ton of that now to see dave doing that to me is incredible i enjoy it very much i enjoy that with the with the pieces um interlaced into the long form uh so grateful that he's doing that so grateful that he's back on his channel um that's his evolution and it makes sense to me conan's evolution um different going to that half hour format at the end of his show at the end of his run i should say and then now moving into something with hbo max um sketch it looks like it's going to be sketch and his mind which a crazy awesome mind i am so curious as to what's going to come out of that definitely and and i've said even before conan got into late night his resume was very impressive i mean the guy graduated from harvard he wrote for the simpsons he wrote for saturday night live you look at just that and that's really impressive and then everything that he accomplished in the world of late night tv and and he has a podcast his podcast is excellent and yeah it's it's amazing and well you mentioned tom snyder i mean look at what it's crazy how letterman replaces tom snyder in 1982 tom snyder had the tomorrow show following johnny yep letterman takes over in 82 and then when letterman goes to cbs they say okay dave you can have somebody that follows you on the late late show and he chooses tom snyder yeah i love i love that too i'm a very nostalgic guy um and and it's funny how publicly i mean i don't know privately how how it is i i know publicly dave does not like praise very much he doesn't like to look back uh to analyze and all that and i and i i get that to a point for sure i can understand that but he himself the actions that he makes um i think about a lot of the guests on his show uh guys he came up with at the comedy store uh you know obscure um many times especially on the late night show obscure people that he just loved like i love episode one okay bill murray hottest star of the day in many respects up and coming at that point but also mr wizard let's have mr wizard on and and and um and then the decision like you say for tom schneider uh the nostalgia there i'm a big fan of nostalgia and i like how he interlaces nostalgia into the things that he does as well yeah yeah definitely and yeah and you've mentioned this before on your podcast letterman letterman show was was owned by johnny carson the nbc show so johnny said okay you need to make your show different from mine i don't want to have a tonight show clone so you need to make your show a bit different so yeah look at letterman's guest he had some really unique guests i was watching a clip last night from brother theodore yeah oh man it was unusual or harvey picard or you know look at some of the unusual guests that dave had but he was kind of pushed into that because it had to be different from johnny the band had to be different and and so and dave as far as nostalgia dave really looked up to steve allen with the original tonight show and dave cook borrowed some things from steve allen some of the man on the street stuff and some of the physical stuff the you know the jumping into the velcro wall and you know steve allen would do things like that yeah i yeah you're right it was an amalgamation of of of many things from the past and and then uh some of them tributes um you know some of them flat out hey this idea hasn't been used for a long time let's let's let's uh let's borrow it um and then it's fun to watch people borrow his stuff uh you know i had my uh i'll tell the story i'll tell this story multiple times i'm sure over the the life of this podcast but my daughter-in-law was over the other day and um rupert g is going to be a guest on on this show or the men's mental wellness podcast that i that i that i host you want one of them he's going to be on one of them and she goes so you're really excited about this rupert guy who is he i said oh and i showed her um the premise of of what he and dave used to do uh where you know he would wear the earpiece and have a camera on him and and he would do or say you would interact with the public and do anything that dave talking through the earpiece would tell him to do and she looks and she goes oh that's just like what ellen does and i just looked at her and i'm like no no no you don't understand she she took that from dave and and um it's neat to watch the stuff that he borrowed and the things that people are borrowing uh from him now and and the mark that he made um it's it's it's fascinating to be guys who are in our shoes we're kind of that sandwich generation uh gen x and and it's fun to watch while we are still kind of in that demo that are looked towards you know they look to us to about 50 and then they start going and skewing younger but we're still kind of there as part of what the mainstream is looking at and it's neat to see what came before and then what's coming after us and how they've all kind of borrowed from each other and then also taking the ball and moved it forward is there anybody uh current that you like yeah i definitely do um i've seen some articles they'll say oh late night tv is dead or there's nobody good out there well as i mentioned i do like conan a lot i want to see what he's going to do on hbo match i think that um james corden is excellent i really like what he's done with the late late show i think he's really done some inventive things and some of his stuff outside of the studio and he'll do the the uh the crosswalk bit where he does like broadway shows and the crosswalk on out in la and of course uh carpool karaoke and look at the they've given him several prime time specials cbs has and and that's impressive they don't do that with just anybody so i think james gordon is outstanding 11 35 guys uh probably kimmel was my favorite and yeah and he idolized dave of course i mean he took a lot of uh his cues from dave so yeah i think jimmy kimmel was great too yeah hey uh i would i would agree with corden being um well he in in my opinion cordon has come out there and done something new and and created a really kind of new um persona in late night uh whereas the other guys are very and i mean they're working for the big three networks let's face it if it wasn't for dave there wouldn't be another uh big three network television show so they all kind of cloned uh what dave and jay were were kind of doing and so all three because at the end of the day nothing used to be able to even touch the tonight show no other network used to even be able to have a show so it makes sense that the big three right now kind of have similar shows um to each other i mean obviously they've got different eccentricities but uh but cordon is very different than what's out there right now uh i'm watching all of you do you watch john oliver uh sometimes yeah a few times he yeah he's really sharp he is he is definitely uh unique as far as what he does i i do think he's really funny yeah oh let's let's talk about the facebook groups that you have here real quick uh because it's not just the letterman one that you're involved with you've got david letterman fans so for folks out there who are looking for um a a a community to be involved in and want to talk about this stuff or learn about this stuff um these these groups that that exist out there are great resources and many of the people in these groups uh know a lot of stuff and then every once in a while you get to see some train wrecks because some train wrecks sometimes are part of these groups too and you get to watch oh look at this person they're uh there is it's like an explosion in slow motion happening and you get to watch uh some interesting folks uh get into some interesting um arguments and things as well but you you you have a couple different facebook groups that you're a part of uh which ones are are you in yeah well yeah i do i have a few notes here um yeah as you mentioned david letterman fans has almost 5 000 members so we really yeah we have just a lot of fun on these pages i mean people posting youtube videos and articles and pictures and all kinds of stuff and talking about dave talking about paul or rupert or other people on the show and and that another one um the johnny carson fan club has over 11 000 members and we actually have i think that it's true with dave's group and johnny's group we have many people who worked on the show who are members of the group like in the johnny carson group we have i won't mention names but we had have one of johnny's publicists we have somebody who is a stage manager for johnny somebody who was a producer for johnny uh some of johnny's writers so it's just it's really an honor to have people in those groups that actually work for johnny carson and then also i i'm a huge fan of saturday night live always have been so i started a group called 40 plus years of saturday night live that has almost 2 000 members and then also my this is not late night but i have one that's memories of the rat pack my dad really got me into frank sinatra and sammy davis jr and dean martin that one has grown exponentially memories of the rat pack is almost 25 000 members okay you're you're making me feel really awesome right now for a variety of reasons now now people have asked me why i started this um people who aren't necessarily in it as deep as we are with the appreciation or the um at least being aware of the appreciation the way that we are and able to express it people have been asking me why i started this i'm a huge johnny carson um being i hate to say it like this but johnny carson being forgotten uh the way that he has has shocked me because when you and i were growing up i don't know if there was a bigger celebrity on the planet than johnny carson um certainly he's in the top five with whoever the american president is and some of these other really larger than life people um you talk about the power of of johnny carson um you know if you're a comedian and you get one shot on the tonight show you literally get your whether you were good or not you get your career made uh because you were there and and and he was just wow and it did not take long now again johnny left in 92 93 you know 94 area era um but it did not take that's not that long ago and and the way that he has been forgotten and so part of this i don't know what you want to call it some folks say oh yeah you guys are obsessed with david letterman i'm not obsessed with david letterman i i'm a huge passionate uh i'm a huge enthusiast for it but for here's if there is any obsession and i think you can relate to this um here's what it is i don't want people to forget this body of work this body of work to me is important and because it was on tv every day and the the pace was breakneck it gets thrown away quickly and because of that there could be a tendency to forget it and i want to say no no no i'm taking this torch and i'm taking it so i can make it burn brightly with others not just me but the others around me and so i can take it and pass it to somebody now when you tell me that you've got a facebook group of the rat pack that has tens of thousands of members that makes me really excited number one it shows me that facebook is where the old people go when it comes to social media that's that's the first song that tells me but the second thing it tells me is that uh there's still a love for this stuff and there are other people who want to pass these torches um that is that's crazy uh and and i love that you feel that need do you still do you feel that compulsion inside you to keep these things alive as well is that part of the thing that drives you because it's not money we're not making any money for this right oh definitely yeah i i sure i have these facebook groups but i don't get a single penny out of them i wish i did but i don't but uh no i definitely i i and i applaud you for wanting to keep the letterman legacy alive and i i think that if you look the past five or ten years there have been a few things that have helped to keep johnny carson's legacy alive of course you mentioned mark malkoff with the carson podcast oh yeah just outstanding which is coming to an end next month but i think it's eight years that he's been doing that so 300 episodes yeah that has rekindled an interest in johnny um johnny is back on tv he is on antenna tv every night they also put those same shows on peacock and um some of the other streaming services so that they're highly edited they don't have musical guests which is too bad but i can understand they they would need to pay for the rights for the music but sure that has been good in terms of uh kind of re handling some interest in johnny and also the book a few years ago um simply called johnny carson by henry bombastic bushkin he was johnny carson's lawyer and johnny carson's friend and johnny carson's tennis partner and and johnny used to say my lawyer bombastic bushkin he has me involved in some shrewd business deal so that came out a few years ago and so there have been a few things which is nice to see that have kept johnny's legacy alive definitely um i'm gonna do uh every uh every a few episodes of this that we do um there is i almost i almost want to call it an obligatory um shout out to don giller uh the dons um because that guy there's a guy who helped keep you talk about a a torchbearer um not just a torch bearer but a torch builder it's almost like this guy uh you know if you talk about the the analogy of passing the torch it's like this guy had a crate of torches that he hand laid in his home garage and took these torches and lit them up and started passing them to people uh whether they wanted them and not or not at first and and and as as as those torches got passed uh for for those who don't know what i'm talking about uh go to don giller's youtube page and you'll see he's got the largest collection of letterman uh footage he's got the entire run of everything that he's ever done of dave's ever done but then here's the part that i love and this part i want to talk to you about while i'm plugging something at the same time um have you seen you've watched dawn's uh compilations i think it's seven parts of dave with late night talk show hosts uh through the years in chronological order you've watched that right oh definitely yeah oh it's fascinating as you said it's incredible what don giller has done as far as archiving the material yeah anybody who's a fan of dave needs to check out his youtube videos absolutely and and that particular compilation if anything that rob and i are talking about and i mean we're 30 minutes into this thing if you're still here uh first off what in god's name is wrong with you uh you know go get a life um and second if you're still here uh clearly there's something in here that is is twinging uh uh some sort of interest in you when it comes to to late night if you want to do a deep dive don giller has a a compilation where literally everybody from steve allen to jack parr um all the way down um of of talk show hosts uh who have been on the other side of the desk from dave with little extras sprinkled in along the way um it is a fascinating evolution because i i think about dave when he was just hosting late night and he's sitting with these icons beside him you know clearly influences clearly uh dave is nervous compared to the dave that was on the late show uh which i love so much i'm a big i'm a big late show guy i i love it all but i just love powerful dave um where where there ain't no nervousness even with the president of the united states it's it's it's uh excited energy as opposed to nervousness but it is fascinating to watch the evolution of these talk show hosts interacting with dave and the history that is explained in those um phenomenal compilations so let's do a shout out to that and if there's any if there's a takeaway from this that people can go and watch that one um favorite uh who's your mount rushmore if you had a four four uh late night hosts um on mount rushmore who would they be for you rob well i would say um my my all-time favorite is johnny carson i i thought he was incredible and i just i think nobody did it better than johnny i mean with the the monologues with the skits like you said the mighty carson art players and the interviewing the interviewing skills of johnny were incredible and he was so intelligent his producer peter la sally he said johnny was the most well-read person that he ever met johnny was really brilliant and so he could talk to people about anything young people old people celebrities some of the best guests were the civilians like the potato chip lady people who were not celebrities so definitely johnny carson david letterman of course is is number two in my book number three would have to be conan o'brien when you look at all that he has achieved i would have to say my number four would be tom snyder because i was really a fan of what he did on the tomorrow show as well as the late late show and another thing that i've heard you mentioned look at what dave accomplished at cbs i mean people talk about oh jay leno got the tonight show yes it would have been really nice to see dave follow johnny carson on the tonight show but he didn't but he established at cbs a strong late-night franchise which did not exist before so that is an incredible achievement right there i know hey and i mean this is gonna be something i this is my soapbox this is the soapbox i get on when it comes to this stuff um and i have no disrespect for jay like i know within our camps and there are camps there are folks who like are hardcore dave fans uh and they're team dave and then there are hardcore j fans i have yet to very meet very many j fans i actually had a guy reach out who is a hardcore j fan who wants to come on here and and have a friendly uh discussion uh about about that but um when i hear jay talk about how he got the tonight show he was number one he left the tonight show he was number one and that's a good talking point i mean if i were in that position i probably would say the same thing uh but that's not the point that's not the point at all for three decades the other networks tried to create something that the tonight show just decimated like they decimated them and and the fact that dave could move over to cbs and immediately create a new franchise that would last forever the biggest gift dave gave to cbs like dave owned those two he owned 11 30 and he owned 12 30 quite literally scott ryan the uh the author of the last days of letterman and i have a good talking about this he's going to be on the show as well coming up the fact that dave owned two hours of network television that's never going to be done again by the way um and unless unless someone like i don't know someone gigantic like kanye or kim kardashian comes along like just a mega mega star comes along maybe but i don't think it's ever going to happen again and he created something that did not exist before that point and that is astounding to say the least it certainly is and well another thing i was thinking about you look at the parallels between dave's 1993 contract and you go back to 1980 with johnny carson's contract there are definitely parallels there in 1980 um johnny carson thought about leaving he was burned out he thought about going to abc maybe they were recording him he was hosting the oscars and nbc said hey johnny show is a cash cow we have to keep johnny carson so they gave him this huge contract lots of time off and everything ownership yeah ownership of his show and the show following his just like dave got with his contract absolutely and and this is one day one of my dream guests of course as as as you'll understand this for sure the audience uh i'll i'll fill in the picture one of our dream guests is definitely gonna be bill carter um here's the is a reporter who followed the whole thing two books phenomenal books the late shift and the war for late night highly recommended books uh fascinating to say the least um you know he talks about all of that and and and the idea of uh of of ownership and what that really means because we because of that ownership now we have the letterman youtube channel and i'm so grateful that they were able to strike up a deal with nbc and they're able to uh to to to stream all this stuff now and have these compilations um i wanna you've got some props there i wanna go into that because i mean we're already almost 40 minutes into this thing i'm having a great time talking to you about this rob uh i can't wait to have you back you're part of the community you're part of you know as we build the letterman podcast is also building a community and we've already got folks who have said yeah can't wait to come back and uh uh for episodes that haven't even aired yet um and we're gonna have you back of course you and i are brothers from other mothers we're torchbearers uh but you've got some props there i wanna i wanna um i'm gonna do the uh the old switcheroo here so we can see what you got there you've got some uh yeah i just don't know obviously i'm a huge fan of dave and i'm a huge fan of paul shaffer and i recommend that people check out paul shaffer's autobiography here which is just outstanding it's just called we'll be here for the rest of our lives and he's a fellow canadian like you are yes sir and one of his best buddies is another canadian the great martin short i mean we've been talking forever about martin shore's appearances with johnny and dave and what an amazing talk show uh guest he is and also from 1988 i got this off of of uh ebay rolling stone the comedy issue with the two greatest of all time johnny and dave on the cover of rolling stone magazine so it doesn't get any better than that no that's for sure you talk about passing of torches right there um uh there's a there's a phenomenal example of it uh i just i love that too i love the mentor mentee relationship the two of them had um you know fascinating on all sorts of levels and i i just appreciate that very very much um as we kind of move over to uh to moving to towards close here um i just when it comes to the future for dave and it's hard to throw this out there i mean he's 75.

he's uh he's he's doing what he wants when he wants at least that's what i hope for him uh it's so nice to see him uh showing presents on his youtube channel it's really cool seeing him with the with the staff doing it i love seeing barbara and mary and and and and i know walters you know in in in behind the the camera and and it's so good to see that family still together i'm going to throw out the book the uh the the the last days of letterman phenomenal phenomenal book um that celebrates the last six weeks of the late show run but you get to know a lot of these characters um who worked behind the scenes and um you know we're seeing these things happening it's so good um you're obviously a fan of my next guest as well the netflix show uh if there were three people that you would like to see dave interview long form on my next guest who would they be rob well i don't know if it would happen but i i certainly would say jay leno sure i would love to see it happen i'm sure people talk about the the feud between them i don't know if there's a feud or not but dave has said jay leno especially in the early days of the comedy store in the 70s jay leno was untouchable as a stand-up i mean he was the best stand up and it's always fascinating to hear about those old days at the comedy store with with tom greeson and you know dave's other friends jimmy walker and those different people but uh i yeah definitely jay leno i i don't know i'd have to think about i i don't know if he's has he had martin short on that yeah that would be excellent yeah that would be great um i don't know i'd have to think about steve martin would be a good one too oh definitely yeah yeah you know if you're talking from uh comics of that of that era and folks from his era you know one of the things johnny talked about um when he retired was um the the the landscaped hedge had had really the landscape shifted you know the the frank sinatra is in the titans of that era had moved on or had been passing on and and to him the people who were celebrities um weren't there anymore so much and i think the same could be said for dave that the people who were the top of the game of the day they've now now kind of moved on and and and dave's done a good job you know jay-z and kim kardashian and kanye like some of these people that he's had on for sure the chappelle episode was phenomenal oh my god but um if you talk about people from his era that were and still are revered i think steve martin's one as well martin short great great answer and of course yeah jay that makes so much sense i i think they're i think that there'd be a lot of closure for guys like us uh to see them you know make up the super bowl commercial was great but wouldn't it be fascinating to watch those two dudes have a conversation sure it would be well and another one i just thought of people talk about who's the king of late night is it johnny carson is it david letterman older people may say steve allen they may say jack parr and you have to consider them too but also i think you need to think about behind the scenes people and a great guest for dave i think would be peter la sally yeah you look at what peter accomplished i mean he was producer for years and years for johnny he was a producer for dave he worked with tom snyder he worked with craig ferguson i mean he's really as far as behind the scenes people i think pierre le sally is the king of late night you know um and and you mentioned craig ferguson there i'm not gonna yeah now that you mentioned him we we can't you and i can't have the show without mentioning craig ferguson i loved craig ferguson um yeah for he was fantastic and like you say peter la sally helped guide him and and and and the the love that craig ferguson has for peter lasalli uh is is fantastic for those of you who don't know what we're talking about again the obligatory plug for don giller let's do it uh if you watch david letterman's tribute episode to johnny carson after he passed uh i believe oh five i think is when it was but you can easily easily find it on on youtube uh dave actually um you could tell that he really nudged peter to being his guest on the show that was a phenomenal episode and i believe mark also interviewed him uh on the uh on the carson podcast again phenomenal point of view phenomenal interview that's a great answer um and shout out to peter lasalli uh who's who's getting up there but boy a legend behind the scenes that's a great answer as well rob um i i'm pretty sure it goes without saying but as time moves on and as this community starts to grow and and you are as far as i'm concerned you're uh you're a seed planter within this community as well it goes without saying you're going to come back right oh thank you certainly i would like to yeah there's a lot more to talk about about dave and just the world of late night in general good i appreciate that i appreciate hearing that um thank you for taking time out of your day to be here i appreciate it so much and uh and yeah let's uh let's keep these torches burning bright and let's hand them out too right all right great yeah yeah and that's what's great about the podcast and facebook group and things like that people who are late night geeks like us we're all on the same page and we can talk about this stuff and find other people with common interests yeah man absolutely uh very very grateful thank you very much for uh for letting me take advantage of uh of our dynamic online and and uh and our friendship online thank you very much for uh starting uh the the they're not starting but administering the group uh and the groups that you do uh folks please reach out join share uh subscribe this podcast too absolutely we would love the likes and the subscribes we're in our infancy right now so right now those things are really really important so we can uh on the youtubes and the instagrams and all that we can get more features the more people have subscribed so if you if you wouldn't mind liking us writing reviews subscribing uh we would appreciate that very much and um that's another episode there we go another episode of the letterman podcast rob thank you so much for being here uh thank you as the viewer or the listener whether you're listening in your ear holes or you're watching through your eye holes thank you very much for supporting the letterman podcast my name is mike chisholm thank you and good night