David Letterman has been a part of the late night circuit for quite some time, having hosted Late Night with David Letterman and The Late Show with David Letterman, not to mention filling in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Now, Letterman’s about to retire, but before he does, he’s been reminiscing about his favorite moments. Apparently, he even has one brilliant idea that he can't get out of his head. Check out Letterman’s hilarious story.
I think George was responsible for maybe the single most brilliant idea on the show ever. It was a contest between a humidifier and a dehumidifier. And at the start of the show they would be switched on simultaneously, and at the end of the show we would see which of the machines had done its designed task more productively. As I recall, the problem was that the noise made by these machines just ruined the audio for the rest of the show.
Apparently, the idea was the brainchild of George Meyer, who worked on Late Night with David Letterman before hopping over to write and produce The Simpsons for Fox. While some of the other hilarious bits listed in the Vulture interview never made it to air, the great humidifier v. dehumidifier debacle of 1983 did actually become a part of an episode, and notoriously caused problems for the audio crew. The episode was a fairly early one in Letterman’s Late Night career, and the man has been known for weird hijinks on the series ever since.
Following his run on NBC, Letterman went on to create The Late Show over at CBS, where he notoriously debuted his Top 10 lists, as well as fondly remembered segments like Stupid Pet/Human Tricks, “Stump the Band” and more, not to mention an aloof and sometimes acerbic but always sharp-witted interviewing style.
David Letterman has 13 episodes left on The Late Show. Thirteen. When he first made his retirement announcement many months ago, it seemed like the spring of 2015 was pretty far away. It seemed like we would still have plenty of time to see the legend interview on the late night stage. Yet, now that end is drawing near, it feels like it snuck up on us. Letterman will take his final bow onstage on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. It’ll be the end of an era for late night. And even with the prospect of Stephen Colbert taking over, we’re still more than a teensy bit emotional about the changes that are coming.
You can catch The Late Show with David Letterman on weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET. Here’s a list of the final run of guests that will appear on the show.
