YMMV / The Late Show with David Letterman

• Fridge Brilliance: Some themes played by Paul and the CBS Orchestra when introducing guests are subtly apropos references to them,^note Such as playing The Beatles' "Your Mother Should Know" when introducing Cobie Smulders, who starred in How I Met Your Mother. but perhaps their crowning example of this was playing LL Cool J's "Hey Lover" as entrance music for supermodel Elle MacPherson.^note "L-L"/"Elle"
• Harsher in Hindsight: Timothy Treadwell was once interviewed, and Letterman jokingly asked if he thought the bears would eat him one day. Treadwell would be mauled and eaten by a rogue grizzly. This scene was included in the theatrical cut of Grizzly Man, but was left out of the DVD release.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the wake of Stephen Colbert being announced as Letterman's replacement, Colbert couldn't help but point out, he had applied to work for Letterman a couple times before.
  • Letterman's 1991 guest appearance with Johnny Carson after NBC announced that Jay Leno was taking over The Tonight Show. While Carson's "how pissed off are you?" is legendary, the conversation is full of statements that would take on some major irony in later years. Of special note is Dave scoffing at the idea that he would still be hosting a late night show in 20 years, and mentioning that it would have hurt more if NBC had given him the show then changed their minds (which is more or less what ended up happening to Conan O'Brien).
• Once Original, Now Common: Letterman is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in American comedy over the last three decades, and as this article points out, he pioneered a lot of the ideas and attitudes that now saturate the Web. But because his influence is everywhere (not to mention Seasonal Rot) he seems really passe these days. His early NBC shows come off a bit dry and awkward, and his peak period (the last few years at NBC and the first few at CBS) isn't easily available (though there's a fair amount of varying-quality YouTube video).
• Seasonal Rot: Dave was on broadcast TV for over 30 years, so this is bound to be the case. The Broken Base comes from just where this started. Some would say that it came after moving from Late Night to an earlier timeslot on CBS. Some think that the first few years of The Late Show were still good, but the decline started at some point in the mid-to-late 1990s (after his stint as Oscar host, when Jay Leno overtook him in the ratings). And others would claim that it set hold of him in the 2000s, by which point Dave was much older than the majority of his late night peers. All that said, every so often, Dave would still have his standout moments, such as the infamous Joaquin Phoenix interview or the mileage he got from the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien controversy.

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