“From the world’s 3rd largest ball of twine...”

It is Episode 6,015

May 1, 2015

“And now . . . a man who can wear stripes with plaid . . . David Letterman.” As soon as Dave hits center stage he takes his shoes off. A person in the audience is shown laughing. If you are a longtime Letterman fan, this face is familiar to you. But amazingly at this moment, the face is not yet familiar to Dave . . . stay tuned. Monologue topics include spring in New York, the presidential campaign, and the Kentucky Derby. 

The Act 2 desk piece has a Top Ten List of “Guys Bernie Sanders Looks Like.” The number-six entry is “The guy who lets strangers handle his shoes.” The audience member is shown again. There is still no recognition from Dave as to who this person is. The best-of montage is clips of the many guests who have appeared on the show. Dave gives the statistic: 105,000 total guests. Paul quips, “That you have spoken to and pretended to be interested in.” This clip package is something you would assume would be on the final episode. It has all of his most famous interactions: Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Joaquin Phoenix, Hillary Clinton, and more. 

After the clips, Dave announces who has been in the audience. Dave points out the woman is Colleen Boyle. She was in a remote from Late Night on NBC. The reason that Dave hadn’t mentioned this, even though he had called on her and Matt Roberts had added her to the number-six spot of the Top Ten, was because no one had recognized her. That was until Bill Scheft saw her in the Top Ten.

Bill Scheft: I had to make some last-minute changes to the monologue, so I missed Dave’s warm-up. When the joke in the Top Ten came, there was a giant cutaway shot of Colleen Boyle in the audience. I mouth to her, “Colleen?” and she nods, “Yes.” She was in one of the most famous remotes at the old show. There she is sitting with her husband not looking a day older. Before the show, Dave walks out and takes questions from the audience. She raises her hand and asks, “Who helps you select your shoes?” Dave misses it and doesn’t see the connection. I told him that was Colleen. We got a still from that tape from NBC. 

Rick Scheckman: I sat in the control room on the back deck. In the middle of the show Dave would ask for something. Randi would say, “We want the clip XYZ.” I would punch that into the computer. If the clip was on the seventh floor, I would tell an intern to go get tape 1652 and bring it to the tape room. I could do it in a commercial break. 

Bill Scheft: All this jumped off a period of maybe fifteen minutes. None of it had been planned for the show, but there is was. This happens more than anyone gives us credit for. A lot of people’s hands go up when Dave asks if there are any questions. But he picked a woman he assumed was a stranger. It was a beautiful confluence of Late Night and Late Show—and more evidence that there are no strangers.

The first guest is Steve Martin. His first appearance with Dave goes back to the morning show, September 30, 1980. Dave welcomes him and says, “A lot of people come on the show and keep the cab running. Run in, run out. But you have actually come and helped produce things and made things better.” Martin responds with, “When I heard you announced that you are retiring, I thought, ‘He’s got to be joking.’ Then I remembered, ‘Wait, you’re not funny.’” Martin mentions that when Johnny Carson retired, he invited him to be on the last week of his shows and now Dave has asked him to be in his last month, sort of.

Mike Barrie (Carson writer): On the last couple weeks of The Tonight Show, Steve came on and did The Great Flydini, which was classic. It still holds up. He was young enough then to also be on Dave. He was very funny. I never saw Steve come on the show without an original thought. He always came prepared.

Martin talks about touring with Martin Short and his upcoming Broadway musical, Bright Star, and continues to skewer the fake Hollywood relationship between Dave and himself. Martin says, “I was on the morning show, but that doesn’t make us friends.” Dave says, “There is show business friends and then there is actual friends.” Steve Martin says, “And we are neither.” He has brought a video clip of Dave’s life that boils down to this: He had one show and then he had another show. They also play the classic clip of “Dave and Steve’s Gay Vacation” from October 2, 1998. Martin thinks that some of his funniest moments have occurred on the show.

Barbara Gaines: “Gay Vacation” played differently in 2015 than it did when it originally aired. In 1998, the audience couldn’t breathe they were laughing so hard. When we replayed it at the end, I think this new crowd wasn’t sure how they were supposed to take it.

Rick Scheckman: Steve Martin worked very hard on his segments. They might start working on it two, three weeks early. Steve was one of those people that would say, “What do you want me to do?” 

Kathy Mavrikakis: With Steve Martin, probably they ran a bunch of ideas by him, he chose ones he wanted and then maybe rewrote them. We worked very closely with people who were comedians so that they could create the segment that represented what they wanted to be on the show. 

Jeremy Weiner: Steve would come with things ready to go, and he was also great about asking if we had any ideas. Sometimes the writers would present a few things and he would pick ones he liked. One week I worked with Steve where he teased his appearances the entire week leading up to being a guest on the show on Friday. You could always count on him to know what was going to work. 

Brian Teta: Steve was one of the more intimidating people to produce because he is a legend. That was the first time I worked with him. He had usually worked with Maria Pope or Matt Roberts. It was me and two writers from our show that we’re working with Steve on this. There was a lot of prep for that. I did very little on the content of this particular one because he was working on it for so long.

Musical Guest

Steve Martin, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Mark O’Connor, and Amos Lee perform the gospel classic “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” 

Sheryl Zelikson: I think that Steve Martin was scheduled as the top guest and Dave wanted to hear the song. We picked people that had a history with the show. It was meaningful for the audience and for Dave. 

Brian Teta: I thought it was a crazy idea. I am the worst person to ask about this stuff. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”?? But, it was fantastic.

Worldwide Pants Tag: “Is your name Connie?”