“From the light shining at the end of
a long, dark tunnel...”

It is Episode 6,027

May 19, 2015

“And now . . . Broadway’s most in-demand triple threat . . . David Letterman.” Dave receives a standing ovation for his last regular episode of the Late Show. His retirement joke is that he is being forced to leave because he gave money to the Clinton Foundation. He plays a video of actual CBS affiliates mistakenly saying Dave is leaving The Tonight Show. 

Regis Philbin, who holds the record for guest appearances on the show, with over 150, interrupts the monologue. Regis kisses Dave on the cheek and asks if he can be on the last show. Dave says, “Last show is booked solid. We couldn’t even squeeze you in for this bit.” Regis then slowly leaves the stage through the audience, shaking hands with each person on the aisle. Dave stands there, impatiently waiting for Regis to make his way out of the theater. Dave has a line ready to go, but Paul is playing loud music as Regis leaves. Dave just slightly glances in Paul’s direction and Paul stops playing. Dave says, “Go ahead and take your time, Regis. This is not a fundraiser, for God’s sake.” Regis, still in no hurry, finally exits through the back doors of the theater.

Sheila Rogers: We wanted to make sure that Regis was a part of those last six weeks. He did a walk-on. Things were quite full and he had been on fairly recently, which is why he wasn’t a sit-down guest.

The Top Ten is “Famous Last Words.” Since tomorrow’s list will be read by celebrities, this is the actual last Top Ten that Dave ever delivers. His final entry is “And the number-one famous last words . . . ‘One scoop of Blue Bell ice cream, please.’” Rupert Jee enters and sits in the guest chair. Paul plays “Hello Dolly” as he takes his seat. 

Rupert Jee: My last appearance was the day before the last show. It caught me by surprise, because the show was so full of things to reminisce about. I didn’t think they would have me on, but they did. It was rough going on stage for the last time. It was a sad occasion. The next day he would be gone. All the fun and camaraderie we had enjoyed would be gone forever.

Before Dave plays the best-of montage, “Fun With Rupert,” from 1994, he asks, “Why did we have to stop doing this?” Rupert answers, “Someone pulled a knife on us.” Dave says, “But it was fun right up till then.” Rupert’s first appearance on the Late Show was the sixteenth program, on September 20, 1993. (For more on Rupert Jee, see Chapter 10.)

Rupert Jee: Everyone loves when I came out with my finger in the girl’s glass. I do believe that bit gave rise to a lot of other people, like Tom Green and Johnny Knoxville from Jackass. They took it to the next level.

The first guest is Bill Murray. Dave introduces him, and the cityscape scrim rises to reveal a huge cake decorated with “Goodbye, Dave,” flanked by two models. Bill Murray busts through from inside the cake. He doesn’t come out of the top; he comes right through the entire cake, like the Kool-Aid Man, falling to the stage floor. He is wearing goggles and is completely covered in cake, from head to toe. He immediately hugs Dave and wipes cake all over his head and face. He walks into the audience and wipes cake on a few people’s faces, kisses an audience member, and shares cake with bass player Felicia Collins. When Murray finally makes it to the seat, Dave says, “This guy is a professional. If you kids at home want to try something like this, don’t forget the protective cake goggles.”

Sheila Rogers: There really wasn’t an order to booking Bill Murray. He doesn’t have a publicist or agent that you deal with. I would text him and never know when I was gonna hear back from him. Sometimes he would text back something that would be funny, but wouldn’t really be an answer. He was another one that said, “Of course I’ll be here.” He was always a handful, but great. He was the first guest on the show and the last guest.

Photo courtesy of Brian Teta.

Brian Teta: I was at the desk with Dave and Mike Buczkiewicz right before Bill Murray walked out. Part of my job as a segment producer was that I go through the questions with Dave. You are screaming because the band is playing. I said, “I think this is it, this is the last one.” Dave said, “I guess it is. Thank you, boys. Thank you very much.” I said, “It’s been an honor.” It was a nice moment before the last guest. It was my goodbye with Dave. 

Mike Buczkiewicz: There was cake on my leg. There was cake in Brian’s office later that night. “Why do I smell like frosting?” We would find cake in our notebooks days later. It was a lot of cake.

Brian Teta: That cake was a mess. He was supposed to emerge from the cake not popping out of it as much as it ended up being. It kind of happened. I loved that he hugged Dave with all the cake. I was hoping he would do that. You can’t suggest that to Dave, but he did it and it was great.

Bill Murray remembers he left something in the cake and pulls out two more supermodels, who are also covered in cake. They put more cake in Dave’s face. Dave and Murray sit down and have a good discussion. Dave says, “You were on our first show here. You were on our first show at NBC. You became such a big part of our program that the doors through which you entered the first time you were on this show were immediately named and still today are referred to as the ‘Bill Murray Doors.’ Right over there. It’s the first exit. Part of the show vernacular.” 

Randi Grossack: I thought everyone knew we always called them that. On the first show, Bill pulled Dave on the street to 53rd Street. If someone had to walk out, we said, “Have them go out the ‘Bill Murray Doors.’”

These are the “Bill Murray” Doors. Photo taken in 2018 by Scott Ryan.

They discuss Murray’s classic film Caddyshack. The staff has compiled a montage of all of Bill Murray’s entrances throughout the years, from his first appearance, on October 6, 1980, on the morning show, through spray-painting “Dave” on the desk, to entrances dressed as Liberace or flying in like Peter Pan. After the clips, Murray suddenly remembers he has to do a commercial for a Slovenia vodka. He pulls out a bottle and two shot glasses and starts doing shots with Dave.

Mike Buczkiewicz: It was always a high production when Bill Murray was on. Brian and I were doing the last one. Bill shows up early. I get this call from a production assistant. They say, “Bill Murray is here.” No publicist. Bill Murray. He wanted to see the cake. We went to the green room and talked about the interview. He said, “I got one more idea.” He explains that he wants to do a commercial for Vodka. It was hysterical. I said, “I can have props get a bottle of vodka.” He pulls out this bottle and says, “I have one.” Normally what we would do is have Pat Farmer take the bottle, dump out the alcohol, and replace it with water. He said, “Dump it out? Give me that bottle back.”

Brian Teta: Bill pours us each a very large glass—straight. He said, “Drink that and we’ll keep talking.” It’s like two in the afternoon! We did it.

Mike Buczkiewicz: So now I am drinking with Bill Murray and one of my best friends. This is gonna go horribly awry because we still have to produce the second-to-last Late Show. Then we had to go back to Dave’s office to tell him about the fake commercial. That was the time of day when we would normally talk to him about the guest. You kind of felt like you were back in high school and your parents came home early and you may or may not have been drinking. You are always a little on edge when you go talk to Dave. You are emotional because it is second-to-last show, you are drinking, and you have to see Dave. I think we looked for gum.

Murray decides Dave shouldn’t ever leave, and he needs to start the movement. Dave wonders if it’s the vodka talking. “We just want you to stay and not give up. We just want more.” Murray gets the audience to start cheering, “More! More! More!” Dave thanks him for the “friendship you brought to this program.” Murray decides it is up to the American people to organize to make Dave stay. He gets up and exits through the “Bill Murray Doors” one last time. 

He walks up the street interacting with fans who are waiting outside. He has them get in a circle on the middle of Broadway, stopping traffic. He starts singing to the John Lennon song “Give Peace a Chance.” His reworked lyrics are “All we are saying . . . is more Worldwide Pants.” A large crowd engulfs the comic legend. They sing and chant along. The screen fades to commercial, and “All Along the Watchtower” is the song Paul decides to play for this break, preparing the audience for the musical guest: Bob Dylan.

Kathy Mavrikakis: Originally he wanted to bring the entire audience out with him. We tried to explain to him that it wasn’t possible. We needed them back in the theater for Bob Dylan. You can’t unload 500 people and then reload them and keep to our time schedule. We kept saying, “Logistically this is not a good idea.” I didn’t need to have security other than a couple of NYC police around because it wasn’t something where everyone saw us rehearse it. It was gonna be one of those things where it happens before people can get mobilized and realize what is happening. We really didn’t plan too much. Then he got out there and got surrounded.

Brian Teta: I wanted very much for Bill to walk out the “Bill Murray doors,” like he did on the first show. He did that. We had a bigger idea that couldn’t work out for safety reasons where at one point Bill was gonna be on top of a double-decker bus doing a New York tour. 

Mike Buczkiewicz: It was very chaotic. I think the street singing went on for another five minutes that didn’t air. There was such a mob scene around him so fast. He had security, and it was fine in the end. He ended up being right by the marquee, and he ducked back in that way.

 

Bill Scheft: Bill was a valuable guest. That night, after his appearance, I was waiting for Dave outside the dressing room to run the final monologue for the next day. Bill and Dave had a really nice conversation. It was like two guys who don’t get to have this kind of conversation with anyone and they got to have it with each other. They clearly respected each other. There are show business friends and real friends. I think the two of them are real friends.

Eddie Valk: Coming out with that cake, it’s like organized chaos. It’s like a dance. It’s a hustle once we hit that commercial break. All the people cleared the spots where the cake was. We had to make sure there was wardrobe standing by and makeup artists for Dave. We had to spray down the stage and keep it as neat as we can in that short of a time. 

Musical Guest

Bob Dylan’s baseball card dates his first appearance as March 22, 1984. Dave now has on a new suit jacket, and his face is cake-free. He introduces Dylan with, “I spend a lot of time, like everybody does, driving around with my son, Harry. You take an opportunity to either teach him or reinforce things for him. I say, ‘Harry, what are the two more important things to know in the world?’” Dave imitates Harry, in a high-pitched voice: “One, you have to be nice to other people.” And the second one? “The greatest songwriter of modern times is Bob Dylan.” 

The camera cuts to a straight-on wide shot of Dylan and his band. Dylan appears sepia toned thanks to the filter and lighting. The backing band is lit in shadows, shaded in yellow and tan. Dylan sings the standard “The Night We Called It a Day” from his then-new release, Shadows in the Night. The entire song is filmed straight ahead, without cuts. The old-fashioned microphone, the coloration, and the single camera are unconventional for a music performance. 

The song appropriately concludes with the line “The night we called it a day.” Dave enters and Dylan shakes his hand. Dylan strangely glides slowly away from Dave. “There you go, buddy,” Dave says, motioning to the audience. 

Jerry Foley: This is all Bob Dylan. I can take no credit other than that I helped them get what they wanted. Bob had a very specific idea: single camera. He had a lighting plot that he had already worked out. He brought in a few experts that he had worked with. There my job is more to facilitate than to create. I knew what was possible and what they wanted. In rehearsal, during the instrumental segment your instinct is to go to the musician and take the camera off of Bob, who was doing nothing. I knew Bob wanted a single camera. I said to his manager, “I am thinking of pushing by Bob to go to the guitar and then widen out again when the instrumental is over.” They couldn’t give me an answer. They said, “I’m not sure if we are supposed to do that.” I said, “I don’t want Bob to look bad because he has nothing to do during this instrumental.” We played the round-and-round. Bob was standing there, but what you learn is that you can’t always ask. You are supposed to know. The consensus among the managers was, “Let’s run it again; do what you think is best and we will find out.” I found out. No. Do not take Bob off camera.

Lee Ellenberg: The performance that really truly moved me was Bob Dylan. My two favorite musical performers are Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. But to see Bob Dylan on our stage—he had performed for Letterman before, but the fact that he did it not when Bob was available. He made a point of doing it for that show. This was a special occasion, and I like the fact that a man that I respect so much respected the man I worked for. I just remembered how much I loved the song and the lights and just on him. It really did hit home. Bob Dylan belongs on the Mount Rushmore of music, and the fact that he chose to do this was very special. The notion that fifty years from now it will be a nice moment to see Bob Dylan on the same stage as David Letterman—giants in their respective fields. 

Sheryl Zelikson: That was all Sheila Roberts, and it was not an easy task. She worked very, very hard to get Bob Dylan. And it was down to the wire, that I remember. 

Rick Scheckman: Bob Dylan didn’t come up till the last moment. I think Foo Fighters might have been scheduled for both days.

Brian Teta: It didn’t happen, but it was very close that the musical guest was gonna be Billy Joel and not Bob Dylan on that show. I wanted the reciprocity. I wanted the circle to come all the way around because Bill Murray and Billy Joel were on the first show on CBS. In my head and I pushed hard internally for this, I really wanted Billy Joel to sing “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway).” I wanted him to sing it on the marquee. You can’t go wrong with Dylan, but I liked the idea of the first guest and musical performance back on the last show. 

Sheila Rogers: Getting Bob Dylan was a bit of a coup. He doesn’t do a lot of TV. He had done our show at NBC, done an anniversary special, and the show at CBS. That took a lot of time to get that in place. 

Vincent Favale: Those musical moments were touching. There was a soundtrack to these final shows. Bob Dylan? It was pretty damn impressive. Now I am sad. Thanks for bringing up these horrible memories. [Laughs]

Kathy Mavrikakis: It was the night of wandering gentlemen. I felt like Regis wandered around in the monologue, then wandered out. Bill Murray wandered out of the theater. Then later, when Dave tried to thank Bob Dylan, Dylan just wandered off. I called that the night of wandering old men. 

Brian Teta: When I was seventeen years old, I was on vacation with my parents. It was somewhere in upstate New York and I had to rent a TV to watch Bill Murray on the first Late Show in 1993. The idea that I got to produce his last appearance on the show is the most amazing thing in the world to me. It was so much pressure, so scary, but such a fulfilling, incredible moment to happen.

This episode ends with an “In Memoriam”

Kathleen Ankers • Dorothy Chambers • Calvert Deforest • Kevin Dronne • Michael “Doc” Goldsmith • Michele O’Callaghan • Thomas Richards • Bobby Savene • Leonard Tepper • Bill Wendell • Benny Williams

Worldwide Pants Tag: “Worldwide Pants.”