A Monkey On A Rock

A few months after my older brothers had moved out I finally got to have the good bedroom. While the room itself was actually smaller, it was at the back of the house, away from the main part of the house. The new digs afforded relatively more privacy and, more importantly, it had an antenna socket meaning I could have a television. And for my birthday that year, my fifteenth, I asked for and got one.
It was a dinky little twelve-inch affair that sat high on my dresser and watched down on me as slept. At last, I could watch what I wanted, when I wanted. Mostly. The good bedroom shared a wall with my parents' bedroom so late night viewing needed to be covert lest I wake them. The TV’s volume control didn’t have numbers it had notches and when secretly watching TV late at night the difference between notches seemed like a million decibels. Three notches was audible enough to hear and not be yelled at. Unfortunately late night free-to-air TV was/is mostly a wasteland and in Australia, in the late 90s consisted of infomercials, SBS and The Late Show With David Letterman. He would eventually become one of my comedy heroes.
As a talk show The Late show is ok. Monologue in the front, guests in the back. Of course there were stand-outs - episodes with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray or Martin Short - essentially an hour or so of light entertainment to fall asleep to. You’d be forgiven for thinking that’s all The Late Show is.
Where Letterman excels however is when he pushes outside the format. A perfect example being “Is This Anything” - a talent contest segment where performers would do their act flanked by a hula girl, and a woman using angle grinder on herself. After 30 seconds the curtain would come down and Dave and Paul (his long term offsider/band leader) would decide if what they just saw was in fact anything. It never was. It was this kind off-kilter pythonesque humour mixed into the aging talk show format (it was already well established when Carson came to it in the 60’s and had become stale by the time he left) that made the Letterman show special.
Unobvious fake guests, rambling surreal phone bits without punchlines, the frustrated neighbour that lives in an apartment next to the studio, Mike Singletary, Alan Kalter getting beaten up and Top Ten lists where the top entry is always the least funny all had a profound impact on my teenage sense of humour. Up til that point I had been bought up on the comedy of Britain - Python, Rowan Atkinson, and The Goodies. Dave, along with The Simpsons, was my first real gateway into the American comedy scene. Fifteen years later and both shows remain part of my routine, watching Homer at dinner time and seeing Dave before bedtime. And now that’s coming to an end.
Last Thursday Dave announced his retirement and while part of me knows it’s time another part wonders if I’ll ever be able to fall asleep without him.
Thanks Dave.