LATE NUT WITH DAVID LETTERHEAD

LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN
1982-1993 NBC

LATE NUT WITH DAVID LETTERHEAD
Cracked #232, November 1987
w & a: Bob Fingerman

Before his later show on CBS, for years he did a talk show that was on after Johnny Carson, in the slot now filled by Seth Meyers.

The show, patterned after Johnny Carson's Tonight Show but more “edgy”, would begin with him doing a monologue and then small-talk with his bandleader Paul Shaffer, who also acted as his sidekick. Sometimes he would read mail from his viewers and respond, then when he was done he'd throw the card out the window behind him. It was a set with no glass but used a sound effect of glass breaking when he did it.

Another recurring sketch was called Brush With Greatness, involving his asking audience members about their experience with that very thing. Larry “Bud” Melman (Calvert Deforest) was used because he was an incompetent actor bad at reading cue cards.

Stupid Pet Tricks was another recurring bit of his, where guests would come on with their cats or dogs that would do things like open doors. Jack Hannah was a zookeeper that would bring on animals solely for the purpose of embarassing Letterman, similar to a bit Carson had. Sometimes when he freaked out, he'd do a minstrel voice that...say it with me... doesn't age well today. After doing a top ten list usually based on the news events of the day, before the commercial he'd have shots with a camera that was supposedly operated by a monkey or was similarly out of control.

Chris Elliott was a frequent guest often doing sketches before going on to some of his own shows, then coming back. Before he and Dave became rivals vying for the Tonight Show spot, Jay Leno was another frequent guest and a bit was called “What's my beef?”

There's a guy on YouTube that taped every episode of Late Night when it was on and has been uploading most of them.

UPDATE:

LATE NIGHT OF THE SUPERSTARS
Avengers #239, January 1984
w: Roger Stern
a: Al Milgrom & Joe Sinnott

Slightly different from the Avengers you know from the movies, but that's because it was 39 years ago. For a month, Marvel had something called "Assistant Editors' Month", where the regular editors were gone and the assistants took over. For about 2 years, Marvel was into self-parody, and I guess this was a way to do that and it was a tryout to see who'd be promoted. Michael Carlin, who was assistant for this, is now an executive for DC Entertainment.