It was 40 years ago this week that NBC premiered the classic talk show, “Late Night with David Letterman.”
It ultimately became a huge hit; ascended to high pop culture status when the original, contentious “late night war” of 1993 happened; and eventually moved to CBS as “The Late Show With David Letterman” for another 22 years.
But when it began, as Yahoo Entertainment reported, the network wasn’t expecting much. It was set to premiere on February 1, 1982, and there were uncertainties when NBC decided on David Letterman as host for the new nighttime gabfest.
The ex-weatherman had already bombed out as a morning show host. And the network brass wasn’t sure the kind of edgier comedy that went over breakfast time heads was going to fly following the traditional favorite, Johnny Carson, either.
In fact, Letterman felt some Schadenfreude when the network kept piling on restrictions like ditching familiar elements such as having a full band and a topical opening monologue. The show seemed doomed.
So much so that even Bill Murray – a notably edgy comedian himself, slated to be the show’s first guest – was a little leery of the timing.
As Murray related to Yahoo, he had a feeling the show would be a bust, but knowing Letterman, and thinking this was a good chance to do something wild, he hopped into the spot.
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"If the show was gonna get canceled right away,” said the iconic jokester, “I thought, 'That may be the one I would like to go out on, if it was going to be canceled after one night."
Murray made himself scarce until his appearance. "I kind of disappeared," he recalled. "I came in and sort of stood around, and then disappeared and showed up a couple of minutes before I was gonna go on. That just added seven or eight layers of tension to the opening-night performance."
And in fact, that first broadcast was a little off, with Letterman entering through a parade of all-female dancers sporting super-sized peacock feathers, and the announcer promising something that will "thrill," "shock," and "horrify" viewers.
Letterman, of course, made a characteristically sarcastic quip right away in the beginning of his monologue: "I'm very excited about this new show, and it's a big three or four days for NBC."
Needless to say, Letterman survived, thrived, and became the modern standard most late night shows aspire to.
Murray’s interview with Yahoo was on the occasion of the release of his newest project, the documentary, “New Worlds: The Cradle of Civilization.” But he was happy to travel back and recall the weirdness of that first Letterman interview.
When Murray sat down, he admitted to Letterman, "I missed the first part of the show by the way. What happened? Is it going well? I know this is the first show, and I think this guy needs a little support."
Letterman quipped right back, "This may not be of any interest to anybody, and it's barely of interest to me.”
It was the beginning of a classic television pairing that lasted through 43 appearances across 33 years -- including being the very last guest Letterman had on before he retired in 2015.
That first interview was, for the time, awkward and audience-confusing, but set the template for Letterman’s celebrity guest spots going forward, full of inside-joke banter, odd surprises, and lots of ironic laughs.
As Yahoo recounts, as that interview progressed, Murray would “play with lint balls; threaten and then apologize to the host; screen footage of his new pet (a six-week-old panda he rescued from a Chinese restaurant); and share the secrets of his aerobics routine.” It all culminated in Murray belting out a hilarious version of Olivia Newton-John's hit, "Physical."
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40 years later, Murray remembers the night well, and seemingly has retained the same sense of absurdist humor.
"It was really fun," Murray said. "I remember a lot about that night, although I don't remember thinking that 'Physical' was gonna be my statement piece that I'd be remembered for. If I were taken by God tonight, probably the first thing that would come up on Yahoo tomorrow would be: 'Tragedy today as entertainer William Murray dies.' And then 'Physical' would come up and there'd be a photograph of me at the bottom of a fire escape having fallen the last three stories to the street."
The current holder of the host seat at NBC’s “Late Night”, Seth Meyers, will welcome Letterman back to the show on February 1 to mark the show’s 40th anniversary.
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