Dave Edits Out a Joke on Letterman, March 25, 1987 

Dave was unlike anything on TV.

I dunno about that, but thanks. :)

@@dongiller you’re a f’n master archivist, sir

Yep! Needed about 500kg of equipment just to do a location stand up.... Now all you need is a mobile phone - which is more powerful than the $50,000 ENG kits!! Robotic studio cameras.....it's all gone to hell.

Actually you could cut videotape and make a frame accurate edit that would maintain video sync, I believe it was possible on 2" formats because they were not helical scan. You needed a magnifying glass or microscope(or something..I forget) to see where the frame was recorded onto the tape and literally sliced the tape between the frame infomation "blocks" and taped the backside of the videotape together. Later video formats were helical scan, meaning the frames of video were laid down at angle (so more information would fit onto a given height of tape), so cutting straight across the tape would destroy a frame of information, and probably create other problems. An experienced video engineer explained all this to me when I first started in television production.

@@Nicedesk wow, I did not know that. Fascinating. I seem to recall that most editors would use multiple machines and do the copy/transfer technique etc.

@@voicetube ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JR2JJTZTTIs.html maybe interesting for you. This footage was shot on film, then transferred to video tape and physically cut for edits.

I've been hearing that a lot these days -- folks either too young or too far away to have been aware of Dave's NBC years. I find that amazing and am gratified you and they are now seeing this stuff. It's what made Dave famous, and it's what got him to his CBS show.

it's so good. hope to see more weird stuff like this coming...fits my humor perfectly and i can see why conan kept that style while on late night. seemed like when dave went to cbs the show changed, or at least i'm assuming that. guess that's growin up tho

I vaguely remember Dave on NBC as a very young child I'm 32 now

@@dongiller You're also creating a vault of treasures for the ones of us who are borned and live in countries that didnt air these show and only knows Lettermans shows from the last 10-15 years. Thanks.

That's science fictiony!

Yeah, thinking about this being filmed live to tape and then EDITED in real time as well is just sickeningly complex to consider. My dad worked in this field for USAF broadcasting and I'd imagine this shit blew him away at the time.

I asked Brian McAloon, who sat next to Pete Fatovich about this. He told me that they had 4 videotapes going to make sure this little bit worked.

Cool. Thanks for that info

Ah, at first I thought Dave called an audible here but it makes more sense that the bit was pre-planned. Just curious though, what would have happened if the joke didn't tank?

So one of them is the “master tape” with the bombed joke and another is the “edited master” (the one that was broadcast) without.

It took careful planning and rehearsal to make this bit look spontaneous. Of course, anyone who worked in TV would have known what was involved.

The “baby” is now 35 years old!

Fran's baby was a still born

Many, many times.

Dave could go wherever he wanted thats what was great about letterman you never knew what he'd do

Shaffer; Paul Shaffer.

Fifth Anniversary Special, February 7, 1987.

So it was from that point on that the intro was simply zooming through various buildings as well as various other places. Was the 10th Anniversary show the first time we saw 3D computer graphics that would be reworked slightly for most of the final season?

I plan to put up a compilation of every different LN opening montage. Will document dates then.

OK, thank you.

I don’t, nor do I see a need for one.

@@dongiller Ah well. Thanks for replying.