I worked for Phil (and Marlo, indirectly) for a few years. He's a great guy, and she's lovely, too. He's a broadcaster even when you're sitting alone chatting with him.
He had interesting guests, launching his show with-GASP!-America's Most Hated Woman, Madalyn Murray O'Hair who had just gotten MANDATORY prayer taken out of tax-funded public schools by the Supreme Court. I'd seen the MMOH episode several times before realizing that was Phil's FIRST show. The rumors soon started that if a kid VOLUNTARILY prayed or had a Bible in their locker, schools had to punish them. No, they just had to stop MAKING KIDS pray while a faculty member prayed on the PA system. Oprah started with meaningful guests, too, and then Geraldo took the genre' downhill with, as some have said, "Nazis and Satanists".
"When TV was still worth watching." For every great Letterman or Donahue 40 years ago, there were countless more duds. You just don't remember the duds. Just like today. There is some amazing TV being made now, and countless trash. Always been that way, and always will be.
Thanks for these Don. Its like im sitting home with my mom on a day she called me in sick to school watching the guy she watched every night. i miss her very much right now.:) DAVE RULES!
I watched Letterman religiously during the '80s, and I watched Donahue when I could, but I didn't know this existed until I stumbled upon it now. I remember that David was already being talked about as a possible successor to Carson, but he was always careful to deny or defer when asked about it. He handles the surprise guests here with self-conscious grace (which might explain why he dislikes being surprised), and the audience with (as someone below comments) disarming charm. Thank your for uploading this.
As Donahue intimated, my VHS VCR was primarily for taping Letterman at his 12:30 timeslot starting in the 10th grade, then watching it after school. In a foreshadowing of the Seinfeld episode where he taped a ballgame, I was always telling other people at school, "Don't tell me about Letterman, I taped it." How they managed to watch until 1:30 AM and then be up for school was beyond me. Once I had a real social life, I did the same thing with Farley/Spade-era Saturday Night Live.
Phil also does a great interview with Johnny Carson in 1970 and Johnny is great with Phil. Genuine, funny, and seems relaxed with being questioned. I usually found Johnny uneasy to a large degree when he was being interviewed.
This is perhaps the best interview with Dave I've ever seen (and I've seen a whole bunch over the decades). Much more relaxed and honest than he normally is!
29:20 and 39:28: "This is your life, David Letterman". Great clip from "Donahue"! Loved Dave in this entire video. Saw this show when it actually aired. If I recall correctly, this was Phil Donahue's first regular show that aired from New York. Thanks for sharing, Don..
That's fairly accurate. I haven't watched a talk show since Dave left the air. I've seen lots of Conan and Seth Meyers clips on RU-vid, but nothing else interests me. But to be honest, I quit watching Letterman the last few years as he seemed to be just phoning it in. I watched the last few weeks of final shows however.
What a great show. Letterman was never so authentic and down to earth as he was that day. And Donahue deserves enormous credit for pulling the whole thing off.
4:26 Dave makes a joke about not saying "'hot' in this studio" "One of the most talked-about incidents in Donahue's history came on January 21, 1985, soon after the show moved to New York. On this day's program, seven members of the audience appeared to faint during the broadcast, which was seen live in New York. Donahue, fearing the fainting was caused by both anxiety at being on television and an overheated studio, eventually cleared the studio of audience members and then resumed the show. It turned out the fainting "spell" was cooked up by media hoaxer Alan Abel in what Abel said was a protest against what he termed as poor-quality television."
I watched a video of Merrill Markoe’s favorite moments of LNwDL. In the comments someone wrote “Dave will never be a groom to Merrill and Merrill will never be his bride.” It stuck my heart when he talked about her as his bride. 😭Although, I approve of her selection of current partner. I love the song “Mexican Radio”
You can look at any audience from the 70's and 80's and see something's different. My money's on pesticides and vaccine adjuvants goofing up our brains.
I watched the daytime Letterman show. Takes me back to my normal days. When life was not twitterized. Where were you when Letterman was daytime. What would Dave or Phil do if they had been thwarted from doing what they loved.
I was in the ninth grade when Letterman was daytime. I was 20 when this episode of Donahue aired. The first time I heard of Letterman was when he was on the cover of the Miami Herald TV Guide in 1980
That’s funny. Polo shirts were all the rage in the 80s to early 90s. Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and eventually Gap and Old Navy sold them by the millions.
Merrill was/is hilarious. I wish they could have made it work, they seemed like a great couple. Identical style of humour. Self deprecating with lots of sarcasm.
Dave's friend Jeff wrote a cool book about their college yrs called "The Sweetheart Of Sigma Chi." The girlfriend he mentioned in college was eventually Dave's 1st wife Michelle - Jeff was at their elopement & tells a very funny story about it.
that Rocky the Bulldog clip was a really good idea for an example clip from the late show. very tumultuous outlay of comedy, dave's show could be paced like splitting wood, with the occasional incidental audience uproar
The Drake Hotel - one of the sponsors - was razed about a decade ago. I like the audience members - plucky New Yorkers sounding like they're mostly from Queens. I remember this being broadcast - particularly when Dave's frat brother was brought out and the two men kind of shrugged at the bizarreness of it. Happy times.
Joan Rivers was the permanent guest host at this time. But I do not think she ever would have gotten the show for herself. They would have continued stringing her along in that respect. Just interesting they thought that Dave was to be a replacement. And I remember we all did. Jay Leno was awful. Shoulda picked Dave!
I was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to be in the audience of both these gentlemen’s shows! At the time I was at Phil’s he was still doing the show in Chicago and his guest that day? Harry Reemes! The guy who stared opposite Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat! What do you ask him? As for Letterman, the guest were John Goodman and Heather Locklear who David spent the entire interview trying to humiliate! Not my favorite host at all! What you see on screen is not what you get in real life! He never gave you the feeling he enjoyed the work. Never interacted with the audience even once! It was his last year on his contract.
3:02 "you've also interviewed the chefs where famous people eat". I personally would be very interested to know exactły where those chefs are that people seem to eat at.
Stupid Pet Tricks to this day has me saying, regarding elections and sports events, "As Always, Folks, This is an Exhibition, not a Competition. Please, no Wagering".
interesting interview and candid questions from the audience. dave wasn't nearly as snarky here as he generally was in interviews, especially later in his career.
35:49 _“None of the names come to mind…”_ In his later years, Letterman made it more obvious that this is one of his go-to jokes. Completely lost on this audience, in this era.
@@dongiller - I think he did another countdown calendar gag with Oprah coming on the show after teasing her for years about not ever being a quest on the show?
I remember that era. Dave might be considered tame or passé now, but prior to his arrival on the scene national shows tended to be of the Johnny Carson format, Donahue/Oprah format, or the slightly more edgy Tom Snyder or ridiculous Jerry Springer format. Dave’s brand of juvenile irreverence (paired with his disarming charm and self-effacing humor) was new and fresh at the time, and taking his camera crew out on the street to talk with everyday New Yorkers in an unplanned and unscripted manner was funny and something new. A lot of shows since have done it (like Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” or Jimmy Kimmel’s version), so it’s no big deal now. Maybe part of that had something to do with cameras becoming portable enough in the 1980s to take around the building or onto the street. I can imagine a lot of people thought Letterman’s show was kind of stupid, but the fact that it wasn’t over-rehearsed or canned made it feel spontaneous, and its silliness made it a fun way to end a long day.
In retrospect, David benefited from the move to CBS, for several reasons. As it turned out, he didn't need to inherit The Tonight Show to inherit Carson's crown.
As I understand it, Johnny asked Dave who he thought was the funniest man in the business. Johnny probably thought the answer would be either one of the two in the conversation. Logical. But no Dave was very genuine when he said Jay Leno. Jay and Dave were great friends and he would come on Dave's show and be very funny. Aaangh: wrong answer!!!! Johnny always wanted Dave but the NBC execs took Dave's answer and ran with it. The rest is history. Or as Dave would say: In the archives. That book The Late Shift might have a totally different story but this came right from the horse's mouth. Mr Ed .
Gotta love the humourless Debbie Downer at the end, "What is the point of this?". Good grief, I bet she gets invited to ALL the parties. Yeah, I bet Dave was hoping to boost his mid-day Phil Donahue octogenarian demographic.
Those were the style back then. Thirty years from now people will be saying something similar about the glasses of today, unless we all have robot eyes then.
The glasses back then we're hideous. Just awful. Just like polyester suits for men. I was married in the best polyester powder blue polyester tux you could get. I can't look at the pictures of me in that even toda Luckily my first marriage ended. The second time I married I was wearing a Hugo Boss Tux. What a difference between the two suits. It's like night and day. I still have it and could if need be I could wear it again.
@@dongiller I liked the "don't say hot in this studio" line from Letterman - one of the best events to happen on a Donohue show a few days earlier. Did you see it?
