Late Show #1, August 30, 1993, Full, Stereo 

Man, CBS did *EVERYTHING* to make that show the 2nd coming of Jesus and Elvis combined. It's undeniable just how much CBS cared about Dave, and how far they were willing to go for him.

Dave's move to CBS was EPIC in nature. The emotions and excitement were palpable. Dave lived up to the very creative and persistent hype (LOL) via CBS promotions. Thanks for sharing.

Thanking the construction workers. Just the kind of touch that Letterman would make. Kudos.

All of these shows that you have taken the time to put up here is highly appreciated man. It brings back so many great memories. Thank you.

♥️ I love whoever created this channel.

NBC always makes bad choices. CBS does a great job. Loved the Letterman show. Still happy to see his current endeavors outside of regular TV.

Man, I remember being so excited watching this when it aired. Great memories.

Thank you for posting this!!!!! Enjoying reliving this monumental experience

"Where the hell are the singing cats?"

I like seeing the WCBS-TV coverage before the show. It's too bad that Dave did not follow Johnny as host of The Tonight Show. But, he carved out an impressive niche at CBS, with his show, and the Late Late Show. CBS is a strong player in late night, and that was not always the case.

These two jokes are the intellectual property of NBC!

Everybody seemed jazzed and rejuvenated.

happy 30th anniversary! exactly 30 years ago tonight, it aired, tonight is Wed. Aug 30, 2023

This is awesome! You are getting closer to the show I attended on July 1, 1994.

I was in the audience. Billy J used cue cards during his musical performance & they did a second take of the swami bit after the show was over. Around 33:58 you can see two people standing up;that is me on the left(friends thought I was sitting directly behind Paul N as without my glasses that man looks similar to me)

Mad respect for Dave to also highlight the construction workers. Class act.

1:49 Billy Joel coming through with a relatively obscure SNL reference. Respect. "I loved it. It was much better than 'Cats'. I want to see it again and again."

5:45 The best non-sequitur ever. Hilarious. 17:37 The Great Paul Newman and one of the most hysterically funny and memorable line. LOL. Thanks for sharing.

This is funny. I was just watching my VHS recording of this, and mine is also prefaced with the local (San Francisco) reaction and watch party at a bar. As well as an interview with Dave conducted by Bob Sarlatte. That interview was split up on the newscast for the whole week, and was hilarious. Dave and Bob were great together.

28 years ago today Dave started his 22 year journey on CBS!!!

25 years ago this week, Dave Letterman came to CBS! I was 11, now I'm 36. ah, memories. Aug. 2018

This is making me so nostalgic for the 90's. Also, did they save the "Dave!" desk? I bet that would actually be worth something.

as someone who used to work in tv here in central ohio way back when, cool to see dana tyler on the anchor desk for wcbs... ;). that was quite a night seeing dave on another network other than nbc, but didn't take long to get used to it.

I see a lot of Farley came from Murray. It's almost a copy. I know Farley came after - but it's so so similar.

Dave's 1st Late Show and one of his best. The only show I like more than Late Show with Dave is Late Night with Dave.

Thank you for sharing this. It was terrific & very funny. Letterman was brilliant & I miss him on late night tv here in Australia 🇦🇺. We get Colbert & we’ll basically 👎🏼👎🏼👎🏼. Kimmel & Falon have ridiculous laughs. Again, thank you for sharing this.

in all my years of watching the intro to this show it is only just now I realized like 4 seconds into this intro, there's the opening shot of the bridge, then a couple of seconds of the pointy top of a building, immediately followed by a long overhead shot of 30 Rock in its entirety. Nice one CBS

Don, it would be terrific if we could watch the episode of "Late Night" where he announced that he was moving to CBS. I think it's January 14, 1993. I haven't ever seen it, but I heard that he announced it on that show (Late Night) the same day that he did the CBS press conference.

It's going to be the 30th anniversary of this program, on August 30th, 2023. I hope Dave will be coming back as either a special guest or even a guest host.

Great to hear this in stereo, thanks Don. Is it me, or does TV use less stereo mixing these days than it used to? Listening to this and other Letterman and Carson shows from the early stereo era, stereo is a big part of the sound mix. The music of course, but even the audience applause is very much stereo. Final note, the early Letterman set design is weird isn't it??

1993-2023 happy anniversary.

14:44, Paul Schaefer and the CBS Orchestra is playing my song.

Can't believe it's been 30 years!

Via watching the San Francisco CBS affiliate-KPIX channel 5-whike living in Pleasanton, California-I saw the original broadcast at 11:00 P.M. Pacific Standard Time-fum/memorable!

Was there an actual thing for the music used during Letterman's entrance and Newman's exit? I have a feeling that it's Ed Sullivan related but can't tell for sure.

Does anybody know what those last two jokes Tom Brokaw carried out were?

Dave came out and threw a perfect game with everything on the line. You compare this with Leno's first Tonight Show and it's no contest. Interesting moment, Dave wanted to say the NBC paint line a few minutes earlier but kept it so Bill Murray could do his thing.

I was born this day wow

I remember this 👍

My older brother Billy recently asked "Who would invite David Letterman to Christmas dinner?" 😂

great tans!

I was 2 days old

RIP Late Show With David Letterman (1993-2015)

Literally the last big star of late night.

It's good to watch real sitcom shows David Letterman is one of the best besides Johnny Carson 👍

1:25 That's Sona Movsesian, Conan O'Brien's personnel assistant. Was she planted there?

Awesome that they started playing the song physical - tribute to his funny bit on the first show of Late Night. But what I wanted to point out is - I really don’t like that song, but I like what Paul and the band did with it this time …. It’s ROCKIN’ 🤘 23:53

Where the hell are the singing cats??

Letterman was an oasis in a desert of mediocrity and he still is ....

WHERE THE HELL ARE THE SINGING CATS???!!!!

Poor old Dave didn't need an Ed Sullivan video montage to remind him of where he was or of his own place in life just as Arnold Jackson (Gary Coleman) didn't need the likes of Willis Jackson (Todd Bridges) to show or remind him of who HE was or where HIS place in life was on DIFF"RENT STROKES.

1993…man

It sounds like Paul is playing Jeremy at the last commercial break

Sue! At 34:09!!

I always preferred Letterman over Leno. Leno always seemed phony and contrived to me and I don't recall one audible LOL moment watching that show. Maybe a snicker or chuckle but that was mainly due to a guest he might have had.

Has to be said... that's a terrible song from Joel.