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February 15, 1982, WE Were David Letterman…Sort Of

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Eyes Of A Generation.com


February 15, 1982, WE Were David Letterman…Sort Of…

Beautifully shot from David’s point-of-view, this opening segment starts in this dressing room and gives us a great look at NBC Studio 6A. I posted this a couple of years ago, but thanks to Andy Rose, here it is again with some names to the faces that Andy has provided. Associate Director Pete Fatovich is in the red shirt. Producer Barry Sand has curly white hair and a mustache. Head Writer Merrill Markoe (David’s then girlfriend) has long straight hair and is seen just before he enters. Barbara Gains (now Executive Producer) is in burgandy standing between a TK44 and Andy Rooney. The first man we see may be Executive Producer Jack Rollins, but I’m not sure. Who else can you name that we see?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_-EUjOEFr8

An interesting opening from “Late Night With David Letterman”, from the host’s perspective. Aired February 15, 1982 – the 9th show of the series.

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13 responses to “February 15, 1982, WE Were David Letterman…Sort Of”

  1. Gigi Shapiro Kulick

    RIP Pete Fatovich…

  2. Peter Basil

    Worked on that show for years, usually laughed from the moment I asked the tape op to get “up to speed”, until the end of the show when I asked the op to spot check the tapes. Peter Fatovich is one of the funniest people I ever worked with; the control room production staff was totally laid back. Jack Rollins sat in the control room, laughing at the most unusual times…the rest of us would look at each other and start laughing at Jack laughing at nothing in particular. We had so much fun behind the scenes.

  3. Linc Oldham

    Miss the original show terribly….the spontaneity, the appearance of being unrehearsed at times, the writers…Merrill Markoe, Chris Elliot, Gerard Mulligan, the simple 4 member band, Paul, Sid, Will, Anton…Hal “Gurtner” the director…. the guy under the seats, pushing stuff off a 5 story building, smashing stuff, random phone calls to a pay phone on the sidewalk, talking to people with a megaphone down on the sidewalk, which led to calling the person in the office building across the street, etc. SInce the move to CBS, with bigger-must-be-better thinking, the show seems contrived, staged, over rehearsed and just not funny at all.

  4. Neil Bobrick

    Back when Letterman was creative and funny. Loved the clip.

  5. Dave Ricklin

    Do you think Dave was actually standing next to the camera the whole time, or do you think he was talking from a separate room, just narrating the goings on? I always felt like the camera was taking Dave’s path, but there wasn’t room in those narrow hallways for Dave to walk with him. And I think this was before the days of Dave being able to have a small camera mounted to him (a la “Late Night Monkey Cam”).

  6. Rob Kates

    Don’t forget about Larry “Bud” Melman. After the move to CBS, he was known as Calvert DeForest since NBC had intellectual property including the name Bud Melman. Announcer Bill Wendell worked as the announcer for Ernie Kovacs back when he was the Monday-Tuesday host of The Tonight Show during the Steve Allen years.

  7. James M Patterson

    Wow, they all look so… young!

  8. Christopher Goosman

    That’s the Late Show I fell in love with.

  9. Brian Grossman

    Back then late night television was a completely different climate. Remember, the theme of Dave’s Late Night was that it was the “anti-talk show” and there weren’t many to choose from. They tried to do as much as possible to be the exact opposite of Carson’s Tonight Show, which was a mandate from NBC’s Dave Tebet. Dave absolutely borrowed many bits (and slightly altered them) from Steve Allen.

  10. John Roger Bolin

    If Dave would do this sort of thing again on a regular basis maybe he could beat Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show. Dave got so may of these bits from Steve Allen.

  11. Brian Grossman

    Right before Andy Rooney is stage manager Dency Nelson.

  12. Brian Grossman

    The first two women: Sandra Furton and Candy Carell (makeup).

  13. Lou Spinnazola

    Dave was such a breath of fresh air for TV during Late Night.

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