Neurosis came as naturally to Letterman as irascibility. “The 10,000 Things That Are Bothering Dave” was the title of a Vanity Fair article in the mid-’80s that essentially could find just one thing — Dave was bothering Dave. He was terrified of success and was full of self-loathing. That image, too, persisted, possibly because it was true. As actor Buck Henry said on the show late in the run, “You move from a general self-loathing to a hatred of everyone else.”
Dave had become a hero, or anti-hero, to the Prozac Generation, too.
Meanwhile, that show: “Late Night” projected a frat house party absent the keg. The host’s spiritual, so to speak, guide was Ernie Kovacs, who died in 1962, and who also believed that the most popular forms of TV — like the pervasive talent shows of the ’50s — were the most mockable ones. TV was inherently absurd, and Letterman subverted everything and everyone. His bits were either a send-up of institutional excesses — portable cams (on a monkey, and other bipeds) — or talk-show inanities (Andy Kaufman’s appearances perfectly captured this spirit). The host himself was also an object to be subverted. He wore suits made of Alka Seltzer, or marshmallows, or Rice Krispies, or magnets, then propelled himself onto whatever or into whatever made them react. He brought a basket of fruit to GE headquarters when the company took over RCA, only to be turned away.
But irony as a guiding principle for a TV show got old, and the decade — as decades do — had moved on. The “Irony Epidemic” was over (even Spy Magazine said so). TV’s ironist-in-chief got restless. Time to grow up. But grow up where?
Letterman expected the equivalent of a gold-engraved invitation from NBC to take over from Carson after he announced his retirement in 1991. That never came. The ensuing battle for “Tonight” was waged and lost, but … ultimately won. Letterman gained focus and maturity, and, in the process, discovered his second act just two big city blocks away, starting in 1993.