Tuesday 1 February 2022

worldwide pants incorporated

On this day in 1982, shortly following the cancellation of his mid-morning variety talk show and keeping a similar format with the same supporting cast, NBC debuted Late Night with David Letterman. Prior to the host’s entrance on stage accompanied by dancing girls and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto № 1, Larry “Bud” Melman recited the prologue of Boris Karloff’s character in Frankenstein. The evening’s guests were Bill Murray (Letterman’s final guest thirty-three years later) and Don Herbert—TV’s Mister Wizard—and included man-on-the-street interviews and another reading from an obscure Bela Lugosi film, the 1949 Bowery at Midnight. Initial reception was mixed but the premiere critically drew a significant audience-share from Tom Snyder’s The Tomorrow Show.