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20 Dec 2011 21:37

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Culture: Happy would’ve-been 50th birthday, Bill Hicks. Here’s your finest moment.

  • Alright, this makes up for the last post. Bill Hicks, an fearlessly acerbic comedian famous for his brave commentary, would have turned 50 last Friday — had he not died of liver cancer in 1994, at the peak of his popularity. Slate did us a favor and posted his greatest moment, this 1993 “Late Show With David Letterman” routine, which stayed in the vault for 16 years after (according to Hicks himself) CBS balked at his jokes about Christianity. (Which, mind you, are nowhere near as bad as the action made them out to be.) We couldn’t even imagine what sort of brutal jokes he’d make about the current state of reality television, based on his super-dark Billy Ray Cyrus bit at the beginning. Letterman, regretting what happened, aired the performance in 2009, with Hicks’ mother at his side. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Apr 2011 11:47

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Politics: Birther drama: People who Donald Trump has pissed off lately

  • Letterman’s lashing out On a Thursday night episode of “The Late Show with David Letterman,” the host ripped into one of Trump’s friends, Dr. Phil, over Trump’s behavior in recent weeks. “It’s all fun, it’s all a circus, it’s all a rodeo, until it starts to smack of racism. And then it’s no longer fun,” he said. Letterman also noted that they may not bring Trump back on the show as a guest in the future over the birther stuff.
  • Seinfeld’s Charity drop-out The incident mirrors a recent decision by Jerry Seinfeld to not take part in a Trump-sponsored charity event. Rather than handle the real issue at hand, Trump went after Seinfeld’s admittedly terrible “The Marriage Ref.” “What I do feel badly about is that I agreed to do, and did, your failed show, ‘The Marriage Ref,'” he wrote, “even though I thought it was absolutely terrible.” Damn brah. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Feb 2011 11:02

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Culture: David Letterman “sorry” for letting Lindsay Lohan dupe him

  • People are just, ‘are you kidding me? This is gonna be fantastic, this is gonna be like the Super Bowl’ … And then Lindsay Lohan says, ‘Oh, you know none of that’s happening.’ … It turns out we were duped. And I have no one to blame but myself, and boy is my face red.
  • David Letterman • Laughing off that whole mess with Lindsay Lohan in that fatherly way that he’s pretty darn good at. source and extend it in the attribution. It’s a good thing ol’ Dave has a sense of humor about all this, because we’d be pretty pissed if Lindsay Lohan blew us off. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Feb 2011 21:23

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Culture: Lindsay Lohan’s dad trying being Lindsay’s publicist, fails

  • pranked! So, Lindsay Lohan was booked to be on David Letterman tonight, as sort of a funny opportunity to make fun of her current status. Problem is, it wasn’t true, and someone booked her to the “Late Show” without having the right to do so.
  • prankster For a while, it seemed like the alleged prankster was a close friend of Lohan’s, but in reality it was *sigh* her equally embarrassing dad, Michael Lohan. He took credit for the mixup, but says she had agreed to be on the show. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Jul 2010 20:39

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Culture: Harvey Pekar was one of our heroes. RIP, dude from Cleveland.

  • A modest antihero if there ever was one. Harvey Pekar may not have had a super-exciting life by traditional standards, but he certainly knew how to make it feel a lot more important than it really was. The miserable guy from Cleveland took all those failings and little victories and turned them into “American Splendor,” one of the greatest underground comic books ever made. Beyond being one of our personal inspirations, his autobiographical works helped inspire a generation of DIY artists – even if he couldn’t draw anything beyond a stick figure. Beyond the comics, here are three ways you know his work:

  • His Letterman guest spotsPekar’s many guest appearances on “Late Night With David Letterman” were often funny, but this particular clip got him banned from the show for a number of years – not only did he wear a shirt bad-mouthing NBC, he trashed on the network’s corporate owners, General Electric. A gripping watch.

  • His protegé ToBy RadloffPartly due to the Letterman appearances, some of his friends, who regularly showed up in his comic books, built a name outside of them. Radloff is the best-known Clevelandite to build success off his comic notoriety, with appearances on both MTV and the local “The Eddie Marshall Show.”

  • His popular hit moviePekar, Radloff and pretty much everybody else in his life got the documentary-slash-biography treatment in the 2003 film “American Splendor,” which pulled off the neat trick of mixing comics, drama and real people – and built a base for Paul Giamatti’s later “Sideways” fame. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Apr 2010 12:25

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Culture: Jay Leno’s new “Tonight Show” looking like Conan’s in the ratings

Faint lines: First weeks of Conan vs. Letterman last year. Bold lines: First weeks of Leno vs. Letterman this year. Note that Conan and Leno are doing about the same. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Mar 2010 20:22

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Culture: That producer dude who tried extorting Letterman pleaded guilty

Robert Joel Halderman, who tried to extort David Letterman for having an affair with his girlfriend, will spend six months in jail. And he gave up his right to appeal. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

07 Feb 2010 21:32

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Culture: Best Super Bowl ad ever: David Letterman, Oprah & Jay Leno reunite

  • It’s official. Nothing can top this Super Bowl classic of an ad. It’s a sequel to the Oprah/Dave ad from a year or two ago, and Leno’s appearance is just the salve needed in a late-night war that had just started to heat up again. We approve. The New York Times has a pretty awesome background on how this happened. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Jan 2010 09:52

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Culture: How other late-show hosts sent off Conan O’Brien last night


  • Kimmel: Clever splicing Jimmy Kimmel has really come into his own during the whole late night saga, and this clip is no exception. It splices Jay Leno’s 1989 movie “Collision Course” into a Conan revenge fantasy. Sweet!

  • Fallon: Boyz II Men Probably due to the fact that he’s kind of the new kid on the block, Jimmy Fallon has kept his head low during the whole late night debacle. As a result, this clip is sweet, but fairly safe.

  • Letterman: A sequel?!Letterman has perhaps had the most fun with the saga, but tonight he was a bit off with the approach, which parodied the infamous 1996 HBO movie “The Late Shift,” and imagined who would play Dave.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Jan 2010 00:04

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Culture: Before they were at each other throats: Late-night class photos

It’s weird how innocent the trio looked in their high school class photos. Other highlights include Jimmy Fallon wearing super-thin pencil ‘stache. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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