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David Letterman’s final episode hit a 10 year high in early local ratings reports. And his show pushed James Corden’s late start “Late Late Show” up a record for its short life so far. The big winner was Sting, who bridged the two shows in a bit following Letterman, sitting with Corden in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater in a sketch where he sang “Every Breath You Take.”
from tvbythenumbers: From 11:30PM-1AM, the final broadcast of LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN (Adj Avg. 9.3/24) delivered its highest local rating since Dec.1, 2005 (10.1/24) with guests Oprah Winfrey and Bonnie Raitt. Last night’s LATE SHOW outrated every primetime broadcast.
From 1AM-2AM, THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN (Adj Avg. 2.5/10) scored a new all-time high local rating, up +79% from last week (1.4/05) and +150% from last year (1.0/03).
David Letterman went out with a classy final episode tonight. He gave good wishes to his successor, Stephen Colbert. He gave great thanks to his family, to the staff, and everyone involved with the show. He did joke that he might become the new face of Scientology, and that seemed clear now he would not be getting the Tonight show.
Letterman also presented an all star Top 10 list with Bill Murray, Barbara Walters, Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Jim Carrey, Peyton Manning and Chris Rock. There were several film montages.
Letterman worked in a clip of himself with Mary Tyler Moore from the comedy sketch show on which he got his break; the show failed but the two remained great friends. There were a lot of references to Larry “Bud” Melman aka Calvin deForest, and many thank yous to Paul Shaffer.
Thirty three years really went by fast. A lifetime. #thanksdave.
Relax. None of the main ladies on “Girls” is getting murdered. But Lena Dunham is recreating the infamous grisly 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese for an episode of the show.
I’m told that Adam (Adam Driver) puts on a play, and going on in the background is the Genovese murder. In real life, Kitty Genovese was killed in Queens in 1965. She was a lesbian and a bartender. On her way home from work she was assaulted, managed to escape, and then was brutally raped and murdered.
Her story became legendary because the myth was that 38 neighbors heard her screams and did nothing. Later that was disproved. But the story stuck, and there are books and seminars about the death of Kitty Genovese and why people ignored her.
Sounds like Adam’s play is going to be a big deal. I hope there’s a Playbill!
PS I’m surprised HBO has never made a movie about Kitty Genovese. Maybe this will tip them off.
I guess I was first to report on Twitter some time ago that the Foo Fighters are David Letterman’s final musical guests.
Cynthia Littleton from Variety has reported that Jim Carrey, Tina Fey, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Steve Martin and Chris Rock are among those who’ve been spotted going into the Ed Sullivan Theater for Dave’s final show. Peyton Manning was also seen, and Barbara Walters arrived looking fragile.
Hard to imagine that if it’s just an all star rat pack that Jerry Seinfeld won’t be in the mix. And Jay Leno? Jay? We’ll see. Can’t believe it’s over. More to come…
The choice of song for the grand finale of “Mad Men” – the iconic 1971 Coca Cola advert “I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke” – which subsequently became the worldwide hit single “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” – prompted our good friend producer/writer/pop culture historian Martin Lewis to scribble a few recollections of the genesis of that song that pre-date the idea of real-life 1960s Mad Man Bill Backer of McCann Erickson.
It was McCann Erickson creative director Bill Backer who in early 1971 came up with the slogan “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company” as an idea for a Coca Cola ad campaign. But he knew it needed to become a jingle to make it succeed. So he turned to a successful British pop-writing duo Roger Cook & Roger Greenaway and gave them the challenge.
The duo wrote massive worldwide hits such as the Hollies’ 1972 smash “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress,” “You’ve Got Your Troubles” (#7 Billboard for The Fortunes in August 1965), “My Baby Loves Lovin” (White Plains, 1970) and many more.
Cook and Greenaway didn’t take long to write a song extolling the virtues of Coca Cola. They simply repurposed a song they’d already written titled “True Love and Apple Pie” – which they had written and produced for a perky Liverpudlian songbird named Susan Shirley. See her perform the song on a 1971 UK TV show here:
The song wasn’t a hit until they first changed the lyrics into a jingle for Coke – and then into yet another version without referencing the product – which was released by both the New Seekers and the Hillside Singers under its new title “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”.
The “peace ‘n’ love” all-races-living-together-in-harmony philosophy heard in the new lyrics and seen in the iconic hillside TV commercial for Coca Cola was also recycled from an earlier Cook & Greenaway song – a massive UK hit single in 1969 called “Melting Pot” by the group Blue Mink which featured lead vocals by Cook and American soul singer Madeline Bell. (The band also included legendary bassist Herbie Flowers who played the iconic bass-line on Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side”)
The lyrics were a plea for racial harmony and name-checked (among others) the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull and the Queen!
The chorus:
What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough to take the world and all it’s got
Keep it stirring for a hundred years or more
Turn out coffee-colored people by the score!
Here is Blue Mink singing the song on a 1969 TV show.
And reprising the song in a 1995 TV reunion of the core trio of Blue Mink (Cook, Bell & Flowers)
Incidentally Cook & Greenaway were not new to the US charts. In 1966 they had a Billboard Top Twenty hit as performers. At that time they were a British Invasion singing duo in the vein of Peter & Gordon known as “David & Jonathan”. Their version of the Beatles’ “Michelle” reached #18 in Billboard. Their recording – the first cover of a song from the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album – had the inside track as it was arranged and produced by Beatles producer George Martin. Who also arranged and produced their 1967 cover of “She’s Leaving Home”. It was George Martin who first spotted their talent and signed them to his AIR production company. He produced all their recordings.
Their version of “She’s Leaving Home” is very important in the Beatles universe because it indicates how George Martin might have arranged the song for the “Sgt Pepper” album had Paul McCartney permitted him! McCartney had been in a hurry to record his new song and because George Martin was unavailable the day before the scheduled session (he was busy producing the Beatles’ pal Cilla Black that day) McCartney imperiously commissioned another arranger – future Gary Glitter producer Mike Leander) to score the song. George Martin regarded Leander’s score as saccharin but gamely conducted the string section and produced the Beatles recording anyway. So arranging and producing David & Jonathan’s version of the same song a few weeks later gave him the opportunity to present the tune as he thought the orchestration should have sounded!
Sting is back from his world tour with Paul Simon, which followed his run as actor/composer of Broadway’s “The Last Ship.” So what did he do last night? Perform most of the songs in a pared down version of the show, two performances, for The Actors Fund at the McKittrick Hotel (home of “Sleep no More”).
The rocker turned Broadway composer has a Tony nomination for Best Score of a Musical, and could actually win– and should. He’s up against the fun but “Spamalot”-like “Something Rotten” (funny songs, but no keepers), and “Fun Home” (sad songs that sound like Sondheim-lite).
Hearing the songs from “The Last Ship” a few months after it closed was like meeting up with old friends. The title song is so catchy you can’t get it out of your head. Same for the great stomping “What Have You Got?” (not the real title, but that’s what I call it). The lush ballads are just gorgeous– from “What Say You Meg” to “The Night the Pugilist Learned How to Dance.”
Sting– with the eminently agreeable Jimmy Nail performing, and singing siren Jo Lawry– also added back “And Yet,” a beautiful samba number that was cut after the run in Chicago a year ago. The audience, knowing it from Sting’s album of the show’s songs, cheered when they heard it.
There were two shows last night at the McKittrick. The first one was precise and studied, as musical director Rob Mathes had rearranged the music to fit the small combo on the intimate stage. In between shows, Sting and wife Trudie Styler and a few friends were packed into a small dressing room where they dined on cold chicken and spicy pieces of steak on skewers. Jazz trumpet star Chris Botti stopped by. Hot tea with honey was made with an electric pot and poured into Dixie cups. “The glamorous rock life,” someone quipped.
The second show proved a joyous rave as a gang of “Last Ship” cast members showed up and joined in from the back of the small room as if they were still in the Wallsend bar on the stage of the Neil Simon Theater. The cast is still devoted to the show, even as they look for new jobs. They knew all the words, and sang them with gusto. A couple– husband and wife– just got in as the doors closed. They stood in the back, among the rousing cast. “We thought this would be a bad spot,” the husband observed. He was beaming. “But now we’re in the middle of everything!”
David Letterman hosted Bill Murray and Bob Dylan tonight. Just in case Wednesday night’s finale runs over, the show ran its In Memoriam Tuesday night that included Larry “Bud” Melman and Bill Wendell, plus names of others who expired during the 33 year run.
Regis Philbin made his final appearance on the show, his 136th or 150th time on the show. It was very moving.
On Tuesday, Dylan didn’t sit with Dave. After 20 years, he appeared and croaked out a song from his current album of standards, “The Night We Called it a Day.” Humorless Dylan looked constipated and unsure of why he was even there. He could have sung “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” But that would have made sense. We wouldn’t want that.
Murray was funny and touching, popping out of a real cake, with hot girls in tow, and getting the cake all over Dave. Murray had been Letterman’s first guest on his NBC and CBS shows. It was a nice touch.
Tonight, we say goodbye to David Letterman. I’ve been to his show many times over the 33 years. Once I sat in the green room with Ed Koch, but I don’t remember why. Last fall, I went with Aretha Franklin. I was there with Sam Moore and Wynonna Judd in 2006. When Letterman was on NBC, I was there a lot as a book publicist. In 1986 I brought the great Peter Ustinov, who was promoting a book for UNICEF. The episode became legendary because it ‘revolved’– at Ustinov’s point in the show, it was ‘upside down.’ Peter had a ball with it, as you’ll see in the clip below.
The amazingly talented Paul Shaffer has always been a great friend. He married the lovely Cathy Vasapoli, who was a booker when I brought guests. They are still married. Sheila Rogers started booking the musical guests in 1996, and had the absolute best taste in the world. When the show was at NBC , until 1996 at CBS, Robert “Morty” Morton was the executive producer. He was a great friend, also with terrific taste. He made the show what it was.
One more note about Paul Shaffer: using this platform he personally educated each new generation about the history of pop, soul, and blues. Without him, and Sheila, a lot of brilliant stars would have gone forgotten on late night TV. We owe them an incredible amount of thanks.
Letterman first started in the morning, then moved to late late night, and then to his current show. He had a terrible publicist all those years who kept him apart from everyone. You never ever saw David Letterman in public, at a movie or theater premiere, and rarely at a charity. He was simply not accessible in person.
But on TV he was a genius who weathered everything, even open heart surgery and blackmail. We kind of loved all his speeding tickets and his stalker. We loved his mom. And the top 10 list, and all the segments, and the way he sneaked his politics into the show. I am really, really going to miss, and I know you are, too.
Sunday night: Two reruns of “I Love Lucy” from the 1950s, colorized (objectionable, but ok whatever) scored the highest total viewers of all scripted shows that night.
“Lucy” had 6.4 million total viewers. That’s almost twice the very high “Mad Men” score of 3.3 million viewers on Sunday. That’s shows with scripts. The Billboard Music Awards had 11 million, and “60 Minutes” had 9 million.
But of all the other shows on TV Sunday night– Dateline, The Simpsons, Battle Creek– Lucy prevailed.
“Lucy” scored twice as many total viewers as Andy Samberg in “Brooklyn Nine Nine.”
The two episodes of “Lucy” looked terrible, I thought. The beautiful original black and white looked garish and Crayola like. But “Lucy” is the Shakespeare of television comedy. A few others come close, but Lucy, Desi, Vivian Vance and William Frawley were in a league of their own. All their writers and directors were, too.
David Letterman is mostly an enigma. He doesn’t socialize, is never seen on the New York circuit at movie premieres or even charity events. His wife, Regina, is not mentioned by him and rarely seen as well. There is exactly one photo of her on WireImage, for example. The best interview he ever did about himself was last year with Howard Stern. It lasted 27 minutes and was extraordinary for Letterman, who trusts Stern. Here it is:
Jane Fonda — wise and wonderful– gives a super interview to my pal Lynn Hirschberg for the cover of this month’s W magazine. And the photo is by Steven Meisel, you can’t do better. Jane is sexy, smart, and sensation. She’s also the oldest person, at 77, ever to appear on W or maybe any celebrity magazine. Brava! I’ve known Jane for 3o years; she can do anything.
Right now the two time Oscar winner (and many more noms) is the belle of Ball in Cannes, where she’s appearing for L’Oreal and in a new movie there called, of course, “Youth,” directed by Paolo Sorrentino. She’s also going to share an Emmy with Lily Tomlin for their TV series, “Grace and Frankie.” Otherwise, the Emmys had better give up.
Jane also 400 other projects cooking, plus she lives with the great legendary record producer Richard Perry, has a big family including actor son Troy Garity and daughter Vanessa. Go back and read her autobiography from 2005. She tells like it is, always. Only the strong survive, and that’s Jane Fonda. It doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous, too!
Kudos to Lynn and her editor Stefano Tonchi for putting Fonda on that cover.
