Friday, September 25, 2009

David Letterman celebrates 5,000th show

Tonight is quite a milestone for David Letterman: his 5,000th late night show.

He did 1,810 episodes of "Late Night" on NBC and, as of Friday, 3,186 broadcasts and four primetime specials of CBS's "Late Show." According to CBS' press release, in tonight's monologue, Dave says: "People say to me, ‘Dave, what keeps you working night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year after year? Seriously, why do you keep working?' And I just tell them, ‘Well, Foxwoods gambling resort.'"

Tonight's guests will be Bruce Willis (rescheduled after being bumped by President Obama), LL Cool J, and Noisettes.

How does Dave compare to other long-running late night hosts? Johnny Carson did 4,531 episodes of "Tonight," according to Wikipedia, and Jay Leno hosted 3,775. Before leaving "Late Night," Conan O'Brien presided over 2,725 broadcasts.

A couple of years before his late night career began, David Letterman hosted 90 episodes of a morning show on NBC.

3 comments :

  1. Starfury said...

    Just a small correction: The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson had 4531 episodes, but Johnny Carson only hosted about 75%-80% of them himself.

  2. Talk Show News said...

    Good point. Jay Leno, Joan Rivers and other guest hosts presided over quite a few of those eps.

  3. Anonymous said...

    I was surprised to hear it when Dave mentioned it, and I am always saddened when I remember Ive only seen a very TINY fraction of those shows. I wish I was into late night TV since much earlier. :(

    Santiago