From the Home Office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin........

Another piece of my youth comes to an end tonight, as David Letterman hosts his final episode of the Late Show.  I've been a Dave fan since the early days of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC in the early 1980's.  Back then, WLUK Channel 11 didn't even show Dave's show immediately after the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  Instead, they aired a couple of episodes of MASH or The Mary Tyler Moore Show before showing Late Night at 12:30 am--so you really had to be a fan to stay up that late.
For me, NBC Dave will always be the best.  It seemed like everyone associated with the show decided they were going to see just how much they could get away with on network television before they shut the whole thing down.  Thus you had the night that Dave put on a suit of Alka-Seltzer tablets and lowered himself into a giant tube of water--almost asphyxiating himself from the fumes:

 

 

And then there was the night that Dave sent Larry "Bud" Melmen to Grand Central Station to welcome people to New York City--except Larry "Bud" didn't seem to understand how the microphone worked:

 

 



 

 

And Dave used to feature the "underground" bands that all of us loved back in the day.  REM, The Replacement, The Ramones and Husker Du all got play and get national exposure that College Radio was never going to get them.

 

And then there was Dave's attitude.  He never hid his contempt for airheaded starlets whom he "had" to have on the show to promote their latest movie or TV show.  And who can ever forget when Crispin Glover came out one night and tried to karate kick Dave in the head:

 

 

But nothing will ever beat when Dave made NBC and its parent company General Electric the butt of the joke.  Like when Dave almost got roughed up by a GE security guard while trying to deliver a fruit basket to his new corporate overlords:

 

 

Or when Dave interrupted a live edition of the Today Show outside of 30-Rock with a bullhorn from his office:

I still remember that the pompous Bryant Gumbel demanded that Dave be fired or he wouldn't do Today anymore.

Unfortunately, working at 3:00 in the morning has meant far less watching of Dave for me over the past 15-years.  Plus, the show really lost its edge when it moved to the earlier time slot on CBS.  In fact, I probably won't even watch the finale tonight (and who schedules their final show on a Wednesday night anyway?) 

But anyway, thanks Dave for the Top Ten Lists, Larry "Bud" Melman, the Guy Who Lives Under the Stairs, Stupid Human Tricks and all of the other laughs over the years.