Word: letterman
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NETWORK EXECUTIVES ARE USED to being the butt of jokes, but few have endured the sort of abuse Warren Littlefield has. David Letterman loved to flash photos of the NBC programming chief on his show and make cruel remarks. In The Late Shift, HBO's recent movie about the late-night battle, Littlefield comes across as the arch network dunderhead, the guy who lost Letterman to CBS. In one scene, Littlefield (played as a smarmy nebbish by Bob Balaban) is so surprised by a phone call from Jay Leno that he races out of the toilet in his boxers, with...
Unfair? The real Littlefield is more earnest preppy than pantsless nebbish, a boyish executive with a neatly trimmed beard. One thing his 21 years in the TV business have taught him is that it doesn't pay to be a sourpuss. He claims he used to "crack up" at Letterman's on-air gibes, even when Letterman went so far as to smash a Tiffany candy dish Littlefield had given him as a gift. As for the Late Shift portrayal, Littlefield laughs it off, though he points out that "I don't wear boxer shorts. I wear briefs." He shrugs...
...matter of late night, it turns out that Littlefield wasn't so dumb after all. NBC may have had some last-minute qualms that Leno would be a big-chinned albatross, but his Tonight Show is now whipping Letterman soundly in the ratings. As for the rest of NBC's fortunes, Littlefield, 43, has confounded critics, who regarded him as something of an empty suit--a protege of NBC programming whiz Brandon Tartikoff who inherited Tartikoff's No. 1 schedule in 1990 and quickly let it slide to third place. Littlefield has not only kept his job for nearly...
...most of them obvious and witless. It's Lincoln's birthday? Jay is seen as Honest Abe doing a TV commercial for his law practice. Guest Ellen DeGeneres has a touch of the flu? The show hires an ambulance to drive her onto the set. What separates Leno from Letterman (and from Carson before him) is the lack of any ironic distance. Carson made fun of those Carnac and Aunt Blabby sketches. Leno sells every bit like Professor Harold Hill in The Music...
...Letterman still has the funnier show by far, but his nightly psychodrama is getting harder to watch. The Oscar experience obviously continues to sting; Dave keeps obsessing about it in his jokes. The Top 10 lists are spilling over from self-parody into self-loathing. "Top 10 Insults for Dave Letterman," went a recent one. ("Letterman, let's face it--you put the 'suck' in success.") Clearly, Dave needs a lift, but The Late Shift isn't going...