Word: schmidts
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...more than 42,000, from strip malls on rural interstates to the gaudy Forum Shops in Las Vegas. That's 20 sq. ft. of shopping-center space for every man, woman and child in the nation. "We just don't need any more traditional shopping, period," says Craig Schmidt, a retail-industry analyst at Merrill Lynch...
...good an impression of David Letterman as you'll find outside Saturday Night Live. And this one is way outside. The Dave clone is Harald Schmidt, host of a German late-night talk show that runs four days a week on SAT 1, a channel seen not only in Germany but also in several other European countries from Switzerland to Slovakia. His references to the American talk-show host are sometimes obvious and self-conscious: in one recurring bit, a postman drops off letters and Schmidt greets him, "Oh, look, the letterman." More often he simply copies Letterman's style...
Letterman was also the model for Thomas Koschwitz, a roly-poly German host whose RTL Nightshow copied Dave's bits but not his success: it was canceled in 1995 because of low ratings. Schmidt, 40, a former actor who sports steel-rimmed glasses and designer suits, has done a better job of capturing Letterman's deadpan charisma, and The Harald Schmidt Show is now seen by 1 million Germans a night, a sizable 10% share of the viewing audience. His sometimes off-color jokes and frequent ethnic put-downs have earned Schmidt the nickname "Dirty Harry." For his advocates, however...
...just say the similarities are hard to ignore. "They have it down beat for beat," says Letterman's executive producer, Rob Burnett, who has seen Schmidt's show. Not that anyone is getting ready to call in the lawyers. "It makes us laugh," says Burnett. "It's like watching I Love Lucy in Spanish." And, of course, there's that old bit about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Dave may be having his problems in America, but no one is doing Jay Leno in Slovakia...
Houston (Reynolds 8-10) at Cincinnati (Mercker 8-11), 12:35 p.m. St. Louis (Morris 11-8) at Pittsburgh (Schmidt 9-8), 6:05 p.m. N. Y. Mets (Jones 14-9) at Florida (Hernandez 9-2), 7:05 p.m. Montreal (Valdes 4-4) at Atlanta (Maddux 19-4), 7:40 p.m. San Fran. (Rueter 13-6) at San Diego (Ashby...