David Letterman's production company is in business with Home Box Office? That's a bit hard to believe, considering the severe drubbing he's given the pay-cable channel over its portrayal of him in its movie "The Late Shift."
Still, it's true. Letterman's Worldwide Pants Inc. is producing the comedy series "The High Life," which is set to premiere on HBO this fall."Forget `The Late Shift.' Forget all of that," Letterman told TV critics here, via satellite from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York. "I still believe `The Late Shift' was the single biggest waste of film since my tryout for `Evita.' But other than that, we're very, very happy about the whole thing."
Not that Letterman has exactly forgotten about `The Late Shift,' the mediocre TV movie that chronicled the story of how Jay Leno succeeded Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" and how Letterman ended up moving to CBS. There were many things that bothered him about the cable flick, not the least of which was the appearance of the actor who played him.
"I mean, you're looking at me now. Do I have red hair? Do I have red hair? Has there been a second of my life when maybe you thought I had red hair?" Letterman asked. "Phone my mother! Ask around the neighborhood! I don't have red hair! I never had red hair!
"So, from that vantage point, I thought, well, maybe there's some other problems with this particular production."
But, still, none of that interfered with the negotiations to bring "The Good Life" to HBO.
"I put all that aside, and the folks at HBO didn't much care what I thought - they were making several million dollars on the project, so who cares what I think?" Letterman said.
"The thing I hated about `The Late Shift' is it didn't really bring out David's sweet side. That was not covered at all," interjected "High Life" executive producer Adam Resnick.
"Yeah, right," Letterman sarcastically replied.
"The High Life," shot in black and white, is set in 1950s Pittsburgh. It's about two friends, Emmett (Robert Joy) and Earl (Mark Wilson), who own a small business. Earl is continually looking for an angle, causing all kinds of trouble for himself and Emmett.
"I see it as sort of a cross between `Amos and Andy' and `Glengarry Glenn Ross," quipped Resnick.
"The High Life" is one of two Worldwide Pants comedies that will debut in the fall. CBS will air "Everybody Loves Raymond," a sitcom headlined by stand-up comedian Ray Romano.
And while show business is full of people trying to grab credit for work they haven't done, Letterman goes out of his way to downplay his contributions to the shows his company produces.
"I have very little to do with Adam's production. I have very little to do with the other productions. I'm really lucky enough to be surrounded by people who devote their full time and energies to those projects," he said. "Adam and I talk on a regular basis and have a pretty close rapport. We're friends. We've known each other for a long, long time. But the last thing you would want would be to have me involved in a daily television program."
"Actually, Dave is very involved in the show, and it's always the same note - `More broads. Why do the clothes have to be on in every scene,' " joked Resnick, who was an Emmy-winning writer on "Late Night with David Letterman" in the mid-1980s.
And while the boyish-looking Resnick is much too young to have any personal memories of the '50s, he's not worried about recreating the decade in "The High Life."
"Research-wise, I really didn't do much of that," said Resnick. "Dave is old enough. He's the one who lived in the '50s, so I rely on him for a lot of that stuff."
Having Resnick and other former writers and producers back at work for him at Worldwide Pants is something that Letterman seems particularly pleased about.
"We had the opportunity to work with these people and we realized that they were growing beyond us and had to go other places to fulfill and satisfy their creative desires and visions," Letterman said. "The thrill for me is now we can keep them with us and do things like this."
And what brought about that change was his switch from NBC to CBS - and the enormous revenue brought in by the "Late Show," which is also produced by Worldwide Pants. (At NBC, Letterman was simply an employee.)
"I've been really, really very lucky," he said. "When we were doing the show at NBC, we had the good fortune to work with a lot of really talented, very bright men and women who would come and produce with us and come and write with us. And after three or four years they would go on to other projects with people who had enough money to pay them what we could not at the time.
"Since we've been here at CBS, one of the real nice luxuries and benefits of this association is we have this small production company and we got a chance to do a show with Bonnie (Hunt)."
(Actually, Worldwide Pants produced a couple of short-lived shows with Hunt - "The Building" and "The Bonnie Hunt Show.")
"That was the kind of show, the style of show, and the look of show that Bonnie really, really wanted to do . . . , and I think she was quite successful at achieving that and getting her vision and her perspective and her thoughts onto the videotape," Letterman said. "And I had nothing to do with that, and the same is true with Adam. This is all of Adam and the people that he works with. And it just happens that they have their own kind of distinctive styles. I feel like I'm lucky to be along for the ride."
Of course, because it's his company and he's credited as executive producer, Letterman stands to share the blame should the Worldwide Pants show fail. But he insists he's not worried.
"I believe this show is already a success because of the life that HBO has given it," Letterman said. "Television obviously is a crap shoot, but I am very proud to have my name on this."
Although he once made a brief appearance - in disguise - on "The Building," Letterman said not to look for a repeat of that stunt.
"I don't think I'll be appearing on Adam's show or on the Ray Romano show. You know, they don't need that kind of trouble," Letterman said.
NOT SUCH A BAD GUY: Asked by one woman if he had any reaction to Newsweek putting Leno on a "nice" list and him on a "not nice" list, Letterman said he was unfazed. But he did clarify the situation a bit.
"You know, ma'am, I haven't exactly killed somebody," he said.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Letterman isn't exactly sure when he first stepped out on stage, except that it must have happened when he was in high school or college. "I was literally too ignorant to know what I was doing or have any real feelings about it," he said.
He does, however, remember his first professional appearance.
"I guess the first time I did it where it counted was at the Comedy Store in 1975, and I have two very vivid impressions of that experience," Letterman said. "One was the intensity and the brightness of the white, hot spotlight.
"And my other impression is of the uninterrupted silence."