Can it really be five years since David Letterman moved to CBS?
Can it really be five years since Stupid Pet Tricks and Stupid Human Tricks and Top Ten Lists and Viewer Mail and Know Your Current Events and Paul Shaffer and Rupert Gee and Mujibur and Sirajul became a part of the everyday vernacular?(How did we survive before we knew the answer to the question, "Can a guy in a bear suit get a hug from a stranger?" Or "How many guys in bunny suits can you get into a coffee shop?")
Actually, it's been almost five years and three months since the "Late Show" debuted, but the special was timed for the current sweeps period. Tonight's 90-minute, prime-time show (at 8:30 on Ch. 2) looks back at some of the best moments from those 1,120 broadcasts, including:
Comedy bits like Dave manning the drive-through window at a Taco Bell and "Dave and Steve (Martin)'s Gay Vacation."
A special anniversary Top Ten List about Letterman himself, presented by the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Michael J. Fox, John Goodman, Mia Farrow, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Puff Daddy and Regis Philbin.
Some of the best Stupid Pet Tricks and Stupid Human Tricks.
Some of the best man-on-the-street interviews.
Some of the best Letterman interviews with kids -- something he does particularly well.
It's been a while since the "Late Show" was on top of the late-night ratings, but it has never surrendered its place as the best late-night show. (Don't take my word for it -- the show just won another Emmy as the outstanding variety, music or comedy program.)
Is the show as fresh as it once was? No. Can Letterman and his show get a bit pat, a bit stale from time to time? Sure.
Does he have annoying habits? Absolutely -- from opening with inside jokes only the studio audience understands to using the remarkably unfunny Leonard Tepper (the overweight, bald and apparently none-too-bright guy) in various alleged comedy bits.
But the "Late Show" remains the best late-night talk show around, and arguably the best at any time of day. And when Letterman is on his game, there's no funnier person on television.
Oddly enough, he's often at the top of his game when things go wrong. When something unexpected happens. When he's out in the studio audience reacting to the unexpected.
Letterman and his staff have always had a knack of making scripted comedy bits appear to be spontaneous. But the real spontaneous moments are better yet.
And there are still moments of sheer surprise. What other show could bring author Salman Rushdie out of hiding? (He delivered a Top Ten List to Letterman while the show was in London.)
What's really amazing is not that Letterman has been doing this for five years, it's that he has been doing this for than 16 years and a total of 2,934 broadcasts (as of tonight), including both "Late Night" on NBC and the "Late Show" on CBS. Only Johnny Carson did it longer, and nobody is even a close third.
(And the number total of episodes rises to 3,021 if you count his short-lived, Emmy-winning daytime series "The David Letterman Show" that ran for three months on NBC back in 1980.)
In 1992, Letterman won a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for taking "one of TV's most conventional and least inventive forms -- the talk show -- and infusing it with freshness and imagination."
We may have forgotten just how dull talk shows used to be -- and we may have lost sight of the fact that so many others, from Leno to O'Brien to O'Donnell -- have copied his style and, in doing so, made Letterman seem somewhat less fresh in comparison.
The "Late Show" isn't perfect. But the amount of pure entertainment Letterman has provided over the past 18 years is staggering.
QUICK QUIZ: Part of one installment of the "Late Show with David Letterman" originated from right here in Utah. Can you remember when and under what circumstances?
ANSWER: On Sept. 20, 1996 -- the "Break-Free Show" that aired without commercial interruption. Mail boy Bob Borden was dispatched to the Four Corners Monument, where he ate a burrito in each of the four states -- Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.