David Letterman

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximumfun.org and is distributed by NPR.

Jesse Thorn (0:21)

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn. My guest is David Letterman. In my book, The Greatest of Them All, the host of the late show of late night, the David Letterman show, even The Tonight Show, a fair number of times. He also had his own morning radio show. And before he was on national TV, he was a weatherman in Indianapolis, Indiana. I got to talk to Letterman in 2020 It was the height of the COVID lockdown. We talked to him over a video call with Dave recording himself in his dining room and his producer sitting in the other room to help him out with tech stuff.

I mean, it doesn't even begin to describe it to say that our interview with David Letterman was an all-timer here for us on Bullseye. I mean, it is 2026 And when I pull up YouTube on my television, I'm watching David Letterman field pieces and compilations of top 10 lists. And I watched the thing the other day where Gerard Mulligan, one of the legendary writers of The Late Night Show, talked about an entire month where they just decorated the set with these gigantic stuffed animals that they had borrowed from the Museum of Natural History. And then they played this segment that was just a goodbye letter with like sentimental Ken Burns music playing behind it, that was all from the perspective of this 12-foot-wide manta ray that they had hanging over their set all month.

In this interview, we talk about Letterman breaking into show business, his time in Indiana, his appearance in LA, and his ascent to the Late Show. We'll also talk about how his personal life intersected with his professional life. Letterman had multiple affairs with subordinates on the shows that he hosted. He'll tell me how those relationships affected him and the people around him. And of course, we will talk about his latest project. It's called My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. You can watch it on Netflix. The show is kicking off its seventh season soon.

On that program, Letterman sits down for a long informal chat with people who, well, people who do not need an introduction. Barack Obama, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, and Iron Man turned Dr. Doom himself, Robert Downey Jr. When that thing clamps onto your head, is that thing really there or is it not really there?

Robert Downey Jr. (2:47)

Excellent question.

Initially, it was... Everything was really there. They wanted to spend as little as they could on CG replacement. So, I remember this helmet went on, and like, there'd be a shot, and I'd be in this whole suit, and they'd say, all right, Robert, you're gonna, it's like, you landed on the roof. So when we say action, just go like that, like you just landed, and then start moving forward. I put this helmet on, and it slammed closed, and I couldn't see anything, and then these LED lights went on, and it was like Manchurian candidate. Like I could, I was absolutely blinded. By the time we're doing The Last Avengers, they'd just be like, hey, Robert, would you mind putting on that helmet? No?

Jesse Thorn (3:32)

Yes? No.

Robert Downey Jr. (3:33)

Put two dots here, and then you can paint it in later. Yeah.

Jesse Thorn (3:39)

David Letterman, welcome to Bullseye. I'm so happy to have you on the show.

David Letterman (3:42)

Great pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for your time, attention and interest, Jesse.

Jesse Thorn (3:47)

I like that question that you asked Robert Downey Jr. It reminds me of I did a show about interviewing, where I interviewed professional interviewers. And I remember Larry King told me that the question that he was most proud of, or maybe was most emblematic of his interviewing style, was he had an airline pilot on his show, and he asked him the question, when you take off in your airplane, do you know that you're going to be able to land it?

Yeah. And I was like, what a wonderful question.

David Letterman (4:18)

Yeah, I had come to think of it. I was expecting something trivial, but that really is the essence, isn't it?

Jesse Thorn (4:25)

Yeah. I mean, I feel like, is that helmet a real helmet or not a real helmet? It's the same honest curiosity.

David Letterman (4:34)

You know, this sort of tangential to this, when I was a kid in Indianapolis and working at a television station, which was the, in those days, the ABC affiliate, and I had a show, I had several shows for one reason or another, but this one show, we would have people on that we thought would be interesting. And there was a story in the local newspaper, the Indianapolis Star, about two women who had been cab drivers in the city of Indianapolis for 20 years, 25 years, 30 years. And we thought, well, this, how can this not be great? And so they came in and they were all mic'd up and I was in my suit and we were ready to go. And I introduced them and I said, so in all the time that you guys, you women have been driving a cab, is anything unusual ever happened? And there was a long pause.