Article: 3254 of alt.zines Path: news.cic.net!ddsw1!not-for-mail From: barnhart@MCS.COM (Aaron Barnhart) Newsgroups: alt.fan.letterman,alt.tv.talkshows.late,alt.zines,rec.arts.tv Subject: LATE SHOW NEWS 4/5/94 Followup-To: poster Date: 5 Apr 1994 20:38:15 -0500 Organization: The New York Post Lines: 230 Message-ID: <2nt3q7$dcf@Mercury.mcs.com> Reply-To: late-show-news@mcs.net NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.mcs.com Summary: Send the message "subscribe late-show-news" to listserv@mcs.net to join the LATE SHOW NEWS distribution list! Xref: news.cic.net alt.fan.letterman:19727 alt.tv.talkshows.late:898 alt.zines:3254 rec.arts.tv:103301 >From Chicago: Where the Mets are going to go every time they get a hankering to relive those glory years ... it's --------------------------------------------- LATE SHOW NEWS for Tuesday, April 5, 1994 Issue #8 A weekly electronic sheet by Aaron Barnhart --------------------------------------------- 5. DAVE IS ON THE NET (a LSN exclusive!) It's true: Lateshow@pipeline.com is the official Internet address of _Late Show with David Letterman_. Talent researcher Christine Schomer, who will be manning the new e-mailbox from her office in the Ed Sullivan Theater building, says the address was established to encourage suggestions and comments from you the actual viewing audience, including * guests you'd like to see more/less of; guests who should be on but haven't been; * interesting/funny human interest stories from your corner of the world; and of course * ways to improve the show (NOTE: *please* stop sending "More Kathie Lee appearances" mail -- they get the hint!!). Christine also confirmed that she and other Worldwide Pants staffers do lurk on the Usenet group alt.fan.letterman and said, Keep posting! And be honest about how you feel. Christine has submitted an entry to the newsgroup's FAQ that will appear in the next edition, out April 20. To the best of our knowledge this is the first serious investment a late-night program has made in the Net. Greg Kinnear uses America Online, or as he calls it, "Online America," when he runs out of questions for his guests, which is usually about three minutes into the show. But this effort by Dave's staff is a few upgrades past that. It looks as though Worldwide Pants will soon become the name you can trust in television *and* cyberspace. Won't Mom be proud. 4. REALITY BITES On Wednesday, March 30th, we had the pleasure of visiting the _Late Show_ and touring behind the scenes at Worldwide Pants. You know how people who have met t.v. stars in person will often say, "She's much taller than I thought she would be"? We were struck by just the opposite feeling as we stepped into the Ed Sullivan Theater. It is a tiny, tiny set -- admittedly larger than the shoebox _Late Night_ was shot in, but that show always looked small on the tube. This one doesn't, because Hal Gurnee shoots it like it were Chicago Stadium. The Letterman folks have also made some interesting alterations to their new studio home. The next time you see old footage of the Sullivan show, note how most of the audience appear to be above the stage, in two balconies not one. Today the upper deck has been replaced with a wall-to-wall acoustical molding that stretches to the ceiling, and the main floor, which used to house equipment, now shoulders most of the seating burden. As a result, probably 400 of the 460 studio audience members each evening see more of the crew than they do of Dave. This would explain why Hal always catches people looking up at the monitors. Because the Sullivan is a theatrical stage (prior to the war, WPA actors performed here), Paul and the band are at kind of a 20-minutes- till-three angle to Dave, whereas they faced him directly back at 30 Rock. Also, since it wasn't designed for modular television, the Theater has no blue stage doors like on _Late Night_ -- so CBS had them installed. Open them, and they lead ... nowhere. Vertically, however, this is a very spacious set and thus more versatile than the old one. (This may also explain how Hal is able to enhance its appearance in the eyes of the home viewers.) The spiral staircase to Dave's left, as you may have noticed, now leads to a real catwalk, as it should, and various background scenes can now be lowered from the ceiling into camera's view. (Or cleared out entirely, as happened recently when a New York City cab became the background.) So this is the setting most weeknights as the studio audience files in promptly at 5:15 p.m. and watches a small army do their jobs on stage, but not on camera, producing what remains t.v.'s most exciting hour. (All of us are dressed warmly for the studio's legendary chill. The _Times_ had reported the set was kept at 52 degrees Fahrenheit, but the show we attended felt more like 48.) We were genuinely pleased to see an actual employee of Worldwide Pants up there, standing by the blue doors, dancing to the music, laughing uproariously at the jokes, and generally looking as though for her, as it is for her boss, this was the one hour of the day to live without regrets. The woman, who we found out was Laurie Diamond, Dave's executive assistant, had also enthusiastically greeted the incoming audience in a way that did not, remarkably, trigger our shit detectors. Bill Scheft has taken over the crowd-warming duties from Bill Wendell, who doesn't tape the intro until the show is over. Scheft does the same silly routine every night, then stalks the offstage waiting to give audience cues. He certainly deserves credit for enforcing the smartest policy decision made so far this season: no more standing ovations. And finally, should this obscure, half- baked newsletter ever make its way into the hands of _Late Show_ executive producer Marty Robbins, would you *please* stop wearing those three-piece suits to the tapings? They look great on Dave, but make you look like a computer consultant. 3. MEDIA BITES Two big-time celebrity watchers predict who will be cast in the leading roles for HBO's upcoming film adaptation of Bill Carter's talk-show battle epic, _The Late Shift_: [ The Prognosticators ] MTV's Adam Entertainment Curry Weekly [ The Roles ] ______________________________ Jilted Carson successor Tom Fred DAVE LETTERMAN ("Sure") Hanks Savage ______________________________________________________________ Putative Carson successor Randy Dennis JAY LENO ("Un-Sure") Quaid Quaid ______________________________________________________________ Ill-tempered Leno Faye Kathy handler HELEN KUSHNICK Dunaway Bates ______________________________________________________________ Manful CBS President Anthony Anthony HOWARD STRINGER Hopkins Hopkins ______________________________________________________________ Beloved show mascot (*) Jason CALVERT DEFOREST Alexander (*) Did not prognosticate. 2. F.Y. EYES A recent Cox News Service story quotes a top weasel at CBS Broadcast International boasting that the Letterman show is now being aired in Germany, Australia, and Mexico ... Did you happen to catch Friday's _Arsenio_ rerun with the opening bit where a man posing as a tailor feels up Hall as he is trying on some pants? ... For the record, Madonna said "fuck" 13 times during whatever that was she did with Dave last Thursday, used "shit" and "goddamned" twice apiece, and "pee" four times ... And speaking of excellence in broadcasting, _The Larry Sanders Show_ has won a Peabody. 1. THE LINEUPS LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, CBS, 11:35 P.M. EST Tu 4/5 Ted Koppel, Andie MacDowell, Wynton Marsalis We 4/6 Rich Hall, Carrie Fisher Th 4/7 Kirstie Alley, Boz Scaggs, Calvin Trillin (11:50 p.m.) Fr 4/8 Julie Brown (11:50 p.m.) Mo 4/11 Stupid human tricks, Jon Lovitz, George Thorogood, rerun For a network without much of a sports department, CBS sure is doing its durnedest to screw up Dave's schedule. Those 15-minute delays are to show "Masters Golf Highlights." Now *there's* a demographic dream. THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO, NBC, 11:35 P.M. EST Tu 4/5 Barry Manilow, Fran Drescher We 4/6 Richard Marx, Robert Stack Th 4/7 Martin Short, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Ray Romano Fr 4/8 Katie Couric Mo 4/11 Ralph Macchio, Shelley Long, cast members from "Grease" LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN, NBC, 12:35 A.M. EST Tu 4/5 Edward James Olmos, Harvey Korman, Crash Test Dummies We 4/6 Joel Murray, John Sebastian Th 4/7 Carrie Fisher, Victor Garber, Sheryl Crow Fr 4/8 John Leguizamo, Phylicia Rashad, October Project Mo 4/11 Harry Shearer, Allman Brothers Band So the question is, if EJO does a Madonna, will they call it "Olmos Blue"? LATER WITH GREG KINNEAR, NBC, 1:35 A.M. EST Tu 4/5 Kathy Najimy We 4/6 Charlton Heston Th 4/7 TBA Mo 4/11 Martin Mull -- Thanks to S. Trowbridge THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW, Syndicated Tu 4/5 Ice-T, Gary Coleman, rerun We 4/6 Kenny G, Fran Drescher, Patti Davis, George Lopez, rerun Th 4/7 Marilu Henner, Brian Bonsall, Carrot Top, rerun Fr 4/8 Hammer, The Amazing Johnathan, rerun Mo 4/11 Joshua Kadison Also, don't miss TOM SNYDER on CNBC, airing live Monday-Thursday at 10 p.m. Eastern with a rerun of that evening's show at 1 a.m. Reruns also air at those times Friday through Sunday. Yes, we've heard the latest rumor. We'll believe it when someone calls a press conference at Black Rock. The E! entertainment television cable network broadcasts reruns of _Late Night with David Letterman_ "seven Daves a week" at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Monday through Friday, reruns can also be viewed at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern. The following schedule was taken from the E! update line. Tu 4/5 Jack Paar, Grover Washington (11-23-83) We 4/6 Steve Martin, Brooke Shields (10-1-84) Th 4/7 Bo Derek (5-13-85) Fr 4/8 Tony Lawrence, Patti Austin (3-13-86) Sa 4/9 Katherine O'Hara, Jeff Altman (7-23-86) Su 4/10 Lola Falana, Regina Berenson (5-20-87) --------------------------- Entire contents Copyright (C) 1994 by Aaron Barnhart. All rights reserved. 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