After watching him lionized in the movie "Late Shift" I started watching David Letterman regularly, prepared to be entertained by an intelligent and witty humorist. What I saw instead was a very smug and self-satisfied performer who seemed to accept his rock star idolization as his due, and, in addition to having a disconcerting resemblance to Richard Nixon, was simply not funny. His monologues were short, wooden, and despite often receiving an explosive response from his adoring audience, were seldom humorous. I kept tuning him in, always imagining that I had previously caught him on a bad night, only to see my initial judgment reinforced over and over again. Not only was Letterman himself not funny, but he seemed bored and impatient with the show itself, as if he felt put upon even to perform. The strange thing is that the show itself is in many ways superior to Leno's Tonight Show - certainly the repartee between Letterman and his band leader lacks the embarrassing, almost pathetic quality of Leno's many vain attempts to make Kevin Eubanks seem witty. The skits are often cleverer than Tonight's heavy handed mockery of both public figures and ordinary Americans. Yet ultimately the program must rise or fall on the strength of its star, and here the laconic Letterman cannot hold a candle to the hyperactive laugh-a-second Leno. In the final analysis, Late Night with David Letterman doesn't work because David Letterman just isn't funny. And oddly enough, he seems to know it.
