A few days after the film's premiere, John Michael Higgins was booked on Late Show with David Letterman (1993) to talk about the movie and what it was like to portray Letterman. Higgins then sat in the green room as Letterman spent the next hour padding bits and doing filler, all the while promising Higgins was "coming up". At the end of the show Letterman apologized to Higgins for "running out of time", pointedly saying he hoped the actor could "come back again soon." Higgins was never re-booked.
Both David Letterman and Jay Leno were vocal in their disapproval of the film, with Letterman calling it "the single biggest waste of film since my wedding photos." In an interview he said his self-loathing tendencies were overplayed, in particular a scene where he throws baseballs at an archery target, and he also took issue with the red hair color given to the actor who played him, John Michael Higgins.
In this film, Bob Balaban played NBC President Warren Littlefield. He also played the character Russell Dalrymple on Seinfeld (1989), the NBC executive who was inspired by Littlefield.
One of the reasons NBC chose Leno over Letterman to replace Carson on The Tonight Show has to do with program ownership. Since 1980 Carson's production company owned The Tonight Show as well as the 1982 Late Night With David Letterman. Carson's company reaped huge profits from that ownership taking Carson into the arena of being a multi-millionaire. Letterman in wanting to take over The Tonight Show wanted the same ownership deal as Carson. In contrast Jay Leno was not looking for any ownership of the show which many felt is what convinced NBC to choose Leno. Ironically Leno was one of the few late night talk show host at the time not to have any ownership in his show. When Letterman moved to CBS to do The Late Show he not only owned it but the 12:30 AM program which was to become The Late Late Show. Also around the same time Fox was launching off what was to be the ill conceived The Chevy Chase Show which was also owned by its star.