Other, better people have written/will write postmortems on Letterman and his impact. I haven’t watched the show in decades (it’s not a philosophical thing, I can’t watch local channels, it’s complicated), but I wanted to tell a little story about his impact on me.
I’m sure it will come as a HUGE SHOCK that I was a shy, nerdy kid. But I could be funny, at least, and I grew to have a core group of friends who were either similarly alienated or didn’t mind hanging out with those of us who were. In high school, most of us in that group watched Dave religiously. Many of us used to hang out after school in the Art Club, and one week we were asked to provide the giant banner for the football team to run through at the game.
We weren’t fans of the football team and they weren’t fans of us, if they bothered to think of us at all. We did not have “pep.”
One of the running gags on Letterman at that point involved Larry “Bud” Melman hawking a fake product called “Toast on a Stick.” It was, literally, toast. On a stick. We thought it was hilarious.
We did not want to make a banner for the football team. Until someone decided we should make a banner in the shape of toast. On a stick. Not only that, but we brought a giant bag of handmade toast on a stick to the pep rally, and chanted “Toast on a stick! Toast on a stick!” while holding them up high.
WE thought it was hilarious.
Saturday Night Live had taught me how to be funny, which helped as far as not getting picked on too much. David Letterman taught me that the weirder, more surreal things I thought were funny were worth putting out in the world, and who cares what they think?
