2015.05.20 电视节目 大卫-莱特曼的漫长阴影

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David Letterman's Long Shadow
The departing host might be the last true innovator in late-night comedy.

By David Sims

David Perez / AP
MAY 20, 2015
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The simplest way to understand David Letterman's impact on late-night comedy, 33 years after his debut, is to look at the current state of his competition. For all the talk of the genre's generational turnover and its burgeoning new era heralded by young gun Jimmy Fallon, since Letterman upended the format with Late Night in 1982, its edges have merely been refined. When he retires Wednesday, he’ll leave behind a landscape filled with imitators: an essentially unavoidable situation, considering that most American comedians who found major success in the last 20 years owe a debt to his work.

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In one way, this is a symptom of the monoculture: In the 1980s, if you wanted to seek out alternative comedy, there were few avenues. Letterman always had one foot in the Sinatra-esque, clubhouse comedy generation of Johnny Carson and his ilk, retaining its sheen of Midwestern politeness. But despite his protestations to the contrary (in exit interviews, he's courteous as ever), there’s always been a darkly rebellious edge to his work. Letterman was broadcasting in the 1980s from New York, a city the announcer Paul Shaffer jokingly mocked in his introductions by giving it names like the "birthplace of the menacing scowl." This wasn’t Carson in sun-dappled Burbank; this was a city where people pushed back, and Letterman delighted in pushing back with them.

In his interview with The New York Times, Letterman says his disorderly streak was honed early on by NBC's strictures. "[The network] came to us and he said: 'You can’t have a band. You can have a combo. You can’t do a monologue. You can’t do, like, Aunt Blabby. You can’t do Tea Time Movie Matinee.' There were so many restrictions. So that was the framework we were handed, which was fine, because then they gave us an excuse not to think of that thing to do."

Many of Late Night with David Letterman's most famous bits—Stupid Pet Tricks, say, or running household items over with a steamroller—now feel time-worn to the point of being hackneyed. But then again, that’s the price you pay for staying on air for more than 30 years (he carried almost everything over to his CBS show, which started in 1993 after NBC picked Jay Leno as Carson's replacement). In his earlier days, Letterman came across as someone who had stolen a camera crew and broken into an empty studio. He was broadcasting during an era of unparalleled American exceptionalism, as Reagan's presidency crested, and he lived to deflate it. If Jay Leno, in his far more mediocre way, defined the 90s by gently mocking America's bumbling mediocrity, Letterman similarly, yet far more cleverly, defined the 80s by lancing its self-obsession.


It's something that endured into the present day, and made Letterman easily the most-watchable interviewer on network TV simply because he was the only one still capable of being dismayed by his guests. There is still nothing more delightful than watching him talk to one of his friends, like Bill Murray or Regis Philbin, because their barbed banter and decades' worth of references makes the viewer feel like part of a special club. Even funnier, though, is Letterman's utter disinterest in a celebrity who has shown up simply to hawk their latest product—while some hosts can fake scripted banter as well as anyone, Letterman always excelled at keeping things cordial without being afraid to challenge people.

Letterman was the most-watchable interviewer on network TV because he was the only one still capable of being dismayed by his guests.
Every aspect of Letterman's on-screen personality is reflected in the current late-night comedy world. His sardonic side endures best with ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, who’s admittedly put a "bro" spin on it. Letterman's gift for fourth wall-breaking absurdity was passed on beautifully to the man who followed him on Late Night in 1993, Conan O'Brien, who frequently and happily acknowledges his massive debt to him (a debt many young comedians coming through various comedy-farm systems today will, in turn, owe to O'Brien). And the masterful eye Letterman and his creative team had for bits that would persist and go "viral" (which, pre-internet, meant generating discussion by the water cooler) is apparent in Jimmy Fallon's brilliantly programmed Tonight Show.


Letterman's legacy is also a tremendously male one. It's hard to know how much he directly contributed to that issue, but it's easier to look up some statistics: His shows hired very few female writers over the years and booked very few female comedians to do stand-up routines. Letterman expressed praise for the work of many funny women, but his show always had a chummy, boys-club vibe to it. (That he had sexual relationships with multiple female employees on his show doesn’t help). It’s not only a problem that exists on his show: 33 years after his debut, late-night TV as a whole remains overwhelmingly white and male.

But that might be the only thing that makes Letterman's best years feel dated in retrospect (assuming, perhaps optimistically, that demographics will shift positively on that front in the future). The future of late-night TV remains hard to predict—it will never be the ratings bonanza it was when America only watched three channels, but any report of its death feels deeply premature when someone as big as Stephen Colbert is being poached from Comedy Central to replace Letterman and Fallon is making $12 million a year at NBC. The late-night show is an important brand, and more importantly, a content farm for the Internet age—of all the traditional building blocks of network television, nothing is more easily translated online into bite-sized clips than late-night comedy.


No matter how fancy the sets look now, or how wide the circle of late night expands into basic cable and online streaming, Letterman's footprint will always be detectable. On May 28, the cable network/website Fusion will make a foray into late-night comedy with The Chris Gethard Show, a hit on public-access TV that’s about as renegade as broadcast comedy can possibly be without actually committing crimes on-air. But Gethard is the first to admit what he owes to the man who originally subverted the form of late night. When preparing for the move to cable, he said he showed his cast and crew old Letterman clips to give an idea of what he was aiming for. "One of our music bookers saw it and said, 'Oh, I thought we were original,'" he recalled. Broadcast television will always have its innovators—but Letterman was an even rarer beast: a true original.

David Sims is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers culture.



电视节目
大卫-莱特曼的漫长阴影
这位即将离任的主持人可能是深夜喜剧中最后一位真正的创新者。

大卫-西姆斯报道

大卫-佩雷斯/美联社
2015年5月20日
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在大卫-莱特曼首次亮相33年后，理解他对深夜喜剧的影响的最简单方法是看看他的竞争现状。尽管人们都在谈论这一类型的代际更替和由年轻的枪手吉米-法伦(Jimmy Fallon)预示的新兴时代，但自从莱特曼在1982年以《深夜》(Late Night)颠覆了这一形式以来，其边缘只是得到了完善。当他周三退休时，他将留下一个充满模仿者的景观：考虑到大多数在过去20年里获得重大成功的美国喜剧演员都欠他的债，这种情况基本上是不可避免的。

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从某种程度上说，这是单一文化的一个症状。在20世纪80年代，如果你想寻找另类喜剧，那就没有什么途径了。莱特曼的一只脚总是踩在辛纳屈式的、由约翰尼-卡森和他的同辈人组成的俱乐部喜剧中，保留着中西部礼貌的光辉。但是，尽管他提出了相反的抗议（在离职采访中，他一如既往地彬彬有礼），他的工作一直有一个黑暗的反叛的边缘。莱特曼在20世纪80年代从纽约进行广播，播音员保罗-沙弗（Paul Shaffer）在他的介绍中开玩笑地嘲笑这个城市，给它起了一些名字，如 "可怕的皱纹的诞生地"。这不是在阳光灿烂的伯班克的卡森；这是一个人们反击的城市，莱特曼乐于和他们一起反击。

在接受《纽约时报》采访时，莱特曼说他的不守规矩的性格很早就被NBC的严格要求所磨练。"[网络]来找我们，他说：'你不能有一个乐队。你可以有一个组合。你不能做单口相声。你不能做，比如，Blabby姑妈。你不能做 "下午茶时间电影"。有这么多的限制。因此，这就是交给我们的框架，这很好，因为这样他们就给了我们一个借口，让我们不去想那个东西做。"

与大卫-莱特曼的深夜》中许多最有名的片段--比如说，愚蠢的宠物把戏，或用蒸汽压路机碾压家用物品--现在感觉已经过时了，甚至是老生常谈。但话又说回来，这就是你为保持30多年的广播所付出的代价（他把几乎所有的东西都带到了他的CBS节目中，该节目在1993年NBC选择杰-雷诺作为卡森的替代者后开始播出）。在他早期的时候，莱特曼就像一个偷了摄制组并闯入一个空的演播室的人。他是在里根的总统任期达到顶峰的时候，在一个无与伦比的美国特殊主义时代进行广播，而他活生生地把它压垮了。如果说杰-雷诺（Jay Leno）以他那平庸得多的方式，通过温和地嘲笑美国的笨拙平庸来定义90年代，那么莱特曼同样地，但更巧妙地，通过刺穿它的自恋来定义80年代。


这一点一直持续到今天，并使莱特曼很容易成为网络电视上最值得观看的采访者，只因为他是唯一一个仍然能够被他的客人打动的人。没有什么比看他和他的一个朋友，如比尔-默里（Bill Murray）或瑞吉斯-菲尔宾（Regis Philbin）谈话更令人高兴的了，因为他们带刺的戏谑和几十年的参考资料让观众觉得自己是一个特殊俱乐部的一员。更有趣的是，莱特曼对那些只是为了推销他们的最新产品而出现的名人完全不感兴趣--虽然有些主持人可以像任何人一样伪造剧本的戏谑，但莱特曼总是擅长保持亲切感而不害怕挑战别人。

莱特曼是网络电视上最值得观看的采访者，因为他是唯一一个还能对他的客人感到沮丧的人。
莱特曼在屏幕上的个性的每个方面都反映在当前的深夜喜剧世界中。他尖酸刻薄的一面在美国广播公司的吉米-基梅尔（Jimmy Kimmel）身上体现得淋漓尽致，他承认自己在这方面有 "兄弟 "气质。莱特曼打破第四面墙的荒诞天赋被漂亮地传给了1993年跟随他进入深夜的柯南-奥布莱恩，后者经常愉快地承认他欠了莱特曼的巨额债务（今天许多通过各种喜剧农场系统而来的年轻喜剧演员又会欠奥布莱恩的债务）。莱特曼和他的创意团队对那些能持续存在并成为 "病毒"（在互联网出现之前，这意味着在饮水机旁引起讨论）的片段所具有的高超眼光，在吉米-法伦出色的《今夜秀》节目中显而易见。


莱特曼的遗产也是一个巨大的男性遗产。很难知道他对这一问题有多大的直接贡献，但查阅一些统计数据会更容易。多年来，他的节目很少雇用女性编剧，也很少安排女性喜剧演员表演单口相声。莱特曼对许多有趣的女性的工作表示赞赏，但他的节目总是有一种友好的、男孩俱乐部的氛围。(他在节目中与多名女员工发生了性关系，这也无济于事）。这不仅仅是他的节目中存在的问题。在他首次亮相33年后，深夜电视作为一个整体仍然是压倒性的白人和男性。

但这可能是唯一让莱特曼最好的年华在回顾中感到过时的事情（假设，也许是乐观的，人口统计学在未来会在这方面发生积极的变化）。深夜电视的未来仍然难以预测--它永远不会成为美国人只看三个频道时的收视率大亨，但当像斯蒂芬-科尔伯特这样的大人物被从喜剧中心挖来取代莱特曼，法伦在NBC年薪1200万美元时，任何关于其死亡的报道都让人感觉为时尚早。深夜节目是一个重要的品牌，更重要的是，它是互联网时代的一个内容农场--在所有传统的网络电视构件中，没有什么比深夜喜剧更容易在网上转化为一点一滴的片段。


无论现在的布景看起来多么华丽，或者深夜的圈子扩展到基本有线电视和在线流媒体有多大，莱特曼的足迹将永远可以被发现。5月28日，有线电视网络/网站Fusion将通过《克里斯-盖萨德秀》（The Chris Gethard Show）进军深夜喜剧领域，这是在公共电视上的一个热门节目，与广播喜剧可能的叛逆性一样，没有真正在空中犯罪。但Gethard是第一个承认他欠那个最初颠覆深夜形式的人的。在准备向有线电视转移时，他说他给他的演员和工作人员看了莱特曼的旧片段，让他们知道他的目标是什么。"他回忆说："我们的一位音乐编导看到后说，'哦，我以为我们是原创的'。广播电视将永远有它的创新者--但莱特曼是一个更罕见的野兽：一个真正的原创者。

大卫-西姆斯（David Sims）是《大西洋》杂志的工作人员，他负责文化报道。