Funny Human Tricks: I Can't Let Go of That Letterman Stunt

OK, I know when I am obsessing.

And I am clearly obsessing about this surprise "Late Show" ad featuring David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno.

Frequent visitors know that I sided with Dave and Conan O'Brien over the weasle way Leno muscled "The Tonight Show" back from our fair Coco. And I am boycotting NBC's late-night because of Jay and the sleazy network execs.

Still, this is one FUNNY spot and the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal has a great piece about how it all went down. Read all about it here:

How Jay Leno, David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey's stunning Super Bowl ad came about

Rosenthal shares some interesting insight from Dave's long-time executive producer Rob Burnett. Burnett said the idea was all Letterman's.

“One of the things I admire greatly about Dave is he runs everything by a simple rule: If it’s funny, then we do it. As you can imagine, there were all kinds of internal conversations about whether this was a good thing to do ... from a PR standpoint. Were we helping Jay rehabilitate his image?" Burnett recalled. "All I can tell you is Dave has no interest in any of this. For him, it was: The network’s giving us 10 seconds on the Super Bowl, we’ve got to do something really funny and we believed this was a really funny thing to do.”

It was an amazing, seminal TV moment wedged in between a lot of mediocre ads and a great game.

I have watched it at least 20 times and I laugh every time. Jay mocking his down-trodden "Oprah" appearance. Dave mocking Jay's voice. Oprah just as she is every time she's with Dave: She plays "exasperated" very well.

Enjoy it again:



More later,

Mark