Letting Go of Letterman

It’s 15,000 km from The Ed Sullivan Theatre to Kuala Lumpur, yet we felt its impact all the same.

By EZRA ZAID

It was one of those old bulky television sets that sat awkwardly on the study table — a black Grundig with a busted remote, which meant we always had to get up to switch to the fifth (and latest) terrestrial channel offered in censorship-happy Malaysia, NTV7.

It was mid-1998, ten minutes past midnight. The silence that engulfed the house meant not disturbing my sleeping parents in the bedroom next door, nor my elder brother with whom I shared a room.

Tiptoeing out of bed, I made it to the TV and held my breath as I clicked the power button. It released a high-pitched pop and buzzing sound, which, much to my relief, finally fizzled back to normalcy. But for this 15 year old, the buzz had only just begun.

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Petaling Jaya in the late 1990s, the impact of a late-night American television show being beamed across the oceans should have little correlation. What did a short, nervous, insecure Malaysian teenager living in Section 14 have in common with a middle-aged bespectacled comedian performing on Broadway and West 53rd Street? (It turns out, a lot.)

Since David Letterman announced his decision to retire from The Late Show last year, nostalgia and introspection have collided in me with great force. Letterman’s constant presence — broadcast here from cathode ray tube television sets to high-definition flat screens — will, after May 20, just no longer be. That is, quite simply, the unsettling reality.

While sitting alone on the couch at 11:35 PM or searching for old clips on YouTube, The Late Show with David Letterman has always fascinated me: the comedy bits, the monologues, the interviews.

Here was a host on television who possessed a rare mixture of sincerity, suspicion, and mischievous wit. His jokes — often counter-intuitive to what I thought I was supposed to be laughing at — trained my instincts to do double-takes prior to the arrival of his punchlines. How did that just happen on TV? I often wondered.

Late-night television, at least nowadays, is so much about glitz and pandering to celebrity and predictability, which is why Letterman’s irreverent attempts at dismantling all that made him essential viewing. His formula-breaking has influenced my views on comedy, music, politics, and culture — and in hindsight, perhaps even my professional career as well.

It is 15,000 km from The Ed Sullivan Theatre to Kuala Lumpur, and yet its impact was felt all the way over here. Entertaining audiences in living rooms as others (like my oblivious parents and brother) were tucked inside their bedrooms, David Letterman has literally been part of the furniture of our lives.

#ThanksDave

Image: Rolling Stone.

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