Jimmy Kimmel paid tribute to David Letterman on his Tuesday “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show, revealing he’s been obsessed with the retiring host’s program since childhood. “I watched the show every night. I never missed it. And little did I know that many years and many pounds later, that watching that show was a great education for me,” Kimmel said. He added, “The reason I have this show is because the executives at ABC saw me when I was a guest on Dave’s show, and hired me to host this show.”
Kimmel recalled how he would watch Letterman’s show every night when he was a teenager. “When I was 15 years old, I wanted to be an artist. I loved to draw. And every night, after my parents went to bed, I would sit at my desk in my room and I would draw until it was very late, and while I was doing that, I would watch a television show that was, and still is, very important to me,” said Kimmel sai. “It was called ‘Late Night with David Letterman.'”
He went on to say, “If you watched it without paying attention, it was a lot like the ‘Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson’ in that they had guests and an audience and a band, but it was weird. Even though it looked like every other talk show, it wasn’t. It was totally original, primarily because of the host of the show who, a lot of times, seemed embarrassed to be there.”
Kimmel continued, “He did not seem like he was a part of show business. He was uncomfortable. He never pretended to be excited, and his way of saying things was so subtle that a lot of the time, the people he was talking to, didn’t know he was joking.”
“This is a very small example, but it’s a good one. Dave once took a camera crew into a store that sold nothing but lamp shades. The store was called ‘Just Shades,'” Kimmel related. “There was a huge sign that said ‘Just Shades.’ He walked in and he asked the very-serious woman who owned the store, ‘So what can you get in here?’ And she said, ‘What can you get in here? Shades. Just shades.’ And Dave said, ‘But seriously, what can you get in here besides shades?’ And she said, ‘Nothing.” And he said, ‘Have you ever thought about just going crazy and selling lamps also?’ And the woman said, ‘No. Never. We do not sell lamps. Only shades. That’s why our name is just shades.'”
Kimmel explained, “It was like he had one of those tiny-sized screwdrivers you use on eyeglasses, and he was always just gently twisting a little screw. All the time. And I loved it. I really loved it. I started drawing pictures of Dave on the covers of all my textbooks at school. When I turned 16, my mother baked me a ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ cake. And you can see I’m wearing a Dave Letterman letter man jacket.”
“My first car, I went to the DMV and got a L8NITE vanity plate,” said Kimmel, as he revealed images of it. “That’s my little brother, wearing Jamz. He still wears them.”
The talk-show host added, “We had no VCR, so I would have David Letterman viewing parties at my house in the middle of the night . My friends, who also loved the show, would come over. Cleto was one of them, at midnight,and we would drink soda and watch the show… Looking back, I figured out why none of the girls at school wanted to have sex with me.”
Kimmel told his audience that instead of tuning in to watch Kimmel, he requested they watch Letterman’s final show instead. “Tomorrow night is Letterman’s farewell show, and I would like it if you would make sure to watch that instead of our show,” said Kimmel. “We will not have a show on tomorrow night, a rerun, but please do not watch it, especially if you’re a young person who doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Dave is the best, and you should see him.”
Check out the video below, and tell us what do you think of Jimmy Kimmel’s tribute to David Letterman?
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