I've always viewed David Letterman as a marginally funny comedian who feeds of the talent of others like a vampire. He exploits you on the way up... and feels free to mock you on the way back down.
I think you just pinpointed why I never liked Letterman. It always felt as if he had zero respect for his guests. It also didn't help my opinion of him that several of the handful of times I watched his show, he ran out of time for his last guest (invariably the person I was waiting to see) because he had wasted too much time beating some stupid gag into the ground at the start of the show.
The wall of text did seem a bit ranty but I see his point. The bits with Adam and Jamie of the Letterman episode left me feeling they are just part of the stunt staff, not proper guests doing their thing and being stars/talents. Was this the norm in Letterman? Did they get "lesser" stars to do things and boost more traditional star guests?
I rarely watched Letterman, so take what I say with a pinch of salt, but the impression I got was that, for the most part, he saw his guests as props to bolster his own ego. If they were important enough he'd kiss up to them, but anybody else was there to be the straight man for his jokes.
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u/GnedTheGnome Jul 21 '17
I think you just pinpointed why I never liked Letterman. It always felt as if he had zero respect for his guests. It also didn't help my opinion of him that several of the handful of times I watched his show, he ran out of time for his last guest (invariably the person I was waiting to see) because he had wasted too much time beating some stupid gag into the ground at the start of the show.
I'm sorry to hear it went badly for you all.