Letterman and Paul Shaffer Return to Late-night on Jimmy Kimmel Live: Back to Brooklyn
Photo by Mike Coppola / Getty ImagesLate-night talk shows love going on the road, and with like a half-dozen on the air right now you’re basically always guaranteed to find one of these white guys in suits doing the same schtick in an entirely different city on your TV every single night. Coming up later this month Jimmy Kimmel (who is suddenly the most respected man in TV, it seems) will be returning to Brooklyn for a week of shows starting on Monday, Oct. 16, and he’s bringing some late-night legends with him. David Letterman will be one of Kimmel’s guests, and Letterman’s bandleader Paul Shaffer will be playing with Kimmel’s band all week. If you can’t wait for Letterman’s new Netflix show, maybe this’ll tide you over for a little bit.
Other guests that week include famed New Yorkers Amy Schumer, Howard Stern, Billy Joel, Tracy Morgan, and, presumably, Dr. Zizmor.
David Letterman, of course, is one of the most important comedy figures of the last 40 or so years (and, uh, another powerful man who abused his stature to engage in affairs with certain employees). If you only knew him from his last couple of decades on CBS, it might be hard to appreciate the impact Late Night with David Letterman, which aired on NBC from 1982 to 1993, had on comedy. A smirking deconstruction of the entire concept of TV, it was a direct forebear of every smart and subversive show that upended the expectations of TV comedy, from Seinfeld and The Simpsons to Mr. Show and Arrested Development. Kimmel has long credited Letterman as his primary influence in comedy, so it’s no surprise he’d want to pay tribute by hosting both Letterman and Shaffer during his New York jaunt.