Late Night Last Century: Elayne Boosler Makes Hilarious Debut on Letterman
Screenshot from YouTube
Late Night Last Century is a weekly column highlighting some of the funniest and most unforgettable comedy from late night, talk shows, and variety shows of the 20th century that’s currently streaming on YouTube. This week, we look back to Elayne Boosler’s debut performance on Late Night with David Letterman.
Too much kudos is never enough for Elayne Boosler. In her early twenties, in the 1970s, Boosler earned a reputation as not merely a hilarious, cutting edge comic, but a groundbreaking one too. By 1984, the New York Times was writing about the so-called “New Comediennes.” A new generation of women comics was ascendant, working in the wake of giants like Lucille Ball, Joan Rivers, and Totie Fields. “Female comics in the old days didn’t want to be too pretty or too threatening to women,” Barry Sand, then a producer for Letterman, told the Times. The comedy, Sand said, was “Phyllis Diller wearing bizarre outfits and talking about how ugly she was, or about Fang. Self-deprecating humor.”
Enter: Boosler. As Richard Lewis told the Times: “At that time there was, like an irrational belief among most male comics that it was their ‘turf.’ Elayne really cracked a hole into that consciousness. She was the Jackie Robinson of my generation. She was the strongest female working. She broke the mold for most female comics.” The following year, Booosler would star in Party of One, the first stand-up comedy special hosted by a woman on cable.
But not all platforms were as welcoming to Boosler’s talent. Bookers at The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson famously kept Boosler on the sidelines. Not until Helen Reddy was guest-hosting, in August 1977, did Boosler get her shot. Later that year, Boosler got a shot with Carson, but, according to Yael Kohen, it ended with the hostile host saying after her set, “I don’t ever want to see that waitress on my show again.”
While Boosler was persona non-grata with Carson, she soon found an ally in Letterman. A month and a day after Late Night with David Letterman went on the air, on March 2, 1982, there was Boosler, ready to bring down the house with her set. She jokes about things such as the right’s so-called Human Life Amendment in Congress. “You know what that amendment says,” Boosler asks. “It says an unborn fetus becomes a human being as soon as the mother lights-up a cigarette.” Watch the full performance below.
Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic and researcher, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.