Late Night Last Century: James Earl Jones's Top Ten Effects of Y2K on Letterman

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 currently streaming on YouTube. Today, we go back to Y2K in honor of the late, great James Earl Jones.

James Earl Jones was prolific. And, of course, brilliant. Few artists so effortlessly transcended the culture, from the popular— Darth Vader in Star Wars—to the high—the Broadway stage, where he won a pair of Tony Awards (and later an honorary third for lifetime achievement).

To think of Jones is to hear his voice. But it was his presence too. He commanded whatever stage or screen on which he appeared. And his eyes—how intense they could be. Think of Field of Dreams (1989), in which he plays a man who transitions from deep resentment to wonder; a pair of furious eyes glaring at Kevin Costner in Boston, only to glisten like those of a child on a ballfield in Iowa.

In 2011, Ben Kingsley presented Jones with an Honorary Academy Award, ushering in the man to that elusive club of entertainers known as EGOTs. The Grammy came for his work on Great American Documents, a spoken word album on which he, Orson Welles, Helen Hayes, and Henry Fonda read the nation’s sacred texts. Jones ended the album by reading the Emancipation Proclamation.

Late Night Last Century: James Earl Jones’s Top Ten Effects of Y2K on Letterman