[3] Earlier that year in May, after significant acrimony, NBC and Carson had reached an agreement on a new contract, which—among other concessions to Carson—granted the powerful and influential host the control over the time slot immediately following The Tonight Show.

[4] From late fall 1980 until the end of 1981, in addition to guest-hosting 22 episodes of the Tonight Show, as outlined in his one-year holding deal with NBC, Letterman also appeared five times as Carson's guest on the highly rated program as the network groomed the 34-year-old for a new project.

The staff responsible for preparing the launch of Late Night included Merrill Markoe in the head writing role, seasoned TV veteran Hal Gurnee as director, Letterman's manager Jack Rollins as executive producer, and a group of young writers—most of them in their early twenties, along with the somewhat more experienced 29-year-old Jim Downey, who had previously written for Saturday Night Live, and 27-year-old Steve O'Donnell.

Realizing that NBC executives exhibited very little desire to micromanage various aspects of the show, the staff felt confident they would be allowed to push outside of the mainstream talk-show boundaries and thus set about putting together a quirky, absurdist, and odd program.

Snyder's Tomorrow re-runs continued until Thursday, January 28, 1982, and four days later on Monday, February 1, 1982,[1] Late Night premiered with a cold opening featuring Larry "Bud" Melman delivering lines as an homage to the prologue of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein, followed by Letterman coming out on stage to Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No.

The first guest, 31-year-old comedian and actor Bill Murray, came out in confrontational fashion, throwing jibes and accusations at the host as part of a knowing put-on.

He remained for two more similarly sardonic segments in which he first presented footage of a Chinese zoo baby panda as a supposed home video of his recently adopted pet, before expressing newfound love for aerobics and pulling a crew member onstage, making her do jumping jacks along with him to Olivia Newton-John's "Physical".

The second comedy piece was a remote titled "The Shame of the City"; taking a general format of a local news action segment, it featured Letterman touring several New York locations pointing out various civic problems with righteous indignation.

The second guest was Don Herbert, TV's "Mr. Wizard", and the show ended with a young comic named Steve Fessler reciting aloud the script of the obscure Bela Lugosi film Bowery at Midnight.

The reviews were mixed[8]—Los Angeles Times wrote: "Much of Letterman's first week did not jell"—but more importantly, the show drew 1.5 million viewers, 30% more than had tuned in for Snyder's Tomorrow.

Letterman was also specifically instructed not to replicate any of the signature pieces of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson like "Stump the Band" or "Carnac the Magnificent".

[10] Late Night originated from NBC Studio 6A at the RCA (later GE) Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.

On September 30, 1991, A&E, a U.S. cable channel partly owned by General Electric—then the parent company of NBC—began broadcasting repeats of Late Night in an effort of monetizing the show's vast accumulation of old episodes.

The syndication deal had been brokered without Letterman's knowledge, and he frequently made his displeasure of the arrangement known on-air, feeling that having reruns broadcast five nights a week, earlier in the evening on cable, diluted the value of the nightly first-run shows on NBC—fearing people would not be willing to stay up late for the first-run if they could watch repeats of the program at an earlier time.

No DVD release is currently scheduled (GoodTimes went bankrupt in 2005; the company's assets are now owned by Gaiam, which does not typically distribute general-interest programming).

[17] This was done against the wishes of Carson, who had always seen Letterman as his rightful successor, according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally, a one-time producer for both men.

Common contributors included bandleader Paul Shaffer, Chris Elliott, Calvert DeForest as "Larry 'Bud' Melman," announcer Bill Wendell, writer Adam Resnick, scenic designer Kathleen Ankers, stage manager Biff Henderson, producer Robert Morton, director Hal Gurnee, associate director Peter Fatovich, stage hand Al Maher, camera operator Baily Stortz, production manager Elmer Gorry as NBC President Grant Tinker,[23] and the "production twins," Barbara Gaines and Jude Brennan.

The show had its frequent favorite guests including Pee-wee Herman, Steve Martin, Charles Grodin, George Carlin and Jay Leno.

In the past ten years, one show has moved to the position of the leader in late night television in creativity, humor, and innovation.

Together, the "Late Night" team manages to take one of TV's most conventional and least inventive forms—the talk show—and infuse it with freshness and imagination.