America’s late-night discuss present hosts are presently reeling from the dismal election outcomes, however what about ex-hosts?
Effectively, Jay Leno proclaimed that it was a “nice day for democracy” throughout an interview on The Speak, proving as soon as once more that we actually don’t want to listen to from Jay Leno on any topic ever once more for the remainder of his life. In the meantime, Leno’s former competitor David Letterman has additionally been weighing in on the election, albeit in a barely subtler method.
Letterman was a vocal supporter of the Democrats this 12 months, and was scheduled to host a fundraiser for Joe Biden till he dropped out. The occasion nonetheless occurred, however with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff as a substitute — though not getting Commander, Biden’s bitey German Shepherd, to carry out some Silly Pet Tips looks like a missed alternative.
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Whereas Letterman hasn’t made any public statements this week, his official YouTube channel has uploaded some alternative clips. The “Letterman” account ceaselessly makes use of archival footage to answer present occasions, like importing interviews with celebrities who simply handed away. So it’s definitely no accident that on the day of the election, Letterman’s staff put up a video from a 2008 episode of The Late Present through which comic Andy Kindler makes enjoyable of a panel of undecided voters.
Letterman himself tore into America’s electoral ignorance as nicely. “How in God’s title can there be undecided voters?” the host stated of those that couldn’t discern between Barack Obama and John McCain. “This marketing campaign has been happening for over two years. You’re telling me individuals in two years haven’t made up their minds who they’re going to vote for?”
Much more pointedly, the day after the outcomes got here in, the Letterman channel uploaded an outdated clip of Inexperienced Day performing “American Fool” in 2004.
The selection of clip didn’t go unnoticed by right-wing media shops like The New York Publish, or by commenters, who posted messages corresponding to “20 years later and the track continues to be as related because it was again then” and “this account is now my favourite information supply.”
As we speak, Letterman’s channel opted to put up a video themed round unity and optimism. Or, slightly, a bitterly ironic tackle unity and optimism: the 1985 Late Evening “anthem.” The “We Are the World”-esque track, carried out by Paul Shaffer and the “Late Evening Worldwide Youngsters’s Choir,” options cloying inventory footage of American flags, soup cooks and shoe-manufacturing vegetation. Additionally, a shot of Letterman playfully peeking via a bouquet of flowers.
The track’s introduction claims that the anthem will “encourage the nations of the world to settle their variations, leaving them extra free time to observe community tv.”
It’s unclear whether or not the video was posted as a result of it’s the closest that the present ever got here to genuinely selling unity within the face of hardship, or if it was chosen as a reminder that hacky patriotic platitudes gained’t assist anybody proper now.
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