A Brief History of David Letterman Trying to Act in Sitcoms and Movies

The Larry Sanders Show (1995)

In "Larry's Big Idea," Larry instructs his writing staff to stick with writing sketches and avoid the backstage pieces and street interviews like Letterman does. Letterman, who is seen watching the Sanders' sketch idea, calls it "crap." In another episode, Sanders, when lamenting about what host the show following his, asks Letterman if he has yet to pick a 12:30 p.m. host. Letterman tells Larry that he picked Tom Snyder. As it turns out, soon after that episode, in real life, that's actually who Letterman did pick. (Scroll to 3:25.)

Seinfeld (1996)

In an episode titled "The Abstinence," George and Elaine both go without sex for a considerable amount of time, turning George into a genius and Elaine into an idiot. George, having been booked to do a science experiment before Jerry's opening act at their old elementary school, succumbs to his desires and loses his mental ability to do his experiment. This leaves Jerry with a lot of extra time, and he bombs. Letterman, having heard the news of Jerry's failure, calls to bump him from the Late Show.

(Yep, I can find a clip for Open All Night and The Building, but not Seinfeld.)

Spin City (1997)

Here, Letterman makes a brief appearance as himself wishing the mayor of New York a happy birthday. Even though Letterman is on his own set, he just seems so off when saying a scripted line -- even one that wouldn't be too out of place on his actual show.

Man on the Moon (1999)

This scene is terrible and, honestly, throws any realism out of the movie. Letterman recreates his role as himself in the Andy Kaufman-Jerry Lawler faux-kerfuffle for the film. The problem is that Letterman looks a lot different in 1999 than he did in the early 1980s (he no longer wears contact lenses so he's wearing glasses in his scene), and they filmed the new scene on Letterman's Late Show set, not a set that resembles anything close to what Late Night looked like. The clip from the Jim Carrey film isn't online, unfortunately, but here's the original incident.

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Comments

  • Scraps says:

    'Man on the Moon' stretched the truth in so many different ways that the unbelievability of the Letterman scene barely registers. Had the film been solely about Kaufman's involvement with professional wrestling, perhaps they would have created an old Late Night set, and, who knows, maybe even hired John Michael Higgins to portray Letterman...

  • Kristen says:

    I wish Letterman would've somehow worked in an appearance on Ed during its run.

  • Jimmy Tango says:

    You missed Private Parts (1997)!!!!!