Nowadays, it’s easy to see that David Letterman remains one of the most influential and important talk show hosts of all time.
Transforming the nature of late night and introducing a rowdier, more sardonic sense of humor than anything else of its generation, Letterman single-handedly redefined TV comedy with his career-defining work on Late Night beginning in the mid 1980s.
For all its undeniable success, however, Letterman has said that his iconic successor and employer at NBC, Johnny Carson, saw little reason to worry about the up-and-coming talk show overtaking his own series on late night TV.
In a conversation with Vulture late last year, the accomplished comedian said that the main thing he remembered Carson being worried about when it came to his show is Late Night‘s budget, something reflected in Carson’s own earnings.
“To my memory, Johnny couldn’t have cared less, except whatever cut of the budget he got,” Letterman said of the TV host’s outlook on Late Night back in the ’80s and early ’90s.
As Letterman saw it, his Late Night series posed “no threat” to Carson’s undisputed reign of late night television. “To him, we were just, ‘Eh, okay, call me when they’re canceled,’” Letterman said with his traditional dry sense of humor.
Though Letterman said Carson himself remained personally friendly to Letterman, the latter revealed that he never explicitly asked for Carson’s thoughts on his show.
“I think he found it amusing,” Letterman said. “I always felt like, if you’re not as good as Johnny, really, is there any point in leaving Indiana?”
Despite his lengthy tenure in mainstream entertainment, Letterman went on to say that he still feels Carson’s work remains an achievement in and of itself, aging miraculously well in the decades since his stint as the Tonight Show host came to an end.
“If you look at Johnny’s work now, my God, it was just solid,” Letterman opined.. “Pick one night of one week — the first year, the eighth year, the 20th year — he’s just rock solid.”