Letterman: Sleaze Will Make Him King

Once upon a time in Television Land, Johnny Carson was the King of Late Night.  For thirty years, a series of pretenders (including Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, Joey Bishop and Arsenio Hall) tried to steal his throne.  But they failed miserably.

And then, in 1992, Johnny took his final bow, and like Elvis, he left the building, in this case the NBC studios in Burbank.  At that point, the battle for King of Late Night was waged between Jay Leno and David Letterman.  Initially, Letterman claimed the throne, winning the Nielsen ratings.  But then Jay seized the throne thanks ironically to a sex scandal.  Not Jay’s.  Hugh Grant’s.  His interview on Leno right after his arrest for cavorting with a prostitute boosted Leno and the Tonight Show to number one in the ratings.

And then, earlier this year, Jay stepped down from the Tonight Show throne (actually, a desk) to move to prime-time.

Now the battle for the King of Late Night is between Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and Jimmy Kimmel.

Well, the battle is over.  Letterman is King again, and he owes his success to a little sleaze.  Maybe a lot of sleaze.

Last week Letterman appeared on his show and announced that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt.  And he confessed that the basis of the blackmail effort was the fact that he had been having affairs with female staffers for his TV production company, which ironically is called “Worldwide Pants.”

Yes, Letterman admitted that the fly to Worldwide Pants was open.

Well, you can guess what happened next.  Letterman’s ratings soared.  He is now once again the King of Late Night.

You see, in America these days no bad deed goes unrewarded.  Bill Clinton had affairs in the Oval Office.  Yes, he got impeached, but does anyone not believe that had the Constitution been amended in 1999 to allow him to run for more than two terms, he would still be President of the United States?

It’s real simple.  Everybody loves the bad boy.  When you were in high school, who was more popular?  The wise-cracking, partying class clown, or the somber, serious president of the honor society?  Actually, that’s a no-brainer.  It’s the reason George Bush beat Al Gore in the 2000 election.

You may ask, well if everybody loves the bad boy, how come Governor Mark Sanford and Senator John Edwards were scandalized?  Again, that’s simple.  They both pretended to be good boys, not bad boys.  And there is nothing the American people like less than some bad boy who self-righteously pretends he’s really a good boy.

And so, David Letterman is once again, King of Late Night.  And I think he is going to stay there, unless Conan O’Brien gets caught with his pants down.