Norman Mailer once described American talk show host David Letterman as "the Buddha of the befuddled." According to the old warhorse, Letterman's late night show was no more than a national comforter - thin but reassuring evidence that nothing serious was ever going to happen in their American lives. As Mailer put it, "During periods of lassitude and confusion, it is reassuring to listen to someone who is absolutely at home in the idle sounds of drift." Letterman's greatest asset, it seemed, was that he was entirely meaningless.
I first encountered Letterman back in 1993. He was still working for NBC and somehow I ended up attending a taping of his show. Back then his meaning was clear - he was funny and he knew exactly what he was doing - and so did everybody who worked with him. The sheer level of professionalism and focus was quite simply breathtaking. As the floor manager counted down from 10, Letterman was still in the audience handing out tins of ham. As the count reached three, two, one, Letterman was still messing with his fans. On the stroke of zero Paul Schaffer and the Orchestra struck up, the host slung on his jacket, strolled out one door and returned through the another to meet an hysterical standing ovation with a gap-toothed grin. It was very impressive stuff.
As for content, Letterman was always hit and miss. At his best he was very funny indeed. In the early days, once you got into the way of it, it was ritualistic and addictive, as Letterman, with great imagination, pushed comedy into very bizarre places. Sometimes it was funny because the material was so bad - and everybody knew it. You laughed and shook your head at the same time. Mailer put this down to something altogether more sinister, however - if Letterman was ever too funny he might "stir the blood and inspire thoughts of going out for a drink".
When Letterman moved to CBS in 1993 he took his show to the Ed Sullivan Theatre and promptly turned that whole section of Broadway into something of a theme park. Mujibur and Sirajul, who ran a shop next to the theatre, became national celebrities, as did Rupert Jee, who owned the deli beside the stage door. Floor managers, stage hands, cue card shufflers and announcers also became part of the nightly surrealities and there was a glory period when the show, however meaningless, was compulsive viewing - a vital part of the bedtime routine. Letterman was like a daft uncle - good company, enthusiastic and lovably mad. At least that's how it seemed.
I was back at the Late Show a couple of weeks ago. It's worth it just to see the Ed Sullivan Theatre and contemplate all those big broadcasts with Elvis Presley and the Beatles. All Letterman had to offer however was Run DMC, somebody I'd never heard of from ER and Tom Brokaw - a dry and conservative anchor who was plugging his two books, both of them already in the top 10 bestseller list. The neighbourhood sidekicks showed up too, but there was something tired about the whole thing - it seemed as if Letterman wasn't getting much pleasure from it himself. Even he seemed to find the whole thing just a little too meaningless.
Altogether sharper these days is the man who replaced Letterman at NBC - Conan O'Brien. O'Brien was a young comedy writer who had, among other things, written and produced The Simpsons. And while these credentials would be good enough for most of us, they were of little help when the TV critics took immediate aim and opened fire. Many of them couldn't get past the new host's undeniably nervy demeanour. Others treated the show as little more than a Harvard student magazine on television - and, worse again, a rag mag that simply wasn't funny.
Of course words and hats have since been well digested and, this year, Late Night with Conan O'Brien goes into its eighth season with those very same critics now firmly on his side. The turnaround was remarkable as O'Brien revealed himself as funnier, smarter and endearingly less cocky than the rest. If he looked jumpy at times it was because he actually wanted the joke to work. He was actually trying something. Ultimately, perhaps, people came to accept that it's quite impossible to look comfortable when you're a six foot four Irish-American redhead with a skyscraping quiff.
Attending a taping of the O'Brien show, I was struck by that edge which is now missing from Letterman. The younger man may look a little frightened at times but he's altogether more likeable. His warm-up routine is an extraordinary triumph - as the band cranks out its jump and jive, O'Brien leaps into the audience and literally screams his way through some insane rock 'n' roll gibberish. The quiff is immovable but the hips go into overdrive and the audience loves it. You wouldn't think he had it in him, but he has - and after such an outrageous performance, you can't help but like him, applaud him and laugh at his jokes.
The house orchestra, led by Max Weinberg of The E-Street Band, is quite superb, and sidekick Andy Richter is an equally dependable presence. The musical guests are also usually top drawer - and clearly picked with a certain amount of care. Interviewees however are, as usual on these sorts of show, mostly just doing the rounds. Tom Brockaw was on yet again to talk about his two books in the bestseller lists. Alan Rickman (formerly the Sheriff of Nottingham and De Valera) was talking about some sci-fi spoof and not much was said by anybody. The comedy and the music (Matthew Sweet) saved it and O'Brien, an obvious music fan, used an ad break to engage Sweet in a conversation on guitars - couldn't see Letterman bother with that.
Mailer's attack on Letterman was written in 1994 and it had no effect whatsoever. He had forgotten just how popular meaningless things can be. He had also forgotten that things meaningless have their place - and that place is called television. The trick of course is that if you're going to be entirely without meaning night after night, year after year, you actually have to mean it. You have to work on the basis that nothingness is perfectly all right as long as there's something to it. If David Letterman and Conan O'Brien are attempting to do roughly the same thing, then the Irishman is ahead by at least a quiff. Something else for us to bang our bodhran about.