What Would Dave Do? Letterman Vet Rob Burnett on Late Night vs. Trump 2.0

Let’s acknowledge that Conan O’Brien, who has late night bona fides that stretch as long as his NBA-forward body length, has a legitimate point.

The much-missed-in-late night Conan said in an interview at Oxford that performers in the comedy arena, no matter how enraged they are by the state of the world, should not abandon their best weapon, humor, in making the points they want to make.

Predictably, defenders of President Donald Trump framed the above as an iconic former late-night host taking the current group of stars to task for being so “deranged” by Trump that nobody finds them funny anymore.

Of course, Conan’s actual point was that it’s “tricky” and “challenging” to successfully juggle the two, not that it isn’t being done (and done well).

That matches the reaction of another longtime late-night player, Rob Burnett.

‘These Guys Are Important to the National Conversation’

Burnett worked for three decades as writer, head writer, and executive producer on David Letterman’s long-running Late Show on CBS. 

“My take is if you’re a comedian, you need to try to be funny,” Burnett said. “And I think these guys today are actually really funny. What’s interesting is that these guys are also important now to the national conversation.”

Burnett’s frame of reference is Letterman, who has, if anything, grown in terms of regard—and legend—for his creatively groundbreaking tenure in late night, at both CBS and NBC. “Dave was important in a different way,” Burnett told me. “He affected the cultural narrative, the cultural discussion, but not about politics.”

In the era this country now is living in and through, the political narrative is everywhere, consuming both the discussion and the culture. Jimmy Kimmel, and his fight against pressure from the White House to force him off the air, has made ABC’s late-night front man a national figure beyond show business, Burnett said.

“When Jimmy was in the heat of that attack, sometimes he might come out and just say stuff and get weepy and that was very moving and terrific. But the guy is really funny. [Stephen] Colbert [of The Late Show] is really funny. I don’t know how they are writing these engaging satirical monologues that are intricately weaved together night after night. I think it’s very impressive.”

And as for Jon Stewart: On Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, “Jon is absolutely amazing. He is making really strong and deep points in laugh-out-loud performances. That’s really the goal.”

‘Jon Stewart Did Something New’

For Burnett, Stewart is a central figure in the evolution of late-night television. “In the lineage of the talk show, the evolutionary brand of the talk show before Trump, you have to kind of bow down to Jon Stewart.”

Of course, Johnny Carson occupies a dominant sort of starting point in that same evolution, as host of the institution that is NBC’s The Tonight Show for nearly three decades. “Carson was doing that old show-business style very well, Then Dave did the silly, goofy, weird take off that,” Burnett noted. Conan, a Letterman acolyte, of course belongs in that latter school.

“Then Jon Stewart did something new,” Burnett said. “He did comedy that was about something. The Daily Show took it to a new level, really making meaningful political points.” 

Stewart spawned Colbert and John Oliver, Burnett said. “Then, you add to it this president.”

‘It’s Hard, Because Trump Is a Punchline Himself’

Another point Conan made at Oxford was that it is a wrong perception that Trump is necessarily good for comedy because he does so many mockable things. Rather, that can actually make it harder to be funny, he said.

Burnett agreed.

“I don’t know how I would write it because it’s the same premise night after night. That’s really hard, because Trump is a punchline himself,” he asserted. “It feels like you have a sixth grader who became president. And it’s like there’s a bunch of sixth graders with this guy saying, ‘We should invade Greenland! That would be amazing!’ But he’s the president.”

The idea of invading Greenland, Burnett said, “is a set-up and a punchline all by itself. I don’t envy them the task” of making it funny every night.

Burnett also recognized that the sheer tonnage of Trump-oriented news and related comedy material can feel overwhelming: “It’s exhausting, that’s the word for it.” He admitted to watching late-night shows more sporadically, though partly from his overindulgence over three decades at a delicious but unrelenting all-you-can-eat buffet.

But he does watch all of late-night TV’s current occupants, and beyond his emotional backing for Kimmel’s “stand,” and what he called the “outrageous” treatment of Colbert, Burnett had praise for Seth Meyers (on NBC’s Late Night) and Jimmy Fallon (The Tonight Show) as well.

Fallon generally only tiptoes though the minefield of Trump-landia, of course. “I do give Jimmy credit,” Burnett said, “because he’s true to himself. He’s not faking the other thing. ‘I don’t want to do that. I’m not gonna do that. I’ll come out and just be funny and silly and this is what I am.’ And he’s great at it. There’s a bucket of people he can appeal to.”

What Would Dave Do?

That begs the question: If Letterman was still at it during Trump 2.0, what would he be up to?

“I think Dave would be part of the conversation,” Burnett ventured. “He has always been a person to speak his mind. When we weren’t doing political comedy a lot, I don’t think it was necessary. I don’t think politics occupied the consciousness of America the way it does now.”

Also, Letterman learned a lesson, Burnett said, when he tried to steer away from what occupied the consciousness of America. 

“Dave didn’t make O.J. jokes,” Burnett said, referring to the aftermath of the murders O.J. Simpson went to trial for. “Dave thought, ‘I’m not going to make fun of a murder.’ But it was what the country was interested in. It hurt the show, and he started to make O.J. jokes.”

Nowadays, it’s obvious what the country is interested in, frightened by, Burnett said. “I don’t know if I would be equipped to write a Colbert, Kimmel, Stewart monologue. But someone would. And I think Dave would be doing that.”

And, of course, he would be damn funny doing it.

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