Word: letterman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...would stir himself into a state of lasting disgust at the Marv Albert backbiting assault and underwear case, when one felt certain that Marv would (as he did) show up on Larry King, Letterman and Today to seek redemption by exposure? There was an exchange on the Today interview with Katie Couric that could be read as the clarifying moment of the entire century, let alone the past year, when Couric asked Marv why anyone should believe his version of the sordid events when he had already admitted lying to his former wife and fiance. Albert said, in effect, that...
...Russia, Igor Ugolnikov, host of a popular late-night show, Good Evening, appears on a set modeled after Letterman's (a nighttime view of Moscow in the background), banters with his bandleader and keeps a mug full of pencils on his desk. In Argentina, Roberto Pettinato is host of Duro de Acostar (roughly translated, Sleep Hard, a play on Duro de Matar, the Spanish title for Die Hard), which features yet another bantering bandleader, city backdrop and, in a variant on Letterman's trademark, a nightly Top 5 list. Dan Borge Akero, host of Norway's RiksDan, used...
...pioneer of the faux-Letterman gang was Australia's Steve Vizard, a lawyer turned comedian who was host of a late-night show down under for three years, starting in 1990. He had the Letterman repertoire down pat, introduc-ing bits with the same tongue-in-cheek flourish ("I have in my left hand... "). Staff members would even prep American guests on the show by telling them, "Just pretend you're on the Letterman show." Though critics hooted at the thievery, most Aussie viewers didn't get the references--until 1994, when the real Letterman show started airing in Australia...
...Letterman was also the model for Thomas Koschwitz, a roly-poly German host whose RTL Nightshow copied Dave's bits but not his success: it was canceled in 1995 because of low ratings. Schmidt, 40, a former actor who sports steel-rimmed glasses and designer suits, has done a better job of capturing Letterman's deadpan charisma, and The Harald Schmidt Show is now seen by 1 million Germans a night, a sizable 10% share of the viewing audience. His sometimes off-color jokes and frequent ethnic put-downs have earned Schmidt the nickname "Dirty Harry." For his advocates, however...
...just say the similarities are hard to ignore. "They have it down beat for beat," says Letterman's executive producer, Rob Burnett, who has seen Schmidt's show. Not that anyone is getting ready to call in the lawyers. "It makes us laugh," says Burnett. "It's like watching I Love Lucy in Spanish." And, of course, there's that old bit about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Dave may be having his problems in America, but no one is doing Jay Leno in Slovakia...