Long before David Letterman became the king of late night, he was just another struggling Hollywood comedian. During the 1970’s, Dave was a fixture as a celebrity panelist on many game shows until he finally got a chance to host one of his own. Fortunately, that video has made it online and is hilarious! David Letterman grew up in Indianapolis and eventually worked as a weatherman in local television. He would eventually head to Hollywood, where he worked the comedy circuit and appeared as a game show celebrity panelist. Dave hosted a short lived morning show for NBC that led to his late night gig, Late Night with David Letterman. After a dispute over hosting duties of The Tonight Show, he moved on to CBS in 1993 and has been hosting his Late Show with David Letterman, since. One of Dave’s rarer TV projects was hosting the game show pilot, The Riddlers in 1977. Now a copy has been made available online. The Riddlers placed two teams, one made of five celebrities and one made of contestants with a common theme (five dance instructors were seen in this pilot). One player would read a clue and their partner would have to finish the answer to the hilarious riddle. Solving nine riddles wins $500 and a chance to play the Crazy Quotes bonus game. Missing a riddle, passed play to the other team. In the Crazy Quotes bonus game, players hilariously arranged themselves by intellectual ability to solve a series of more difficult riddles for a jackpot of $2,000. This pilot also features 1970’s celebrity guests Jo Anne Worley, Robert Urich, Joyce Builifant, Michael McKeon, and Debralee Scott. Take a look at the show that could have been, The Riddlers. Too bad – the game was just awful. The...

It’s Memorial Day weekend and not only does this mark the unofficial start of summer, it also marks my third SEASON PREMIERE! This blogumn officially kicks off my third year on F & N. Since we’re 93 blogumns in (plus 5 filling in for Ryan Dixon’s Fierce Anticipation), it’s time to update some of the great things we’ve talked about over the past two years. MOUNTAIN DEWMOCRACY May 7, 2010 [FIERCE ANTICIPATION: THE JERSEY JOE EDITION III] In my third blogumn filling in for Ryan, PepsiCo, the bottlers of Mountain Dew released three test flavors for the summer of 2010, allowing fans to vote on which they liked best to join the line permanently. They had tried this experiment in 2008 and it was a huge success. Mountain Dew White Out was the winner and went on sale on October 4th and is still on sale now.  For a brief time, Wal-Mart Supercenters also sold 2 liter bottles of Mountain Dew: Typhoon, one of the losing flavors.  In addition Mountain Dew: Game Fuel Cherry Citrus and Mountain Dew: Game Fuel Tropical were also on sale last summer to tie into the video game release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.  They were discontinued in December. PepsiCo has hinted that it has no plans to test more flavors, but a few new releases have gone on sale.  Mountain Dew Xtreme (grape flavored) in available in Saudi Arabia and Mountain Dew Grape is currently on sale in Japan. For summer 2012, a new flavor will appear in stores: Mountain Dew: Dark Berry as a promotion for the movie The Dark Night Rises.  It will have a mixed berry flavor and the cans will change color when chilled.  It goes on sale June 18th. THE SMURFS MOVIE May...

Al-Qaeda must be desperate, and on the losing end, in the War on Terror. Last week one of their members called for late night talk show host David Letterman’s tongue to be ripped out and silenced.  Wow, really? Letterman has been hosting his Late Show with David Letterman on CBS since 1993.  I’ve been watching Dave since I was a child and can’t even begin to think of television after 11:30pm on weeknights without him.  Dave had a long a crazy climb to the top, but he did it himself, and it’s like a rags to riches story Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 12, 1947.  He graduated from Ball State University in 1969 and had no clue what to do.  Letterman had worked as an announcer and newscaster for the campus radio station, but according to online reports, was fired after treating classical music with irreverence. With no clue what to do, Dave discovered Paul Dixon, host of The Paul Dixon Show, a Cincinnati based talk show that was also shown in Dave’s home town.  He immediately decided that’s what he wanted to do. Letterman began his official career as a talk show host for WNTA-AM radio and as a weatherman for WLWI-TV (now WTHR, the Indianapolis NBC affiliate.)  He became an instant hit thanks to his outrageous behavior in front of the camera.  He once congratulated a storm for being upgraded to a hurricane, blew up a model of the station, and predicted outrageous temperatures for fake cities. At the station, he also hosted a late night show, Freeze Dried Movies and Clover Power, a show that aired on Saturday mornings where he interviewed 4-H students about their projects.  In 1971, he also appeared as a pit reporter for ABC’s...