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...

Thank you, Jimmy Fallon, for turning one of your signature bits into a series of hilarious books.  Thank you, also, Jimmy Fallon, for allowing your newest book to play music! Late night talk shows have been a big television network battleground for ratings and advertising dollars since Tonight! starring Steve Allen began airing on NBC on September 27, 1954. Once Johnny Carson took over as host, he cemented the late night talk format and all of the networks, looking for extra advertising cash got into the game. After a whirlwind of host shuffling, and numerous mistakes by NBC, they did one thing right, and on March 2, 2009 Jimmy Fallon was hired as host of Late Night. It would take a few months, but Fallon made the show his own by banking on his sketch comedy experience and creating a different vibe from previous hosts.  Some of Jimmy’s signature bits include Celebrity Whispers, Models and Buckets, Slow Jamming the News, Cell Phone Shootout, Spin That Wheel of Carpet Samples and a ton more. Jimmy will also often invite guests to participate in sketches (such as 80’s dating shows or acting without hands) and his crew members have made several reality series parodies such as Jersey Floor and The Real Housewives of Late Night. The show also broke the television talk show mold by making frequent use of social media and the internet.  An entire team of bloggers are devoted to his website and interacting with fans online.  On the set, Jimmy has a Mac computer on his desk and plays weekly hash tag games on Twitter, where he will actually read viewer posts to a funny topic he Tweets earlier in the day.  Even before the show launched fans had the opportunity to choose on...