Is anyone familiar with incident? I'm mainly curious to know what Howard said to/about Letterman's NBC staffers.
01-14-2008 broadcast; discussing Howard’s Jan 10 2008 Letterman appearance. Artie requests the first thirty seconds of the show, bc he missed it. Howard reluctantly plays the clip: Letterman’s first question catches Howard off guard. He’s clearly uncomfortable and evasive and only more so back at the studio where he changes his story three times.
Letterman asks Howard, ‘…tell me if you don’t want to talk about this …I organized a Christmas party for my NBC staff. I showed up late but everyone told me Bill Wendell had to throw you out.’ Howard vaguely recalls this incident, acknowledging he left the party shortly after discovering it was only for Dave’s staff.
But then he goes on for close to 5 min, endlessly elaborating on what did and mostly didn't happen. Everyone here is familiar with Howard's long-winded, re-written non-answers, that would normally require a simple ‘yes, I did,’ or ‘not at all’ response. But instead always gets bogged down in details, assembling on-the-fly while backing his narrative into a corner far from any reasonable conclusion.
Robin: Thought you might see some stars! [chuckles]
Howard: Yeah. Yeah. Now I don’t remember why but I think Bill Wendell didn’t like me and he never really made it clear to me why and I don’t care, ya know. I Think it was just one of those things where I think he was jealous …I was at NBC …whatever …maybe I made fun of him or something? …I don’t remember even if I did that? I don’t know even if I ever thought about him.
Artie: this was mistaken identity, he truly had animosity towards you? [chuckles]
Howard: Yeah I know …No No! no no no no no You got it all wrong. So I show up at the party, see what’s doing there …a bunch of people all hanging around who work on the Letterman. I said 'Hi' to everyone. Letterman wasn’t there and I said to myself: I’m Gonna Leave! And I left! Thats it! That’s the whole story, now I musta left and somebody told Letterman that I split and it’s bc of Bill Wendell and it somehow became a game of telephone and I…
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Robin: Like what he said, Bill Wendell throwing you outta a party.
Howard: If I was thrown out of a party, I would have made a big deal about it
Robin: Absolutely!
Howard: …On the Air.
Artie: And it was never …straightened out. Letterman thought Bill Wendell threw you out of a party?
Howard: Yeah, I don’t even know Bill Wendell. I mean…
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Howard: So the thing is that -ahhh dat, dat, dat was …just ridiculous, He caught me off guard with that, I honestly did not know what he was talking about because
Robin: Right
Howard: …there never was such an event!
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Howard: Yup. So I don’t know -- here, I’ve got a bunch of (Letterman) clips...
Whenever Howard's in a hole, flailing about with on-the-spot revisions and flimsy details of a factual event, he needs to break, to update his in-studio staff (why they’re not discussing this), but mostly reset. He's mentally spent by the end of one of these fantastic narratives or he instinctively wants a buffer for his audience between the hogwash fables and whatever the next segment may be.
Robin: …weren’t you about to take a commercial break?
Howard: Yeah, Yeah, I was about to, I need to. Will be right back.
It’s evident Artie's the odd man out here. But instead of helping Howard, he just takes a bizarre stab at complimenting the preparation approach of other notable Letterman guests ??
Also, the show’s archival siren air-whore, Gary “Can I tell you a short story about that,” breaks character and remains sidelined the entire time and never once makes an appearance on intercom or in-studio.
Howard appeared on Late Night with David Letterman after the 1988 Christmas party. He immediately wanted to address what happened that night, holding up the show until he got an explanation or apology from Bill Wendell.
The whole thing seems frivolous and immature but I'm curious to know why Howard is so secretive over such a non-event? On the surface, it seems like Howard went to a staff Holiday party, probably made an ass of himself and Wendell overreacted and booted him. The only thing that never gets discussed is what Howard said, to set everything off?
tl;dr: 1988 appearence
v. 2008 ;
disputed: Jan 14, 2008 approx 8:40 am
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