'Late Show with David Letterman' premiered 30 years ago this week: 'Different and adventurous'

Welcome to "Re/Watch," a new column that celebrates the anniversaries of  iconic moments in TV history.

On Aug. 30, 1993, a new show opened on Broadway. You might say the occasion was hard to miss. 

CBS had been running promos for months. The press had been paying attention too. On that first night, Paul Shaffer and his CBS Orchestra could be heard from the street. So could Billy Joel, the first musical guest who performed a rousing cut of "No Man's Land" off his latest studio album, "River of Dreams." 

 The inaugural guest, Bill Murray, suddenly appeared on a fire escape outside. He was waving a can of black spray paint at the assembled crowd below. That was hard to miss too. 

 The opening night of "Late Show with David Letterman" was "different, adventurous, and the opening music was incredible," says Biff Henderson, "Late Show's" longtime stage manager, and beloved on-air fixture ever since Letterman had briefly hosted a morning show on NBC in the early '80s. "But just the feel of the Ed Sullivan Theater — the energy, the vibration, was thrilling. We were all looking forward to a new chapter in late night television."

   They would all get that new chapter and then some over the next 22 years, as Letterman's "Late Show" established both a franchise and habit on CBS where none had existed before. Yet it was that opening night which set both the tone and promise of what was to come. 

   After the host, the second most important element of this stunning launch almost didn't happen. CBS and Letterman had wanted to pass on the Sullivan — too cavernous, too impersonal, too squalid. They preferred some anodyne space at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street.

But Letterman's esteemed director, Hal Gurnee, pushed hard for The Ed Sullivan Theater at 53rd and Broadway which had been "Studio 50" when "The Ed Sullivan Show" originated there from 1952 to 1971. 

 Gurnee recalled in an interview some years ago that a reluctant Letterman asked him whether the new CBS program "would look like an 11:30 show …"

No, explained Gurnee, "it'll look like an 8 o'clock one." 

   Indeed, as Joel himself noted, "this is where I saw the Beatles for the first time on TV [and said] 'that's what I'm going to do.' That's why I'm here now." 

   The Sullivan bonded Letterman to the past but also to the future. He was no longer Just Dave of "Late Night" but New Dave of "Late Show," an impresario for a new age and network. Everything and everyone seemed bigger and better from that stage, the host above all. 

As exotic as that first night was, there was an aura of familiarity too. "I had a pretty good summer," said Dave in the opening monologue. "I think I must have gone two months without saying Buttafuoco." He also made a few sharp jabs at NBC and the teapot tempest that had accompanied his acrimonious departure from the network. 

NBC had insisted he was to use none of the bits that originated on "Late Night" but "I checked with CBS's attorneys and I can legally continue to call myself 'Dave."" 

   Right on cue, Tom Brokaw then arrived on stage and grabbed a couple of flip cards. "These last two jokes," he harrumphed, "are the intellectual property of NBC." 

Murray later used that can of paint to scrawl "Dave" on the host's desk — in the event viewers didn't know who he was. 

Henderson, 76, and now retired, says Letterman "was a great boss — I have the highest level of respect for him" while over the course of his career at "Late Show," "no two days were the same. You just didn't know what was going to happen."