Julia Roberts was on Friday, but this news stole the show:
From the Chicago Sun Times:
Will Oprah's invitation put an end to Letterman feud?
December 13, 2003
BY PHIL ROSENTHAL TELEVISION CRITIC
Now it's Oprah Winfrey's turn to make David Letterman squirm.
Saying he's worried Winfrey will make him "break down and sob like a little girl," Letterman is weighing an invitation to come to Chicago to visit one of his favorite punch lines on her own turf.
Letterman revealed the offer to appear on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on Friday's telecast of CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman," and a spokeswoman for Winfrey confirmed the invite. It's the latest salvo in the apparent show-biz feud between the talk-show titans.
"So what we're hearing now is that Oprah no longer hates me," Letterman said during Thursday's taping.
Winfrey told Time magazine in its Dec. 15 issue that she won't go on Letterman's late-night show because she's been "completely uncomfortable" as "the butt of his jokes" in previous appearances.
Letterman baited her again this week, proposing she come on his show for an "hour of healing" he mockingly dubbed "the Super Bowl of Love." Winfrey protege Dr. Phil McGraw supposedly would "come out first and straighten me out, because the problem is me," Letterman said. "I have an attitude problem. There is something wrong with me. And then, when he feels it's safe, Oprah will come out ... and then the love will explode. ... Oprah and I will embrace. Oprah and I will kiss."
So Winfrey got wise and put Letterman on the spot with her own offer. Letterman has not yet accepted.
"While I'm gratified on the one hand, I'm a little concerned about this," Letterman, who has agreed to only a handful of TV and print interviews in the last seven years, told bandleader Paul Shaffer. "It can't possibly happen because that would screw up the Super Bowl of Love.
"Because here's what would happen: I would go on the 'Oprah' show, and I would break down and sob like a little girl. ... I don't want to have that happen. I'd feel ridiculous. I'd never be able to live that down, that Oprah would make me sob, Oprah handing me a tissue."
Back in late 2001 and early 2002, Letterman had a nightly routine in which he made sport of claiming he wanted to be booked on Winfrey's show. She ignored his on-air pleas.
Over the years, Letterman has had fun with everything from Winfrey's weight to her O magazine to her film "Beloved." A running "Late Show" gag is to have two stagehands perform deadpan readings of transcripts from Winfrey's syndicated daytime show.
Letterman's ill-fated 1995 turn as host of the Academy Awards is remembered largely for the way his "Oprah-Uma, Uma-Oprah" introduction of Winfrey to actress Uma Thurman bombed. But he has suggested on-air, perhaps apocryphally, that the relationship between him and Winfrey soured years ago when he stuck Winfrey with his lunch tab at a posh Barbados resort.
Winfrey went so far as to fly to Los Angeles to visit the rival "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" in 1996, when Letterman's "Late Show" was originating from Chicago. Winfrey, however, extended an olive branch of sorts with a gift of children's books for Letterman's newborn son just last month.
The birth of Harry Letterman has seemed to change the first-time father, warmed him up and made him more open and vulnerable on the air as he answers questions about his personal life from guests such as Madonna, Howard Stern and, on Friday, Julia Roberts.
Winfrey wants her shot at him now. It's put up or shut up time for Letterman, all joking aside.
--end--
Paging Studio 23!!![/i]. The coolness factor on your station will be multiplied a million-fold if you start broadcasting The Late Show. Two puny little UHF channels could do it before -- CTV 31 and SBN 21 before that -- surely you could too! It's actually a mystery why you haven't picked it up up to now.
