David Letterman Finally Apologizes to the Small Town He Insulted in the ‘80s
These days, David Letterman is a kindly pseudo-retiree with a beard that would make Santa Claus jealous. But back in the ‘80s, his caustic sense of humor led him to troll an entire town.
On a 1987 episode of Late Night, Letterman claimed that NBC’s research department had delivered a troubling piece of news. The city of Bangor, Maine “had the lowest delivery of all local markets, with a rating below 1.0,” Letterman stated, adding, “what all of this means essentially is, there’s no one in the city of Bangor, Maine watching this show. Nobody.”
So over the course of the next two weeks, Letterman came up with several wacky ideas to persuade residents of Bangor to watch his show, including showing off some local shoes and lumber products, and getting Paul Shaffer to compose a song about their hometown. Letterman’s mispronunciation (bang-er) inspired some pretty racy lyrics.
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The late-night host also obtained a copy of the Bangor white pages, and began reading out names of random people. When the gimmick grew old, he hired Oscar nominee Robert Vaughn to come read out random names, but with more dramatic flair.
Well, Letterman has at least one devoted fan in Bangor, Maine. Since 1997, Danny Cashman has hosted a local late-night talk show called The Nite Show, citing Letterman as his primary influence. And after making the decision to call it quits this year, Cashman’s top-secret final guest turned out to be none other than David Letterman.
Cashman recently revealed that he was only able to land the surprise guest after two previous attempts failed. And while the episode has yet to air, NEWS CENTER Maine recently shared a few clips from the show. In one of them, Letterman apologized for butchering the city’s name on his show. “Do you know there’s a certain sensitivity about how you pronounce the name of this city? It’s Bang-or, alright? Bangor,” Letterman stressed. “All my life, ‘Bang-er.’ I’m sorry… What are you going to do about it? I know better now.”
He also offered Cashman some advice about walking away from a talk show. “In terms of tough decisions, you don’t really want any more of a struggle in life than this,” Letterman told the host. “It’s firm right? Have you signed anything?”
“We didn’t sign anything to start the show,” Cashman responded.
“Hearing his words of encouragement means the absolute world to me,” Cashman stated after the taping. “The fact that he came here and basically said, ‘Good job,’ I’ll never ever, ever forget that. And it’s the perfect way to close this up.”
What a lovely epilogue to a story that began with a TV star bitterly reading out names from a phone book.
