Just horsing around with Letterman and O’Reilly
After having wrestled one another (literally) in January 2006, Bill O’Reilly was back on David Letterman this past Friday. The encounter is getting heavy play on YouTube (want a quick sense of how polarized America has become? - read the comments on the long list of clips from the interview.) and clips are appearing on other networks (a sure sign that a publicity stunt has worked).
I’ve often raised my concern over important issues being “debated” in interviews on comedy/entertainment shows - and those comments on YouTube show how seriously a lot of people were taking this Late Show sparring. So there’s more than a bit of irony in Dave’s opening question from Friday’s show:
Letterman: Uh, how’s it going? Am I right about one thing? You guys over there at Fox News, guys like Rush Limbaugh - uh, you you you guys just know it’s all just a goof, right? You’re just, you’re just horsing around? Am I right about that? You’re doing it because you know it will be entertaining?
Dave, aren’t you and other talk show comics really being serious under the guise of horsing around?
Having gotten that off my chest, there were some great comedy bits in the interview, my two favourites being:
O’Reilly: What are we [at Fox News] doing exactly?
Letterman: You, you, uh - well, see here again you got me because I’ve never seen -
O’Reilly: See, you don’t, you’ve never seen the show, you don’t watch the network.
Letterman: Let me tell you something, I don’t even know how to get to your show.
O’Reilly: Right down, you just go straight down, you take a right.
Letterman: But it’s on, it’s on Fox, I dial up Fox and it’s always The Simpsons. And I don’t - Where are you? Bill?
O’Reilly: Did you enjoy Culture Warrior - the book?
Letterman: I haven’t read the book.
O’Reilly: You really haven’t read it? Come on. You’re in the book!
Letterman: I know. I looked at it [O'Reilly is in a blue windbreaker on the cover] and I thought, ‘What is he? What is this? A book about sailing? And then I said, “No, I don’t need that.”
Quotes are taken from a full transcript I found here.
Posted: October 31st, 2006 under Media Interview Parodies.