Late Night with David Letterman is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on NBC, the first iteration of the Late Night franchise. It premiered on February 1, 1982, and was produced by Letterman's production company, Space Age Meats, and Carson Productions. Letterman had previously hosted his own morning talk show on NBC from June to October 1980. The show's house band, The World's Most Dangerous Band, was led by music director Paul Shaffer. In 1993, Letterman announced that he would leave NBC to host the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. The final episode of Late Night was broadcast on June 25, 1993. The series has continued as Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus is an American actress and comedian. Often described as one of the greatest performers in television history, she is widely known for her roles as various characters on Saturday Night Live (1982–1985), Elaine Benes on Seinfeld (1989–1998), Christine Campbell on The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006–2010), and Selina Meyer on Veep (2012–2019). Her list of accolades makes her one of the most award-winning actresses in American television history, and she has received more Primetime Emmy Awards and more Screen Actors Guild Awards than any other performer.
Lorne Michaels is a Canadian-American television writer and film producer. He created and produces Saturday Night Live and produced the Late Night series, The Kids in the Hall and The Tonight Show.
Jerome Allen Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. From 1989 to 1998, he played a semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld, which he created and wrote with Larry David. The show aired on NBC from 1989 until 1998, becoming one of the most acclaimed and popular sitcoms of all time. As a stand-up comedian, Seinfeld specializes in observational comedy. In 2004, Comedy Central named him the 12th-greatest stand-up comedian of all time.
Lawrence Gene David is an American comedian, writer, actor, and television producer. He and Jerry Seinfeld created the television sitcom Seinfeld, on which David was head writer and executive producer for the first seven seasons. He gained further recognition for the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, which he created and stars in as a fictionalized version of himself. He has written or co-written the story of every episode since its pilot episode in 1999.
Colin Edward “Quinny” Quinn is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Quinn first gained widespread attention for his work as a cast member and writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2000, and he became known for anchoring Weekend Update, the show's news parody segment. Prior to and after his work on SNL, he also worked on MTV's 1980s game show Remote Control, where he served as the announcer/sidekick; and as host of Comedy Central's late-night panel show Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn. Notable film work includes his role as Dooey in A Night at the Roxbury, Dickey Bailey in the Grown Ups films, and playing Amy Schumer's father in the film Trainwreck. Comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Tina Fey, Chris Rock, and Dave Attell have cited Quinn as the quintessential "comic's comic" and New York comedian.
David William Thomas is a Canadian actor, comedian and television writer, known for being one half of the duo Bob and Doug McKenzie with Rick Moranis. He appeared as Doug McKenzie on SCTV, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award out of two nominations, and in the film Strange Brew (1983), which he also co-directed. As a duo, they made two albums, The Great White North and Strange Brew, the former gaining them a Grammy Award nomination and a Juno Award.
Saturday Night Live is an American late-night live television political satirical sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and streams on Peacock. Michaels currently serves as the program's showrunner. The show's premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches, which often parody contemporary American culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, who usually delivers the opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, with featured performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that was usually based on political events and ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", properly beginning the show.
John Henry Michael "Rove" McManus is an Australian triple Gold Logie award-winning comedian, television and radio presenter, producer and media personality. He was the host of the eponymous variety show Rove and was also the host of the comedy talk show Rove LA. He is the co-owner of the production company Roving Enterprises with business partner Craig Campbell. He hosts Whovians on the ABC.
Saturday TV Funhouse is a segment on NBC's Saturday Night Live featuring cartoons created by SNL writer Robert Smigel. 101 "TV Funhouse" segments aired on SNL between 1996 and 2008, with one further segment airing in 2011. It also spawned a short-lived spinoff series, TV Funhouse, that aired on Comedy Central.
Steve Koren is an American writer/producer and screenwriter. Most notably, he has written for Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld, and Veep. He also wrote or co-wrote the movies Bruce Almighty, Click, A Night at the Roxbury, and Superstar.
Stewart Robert Einstein was an American actor, comedy writer, and producer. He created and performed the satirical stuntman character Super Dave Osborne, and was also known for his roles as Marty Funkhouser in Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Larry Middleman on Arrested Development.
Spike Feresten is an American television writer, screenwriter, comedian and television personality, who is best known for his work on Seinfeld, writing for David Letterman, and hosting the late night Talkshow with Spike Feresten from 2006 to 2009 on Fox. He is the former host of Esquire Network's series Car Matchmaker with Spike Feresten. He currently hosts the podcast Spike's Car Radio with Paul Zuckerman. He was also a screenwriter for the 2007 animated film Bee Movie.
David Mandel is a writer, actor, director, and producer. He was an executive producer and showrunner of Veep, and also an executive producer and director of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld. He is also a comedian, and one of the producer-directors of the teen-comedy EuroTrip. He was a writer for Seinfeld during its seventh, eighth, and ninth seasons and also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2003 film adaptation of The Cat in the Hat. He is one of the creators of Clerks: The Animated Series, and he was a writer for Saturday Night Live. He had a brief stint as a host of Dave and Steve's Video Game Explosion, a comedy video game review show that aired late nights on TBS as part of the Burly Bear Network. The show only lasted a few episodes before the entire block was canceled.
Michael Nesmith in Television Parts is a summer TV series run by NBC in 1985. It was a 30-minute comedy-variety series created by Michael Nesmith as a continuation of his Grammy Award-winning video production Elephant Parts, and earlier series PopClips. The first episode was a stand-alone television special which aired on March 7, 1985. The following series premiered on June 14, 1985.
The Burly Bear Network was an American cable TV channel targeted at 18- to 24-year-old college students founded in 1994. The company was created by four friends from Connecticut, Danny Stein, Brian Nurenberg, Danny Ameri and James Mairs and led by CEO Stein. Programming was offered on some university TV stations, including Arizona State University, Louisiana State University, Ball State University, Iowa State University, Northern Kentucky University, Purdue University, the University of Dayton, the University of Missouri, Berry College, Michigan State University, and Indiana University East in Richmond, as well as late nights on TBS.
Jerry Angelo Brooks, commonly known by his stage name J. B. Smoove, is an American actor, comedian and writer. After beginning his career in 1995 on Def Comedy Jam, he was a writer and performer on NBC's Saturday Night Live (2003–06). He is best known for his starring roles on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (2007–present) and the CBS sitcom The Millers (2013–15). He also portrayed a fictionalized version of himself on the BET improv-comedy reality television parody Real Husbands of Hollywood (2013–16).
Theodore Carrington Jessup is an American television writer, producer, actor, and performer. He is a writer for the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy, and has written the episodes "12 and a Half Angry Men," "Mom's the Word," "The 2000-Year-Old Virgin," "Brokeback Swanson," and "High School English."
Please Don't Destroy is an American comedy group in New York City consisting of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, who began collaborating as students at New York University. The group was originally founded in 2017 and based on an act titled Please Don't Destroy My Farm. The troupe performed monthly comedy shows, appeared at the New York Comedy Festival and produced sketch videos posted to YouTube. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they began creating shorter videos for TikTok and Twitter.
