Making The Laughs Last

Late night comedy may look like easy, but the Tufts graduate behind the “Late Show with David Letterman” says finding the formula for success requires a lot of work.

New York City [10.18.04] Late night comedy shows may look like a bunch of laughs, but the process of creating a funny show every night is a lot harder than it looks. After 19 years in the business, Tufts graduate Rob Burnett has learned that the secret is finding the right host and huge amounts of planning and hard work.

“At one end of the day, it all relies on the person behind the desk,” Burnett, the executive producer of the “Late Show with David Letterman” told National Public Radio’s (NPR) Morning Edition. “You’ll quickly learn, if you’re doing this night in and night out, it’s very difficult to maintain that level of energy and intensity that’s necessary to keep this giant ship moving forward.”

He should know.

Since joining “Late Show” in 1985 – the year after he graduated from Tufts – Burnett has risen through the ranks. During his tenure, he helped the comedy show win 5 Emmys for “Outstanding Variety Music or Comedy Series.”

Accepting the awards is easy. But creating a show that people like requires more than a formula.

“[When people in the TV business try to launch a late night show] they go out and they get themselves the talk-show starter kit, you know, where you get a big box and you open it up and 12 guys from Harvard run out and make bad coffee and sit around a table and start writing comedy,” Burnett told NPR. “And then you get the talent department who starts booking all the guests, and before you know it, you have this little infrastructure of a show.”

But infrastructure doesn’t produce laughs. The host does.

“Listening is everything. I mean, that’s the first piece of advice I would give anyone trying to host one of these shows,” Burnett said. “You can almost always see when new people start, especially if they’re comics, sitting back, waiting to get in a punch line or a joke or trying to find something they can pounce on.”

Hosts also struggle with their focus.

“I remember hearing some kind of quote [from a host] before his show started up about how you know, ‘Oh it’s going to be great. I’m going to go do the show but I’m still going to do movies.’ ‘I’ll be able to keep my seats at the Knicks’ game’ or something” Burnett said. “And the minute I heard that, I knew [the show] was not going to work.”

Ultimately, Burnett says, a good host just has an intangible quality that makes him a late night star.

“That’s a certain kind of quality that someone like Johnny Carson had in spades,” Burnett told NPR. “I think Dave, though he is a little bit more caustic than Johnny, has that.”