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Editorial Review Product Description
Recounts CBS's wooing of late night talk show host David Letterman and how Letterman and Jay Leno faced off over who would host the Tonight Show. 75,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. ... Read more Customer Reviews (19) 
Interesting and detailed but a bit dated
Detailed description of the passage of the Tonight Show from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno, and David Letterman's accompanying move from NBC to CBS. Much of the book remains extremely topical given the current excitement surrounding Conan O'Brien's departure from the Tonight Show, which he had taken over from Jay Leno last year.
The book has some fascinating descriptions of the backgrounds of Leno and Letterman, from childhood on. It gives a very good description of the intricate television politics at play.
Unfortunately, despite the topicality of much of the book, with the passage of time three problems are apparent.
Firstly, the television business is obviously much different now than it was in the early 90s. So a lot of the business analysis, although no doubt of historical interest, has only limited contemporary relevance.
Secondly, the long and detailed disussions of exactly which executives did which are simply not that fascinating any more, since the executives in question, presumably, are long gone. I had trouble keeping track of all the different names and positions of all the different players, some of whom are only briefly and cursorily introduced.
Finally, the natural question raised by the book is exactly how everybody turned out. Although there is a sort of afterword describing it, the afterword itself is out of date.
Probably what needs to happen is for an updated version of the book to be published.
I should mention as well that the book contains a number of extremely incendiary accusations, the most notorious of which being that Leno's agent placed articles in the press impelling Johnny Carson to retire. I cannot speak for the accuracy of these, and they rely on anonymous sourcing.
Nevertheless, clearly a huge amount of work went into the book, and it must have been engrossing reading when it was published a decade ago. And parts of it remain intriguing if not fascinating.
Excellent!
I'm a HUGE Letterman fan and this totally took me by surprise!An excellent read for late night fans(of either show)!
One of the most addictive book of all time
Man, I have read this book beginning to end maybe 10 times.
It is addictive. It reads like a great novel starting with the king stepping down and the princes fighting for the crown.
A must read for comedy addicts and fans of late night
Read only if you want to learn every intricate detail
The movie was mildly entertaining, so I decided to check the book out. However, I found myself losing interest in the book quite fast.
The ending result is anti-climatic, of course, since we all know the result of the late-night battle.
The behind the scenes details weren't all that compelling. Just a bunch of head strong, egotistical executives fighting over who they thought deserved Carson's seat as the King of Latenight.
The only insightful part of the book to me was learning how Conan O'brien has won the Late Night show. I had always wondered how such a relative unknown had won the part.
Politicking wins over talent every time nowadays.
It was a heck of a battle, and some folks didn't exactly play fair. Letterman, by far the more deserving of the "King of Late Night" crown following Carson's unceremonious ousting, tried to win by being the best at what he does. Leno's camp won by using strongarm tactics, bullying, and underhandedness. Even Leno's show "borrows" rather heavily from Dave's old show, partly because his people lured Letterman's chief writers to their side. Leno may be a decent guy (I hear), but his management quite literally stole The Tonight Show for him. Dave was hoping to be let in through the front door, but Leno's camp broke in through a window. The companion HBO movie treatment of this book is also a very entertaining and enlightening dramatization of the basics of this ordeal.
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