List of David Letterman Sketches - Regular Sketches

Regular Sketches

When Letterman left NBC and moved to CBS to begin the Late Show in the summer of 1993, several of Late Night's long-running comedy bits made the move with him, including perhaps his best known, the Top Ten List. Letterman renamed a few of his regular bits to avoid legal problems over trademark infringement (NBC cited that what he did on Late Night was "intellectual property" of the network). For example, "Viewer Mail" on NBC became the "CBS Mailbag", and Larry "Bud" Melman began to use his real name, Calvert DeForest.

One recurring sketch on both the NBC and CBS shows has been the destruction of household items by various methods including explosives, steamrollers, and - most often - throwing them off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater. While popular with fans, Letterman has gradually lessened the frequency of such segments in recent years.

Letterman also has a knack for consuming food products and drinks that appear on his show. Among the items that he has consumed are: wine from a bottle used for a cooking demonstration; various kinds of liquor (while quipping "We're gonna lose our liquor license"); Popeye's "Full Flavor Green Beans;" "motor oil" (actually chocolate syrup) from a bottle that bore a "Quaker State" label; Red Bull; liquid from a bottle that supposedly contained Wite-Out; pills from boxes labeled "Lipitor" and "Cialis" (obviously not really the drugs); and even cosmetic products. On one occasion, Dave took a healthy swig of "low-carb suntan lotion" and immediately spit it out, having discovered that it actually was suntan lotion.

The Late Show is well known for its repeated absurdist segments, often taking the form of competitions or audience participation. The charm of such segments is often that they are completely pointless, yet are taken seriously by Letterman and all involved.