Well Dave (in the early days of Late Night) relied much less on topical driven monologues than Johnny Carson did. Much of Dave's early humor was based on zany antics (making bad phone calls, throwing stuff off a five story tower, wearing a suit made of Velcro and sticking to a wall, remote segments, etc) or theme shows, and didn't rely that much on current events. And although Dave did have guests who came on the show to plug movies and TV shows, he also had a recurring lineup of more offbeat guests (Brother Theodore, sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Kamarr the "discount" magician, Sandra Bernhard) who generally weren't plugging anything.
The good news is that Antenna TV has been running complete episodes of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show for the last few months, so I'm holding out hope that they might add Letterman to the lineup too.
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