about to begin in earnest on american television. david letterman is now headed for cbs. cbs had lured him over with a salary more than four times that of leno and given him what he really wanted, the 11:30 time slot. now as dave and jay prepare to go head to head, one thing is clear. late night tv will never be quite the same. all of a sudden there s a talk show war. start up your remote controls. the late night race is about to begin. on monday david letterman s new show debuts here on cbs followed a week later by chevy chase on fox and a week after that by conan o brien on nbc. these combatants join the tonight show with jay leno, arsenio and nightline. it became a crowded space and competition became that much more difficult. the third corner, his ratings fading rapidly, arsenio hall. some tv writers think arsenio could be the big loser in this
start to kind of come into their own. have i always had these breasts? a lot of people want freedom. they don t want to go back to the networks, which are saying you can come to us where you ll make more money, but you ll also have content restricted. you could go to cable and have no restrictions, not make as much money, but have freedom of expression, which almost everybody who works in these mediums wants. some of the content truly was you can t get this anywhere else. you re a fantasymaker and the only limit is people s imagination. hbo turned to people who said i can t do that on television, but you can do it on hbo. white people don t trust black people. that s why they won t vote for a black president like a black brother will [ bleep ] the white house, like the grass won t be cut? this is cousins running into
that brought a look and style to the show that really stood out on television. tears coming out of your eyes. ain t no tears coming from my eyes. his eyes are brimming with tears. they had so many african american characters in the cast that on several occasions they were the only people on camera interacting with one another. and that sounds like, so? but as late as the 90s, that wasn t done on television. when a cop shoots somebody, he stands by it. he picks up the radio mic and calls it in. he stands by the body. if not, cops are no better than anybody else. in the 90s, television was getting more complicated, stories were starting to become more episodic, characters were starting to develop and change. none of that happened on law & order. dun dun this was a show that completely delivered on its formula every time. you get a crime, you got the investigation into the crime. you better be packing more than a dirty mouth. you got an arrest. what s the charg
pretty, huh? yeah. it was just a melding of a guy and a world. open the [bleep] door. open the [bleep] door. and a behavior that promoted all of the feelings that you would have for a guy that you love in a guy that you hate, you know. sopranos came on tv, and it really showed us the future, whether we realized that was going to be the future of television or not. this husband of yours, carmela, how much we love him. he s the best. oh, come on. he s like a father to me. just make sure nothing happens to him. that character in that show was a great inspiration for a great many shows that came after it, including one that i worked on. you know what i want, tony? i want those kids to have a father. they got one. this one. me, tony soprano, and all that comes with it. oh, you [bleep] the 90s is an amazing decade of tv.
tv is changing dramatically now with 150 channels that might be available in the near future. there are a lot of things we do you couldn t have on network television. this is more a celebration of culture, opening the doors and allowing america to come on inside. there s always something on television and some of it may be better than we deserve. that was cool.