and entertain you. and i hope when i find something that i want to do and i think you will like and come back that you ll be as gracious inviting me into your home as you have been. i bid you a very heartfelt good night. [cheers and applause] - the tonight show without johnny carson as the regular host made its debut last night. jay leno emerged from behind the curtain, stepping into the big shoes that were filled for 30 years by johnny. - cbs came to us and made a very attractive offer. - here we go, number ten. number nine. - letterman did place a call to johnny carson, asking for his advice, and johnny said, if it was me, i would leave. and i think that advice was really the lynchpin. letterman always took johnny s advice. - the late-night wars are about to begin in earnest on american television. david letterman is now headed for cbs. - cbs had lured him over with a salary
is that it was one of the first dramas to really get into the teenager s point of view. - do you have protection? - of course. that s always been my problem. lots of protection but no one to protect. - i wanted to do a tv series that was going to be relevant to teenagers. [cheerleaders chanting] and it s not about the parents solving the kids problems. it s about the kids basically solving their own problems. - what are we supposed to do, sit em down, have a kid-to-parent talk? - no, you can t talk to parents on that mature a level. tragic but true. - if the 60s had beatlemania, the 90s had 90210 mania. and when tv guide had its youth-quake cover, that was a sign that suddenly, television was focused on these young people. - it s what i gotta do - my so-called life was like the punk rock version of 90210. it was earnest but not at all saccharine.
- he attracted a lot of people who weren t fans before that night. - the 90s was a glorious moment for black television, because you saw these representations that you d never seen before. [ yo home to bel-air by dj jazzy jeff & the fresh prince] the premise of the fresh prince was, this kid comes from philadelphia. - in west philadelphia, born and raised on the playground is where i spent most of my days - his mom says, i m gonna send you to live with your uncle. he shows up at this mansion in bel air, baseball cap on backward, like he doesn t even know how to act in this environment. [hip-hop music] the black producers and directors and writers were always playing with this kind of subverting expectations of what is blackness. - the incredible work of the fresh prince at its most triumphant was when
- oh, yeah, you can t sit there. - why not? - that s where sheldon sits. - he can t sit somewhere else? - no. no, you see, in the winter, that seat is close enough to the radiator so that he s warm, yet not so close that he sweats. in the summer, it s directly in the path of a cross breeze created by opening windows there and there. it faces the television at an angle that isn t direct, so he can still talk to everybody, yet not so wide that the picture looks distorted. - perhaps there s hope for you after all. - don t touch that dial. we re about to flip it for you. - in five, four, three, two. - tv is changing dramatically now with 150 channels that might be available in the near future. - there s a lot of things that we do
- [grunting] - and i m choking up talking about it right now because, like, that s how great a moment of tv that it is. - 20 years from now, the best tv dramas, what ll they look like? - i don t know. i don t know whether - will they be bolder than what we see today? - oh, assuredly. assuredly, they will be. - the 90s gave us several shows that didn t really explode in the ratings but were very influential to other people making television. homicide is one of them. - shell me with questions all night i m living in a danger zone - homicide: life on the street was really innovative in terms of its style. it used music in ways that advanced the narrative. and it also used feature film directors 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,