Closure, after all these years, for Bill Hicks

Here is how long it's been since David Letterman and his then-producer, Robert Morton, decided to cut Bill Hicks' controversial monologue out of a "Late Show" broadcast -- in one of the very first editions of Late Show News that I wrote, 15 years ago, I was already referring to the Hicks incident as old news.

Since then it's gone on to become one of the most fabled TV moments of all time, probably because it never aired. Until now. Actually, it's possible it aired in 2003. Trio -- remember Trio?, the network Lauren Zalaznick ran before she became Queen of All Cable? -- did a documentary on Hicks called "Outlaw Comic," of which the Letterman excision was the central moment. (It was subtitled, "The Censoring of Bill Hicks," which Virginia Heffernan, citing Stanley Fish, high-handedly asserted was not censoring according to the First Amendment ... although I would point out that according to the original Latin, it actually is.)

Anyway, I searched through reviews, including my own, of the Hicks docu and couldn't find confirmation that the excised Letterman routine actually aired. But it doesn't matter, since only about five million homes, at most, ever saw the Trio channel. For all practical purposes, what Dave will be showing America on Friday night is something America has never seen: the routine that he, Dave Letterman, kept off his show 15-1/2 years ago. Joining him will be Mary Hicks, the late comedian's mom. Details at TVS.

Several in-depth pieces have been written about the incident over the years; here's one that includes a portion of the original New Yorker piece that effectively blew the whistle on Dave. And here's an interview Hicks gave about the incident to a Texas cable access show:

Link : http://www.youtube.com/v/pkptz2YfZik&hl=en&fs=1

The explanation given over the years was that Letterman was new at CBS, was riding high in the ratings, and didn't want any trouble, so in an impulse act fed by his own anxieties, he agreed to cut the Hicks routine. I assume that explanation will be repeated on Friday ... and while I know what Bill said, I can't wait to see and hear how he actually said it.

The video

Here's how Dave introduced the segment in the previous act ... notice that the audience has not been prepped at all and laughs inappropriately at first:

Link : http://www.youtube.com/v/kUbB_D-dYp8&hl=en&fs=1

Part two with Mary Hicks:
Link : http://www.youtube.com/v/5yTVDoSRKq0&hl=en&fs=1

Part three ...at long last:
Link : http://www.youtube.com/v/VBC1dKGO2_A&hl=en&fs=1

I especially like the part where he trolled for anti-gay audience members. But nothing here justified Dave's overreaction -- and I'm glad he's acknowledged that, too. Rest in peace, Bill.

Source http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2009/01/closure-after-a.html
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Bill Hicks on Letterman, Finally

A 1993 standup performance by Bill Hicks on David Letterman that was cut from the telecast 15 years ago finally saw light of day on an unusual episode of "Late Show with David Letterman" on Friday.

Suddenly awash with guilt for cutting the performance in its entirety, months before the edgy comic died of pancreatic cancer, Letterman not only showed the entire performance, he also invited the comic's mother, Mary Hicks, on the show so he could say how sorry he was for the whole thing.

"Let me again apologize for the heartache and sadness my decision caused your family," Letterman told the white-haired lady. 

"I appreciate you saying that," she said.

At the time, it was the first time a whole performance had been cut from the late night show because of content. It caused enough consternation that Hicks wrote a 39-page letter to John Lahr in the New Yorker. 

Letterman said Friday he realized that decision to pull the performance from the telecast caused pain to the family, who were among the few to know about the cancer that would kill him four months later.

"I know I can't make up for the damage that was causes, but I do hope that this makes it up symbolically to you," he said.

The performance was, like a lot of Hicks' work, funny and twisted and challenging at times. 

Letterman warned that some of it might be dated, but it was only in that he railed against textbooks promoting gay lifestyles (twisted, he said, except maybe for "My Two Mommys").

He also poked fun at the right to life people. If they were so serious about their calling they should stop blocking medical clinics and start blocking cemeteries, he said.

But the routine began with a segment about a new TV show he was going to do called "Let's Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus."

Coincidentally, the segment came after a promo for that night's Craig Ferguson show, in which he was discussing Miley Cyrus.

Source http://blogs.courant.com/roger_catlin_tv_eye/2009/01/bill-hicks-on-letterman-finall.html

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David Letterman airs the 'lost' Bill Hicks routine

This past Friday night, David Letterman devoted a chunk of his show to a bit of insider baseball, a piece of late-night talk show history that probably meant nothing to 99 percent of his audience, but enough to him to give about half his show over to it.

The segment centered around a legendary ''lost'' routine by the comedian Bill Hicks from the early days of the Late Show in 1993. Its legend comes not from viewers' memories of it, but because no one got to see it (this was a time before all video made its way onto the Internet within hours). As Letterman explained on Friday, he deemed the routine not suitable to air, for reasons he seems at a loss to explain. In a sad coda, Hicks, a frequent guest on Letterman's 12:30 a.m. show on NBC who was visiting the then-new CBS 11:30 p.m. Late Show for the first time, would be dead from cancer months later.

See David Letterman's introduction of the segment here:
Link : http://www.youtube.com/v/kUbB_D-dYp8&hl=en&fs=1

With Hicks' mother as his guest on Friday, Letterman revisited this long-ago episode, finally airing the 1993 routine in its entirety. It's a fascinating segment, watching him tread on this uncomfortable ground, coming face-to-face with the idea you can't put your arms around a memory; whatever he'd want to say to Hicks now, he can't. In the second part of the segment, here he is trying to say it to Hicks' mom: 

Link : http://www.youtube.com/v/5yTVDoSRKq0&hl=en&fs=1

It's compelling to watch Letterman seeming to struggle from the perspective of 2009 to understand –- or make us understand -- a decision made in the far-different television universe of 1993. Hicks' brand of social commentary -– his routine, embedded below, includes barbs on aggressively mindless pop culture figures of the day, cultural attitudes about homosexuality, pro-lifers, and religious symbolism -- must have seemed discomfiting so soon after Letterman lost The Tonight Show gig to Jay Leno, and an endless stream of commentary questioned if Letterman's ''edgier''-by-comparison approach had a chance to succeed on CBS at the earlier hour.

Flash ahead a decade and a half, and time has changed everything: The 11:30 Letterman show is a fixed spot on the national pop culture landscape, and Bill Hicks' work still has resonance. After the Hicks routine, Letterman notes that the piece really doesn't seem dated, and other than a reference to Billy Ray Cyrus here and ''Marky Mark'' there, that's true (the names may change, but a mind-set remains the same). But here's what I'm wondering: Even with all the proliferation of late-night talk, would someone with something to say on issues that Bill Hicks tackles here even get booked in 2009? If there's a Bill Hicks out there working now, will he or she get on Late Show, The Tonight Show, or Jimmy Kimmel Live? In the age of the Internet and cable, does it even matter?

Still, it's interesting to see Letterman's perspective shift from one of a younger, competitive host wanting to win a ratings war, to a more human attempt to tell a mom who seems still to feel stung by how the rejection affected her critically ill son (a fact Letterman makes clear was not known by the show at the time) that his work deserved better and to at least publicly acknowledge a lingering regret that a decision made in the heat of one moment looks unnecessarily harsh with the passage of time. What happened then can't be undone, but give Letterman points for trying to wrestle with it all these years on, and letting us watch. 

Anyone else moved by this last Friday? Do you think late-night TV -- or TV in general -- is still willing to address issues Hicks deals with in 2009, or has the ratings war destroyed that aspect?
Link : http://www.youtube.com/v/VBC1dKGO2_A&hl=en&fs=1

Source http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/02/david-letterman.html
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