Top 10 Things to Love About Letterman’s Top Ten Lists

Great piece by Ben Blatt for Slate:

In May, when Letterman steps down and hand the reigns of the Late Show to Stephen Colbert, the Top Ten List will likely retire with him. Before Letterman counts down for the last time, I wanted to commemorate one of the longest running comedy routines in late-night history by trying to learn more about its inner workings: how it’s crafted, how it comments on our culture and politics, and how it’s evolved since the mid-1980s. How do Letterman’s writers start a list, and how do they end one? What kind of jokes work best in the Top Ten format? What kind of jokes don’t work at all? Which political figures have found their way onto the list most often? And what’s with all the Regis references?

To answer these questions, I performed a statistical analysis of every Top Ten List ever read on the air by Letterman.

★ Friday, 12 December 2014