David Letterman + Little Kids = Adorable

There are people -- I definitely know some -- who swore off The Late Show With David Letterman when the news broke that he'd had affairs over the years with young women who worked for him -- and I get it. When reports of an actor's bad behaviour hit the press, it's a bummer, but at least you can still like his or her work; if he or she is any good, you forget about his or her real life entirely and just invest in the performance. But every talk show host apart from Stephen Colbert isn't playing a role: he (and if it's a nighttime show, it is a he) is just himself. Jokes about his failings run through every episode. And whoever your late-night guy might be, when you've spent time with him every weeknight for years -- decades, in some cases -- learning that he's done something kind of distasteful or really gross (only you can determine where on the continuum Letterman's affairs fall) can be an awful shock.

I never cut ties with Letterman, though. (My late-night guy used to be Conan O'Brien, but his response to the whole Tonight Show débacle has put me off him a bit; there comes a point where that much self-pity starts to be unseemly.) I still love his curmudgeonly attitude; the fun he has with longtime guests like Bill Murray or Tom Hanks; the long, discursive stories about his real life; the visits from his somehow-still-alive mom. Here's a measure of how good I think he is at his job: he can even make Julia Roberts bearable. All that said: even if you've washed your hands of Letterman forever, you might consider ending your boycott for the sake of this video.

Every year on Hallowe'en, The Late Show does a bit called New Hallowe'en Costumes, which is pretty much what it sounds like: what makes the costumes "new," generally speaking, is that they're inspired by current events. Putting people in goofy, elaborate costumes constructed by TV professionals is nothing new to late-night sketch comedy, as the FedEx Pope or the Masturbating Bear can attest. But what makes New Hallowe'en Costumes so winning is that the costume models are little kids.

What's fun about watching Letterman interview celebrities -- particularly the very vapid ones -- is that he's been at this so long that he don't give a fuuuuuuuuuck. He will talk shit to their faces and ask about stuff he clearly knows they don't want to discuss. But it's also fun to watch him talk to regular people, because their unvarnished, media-uncoached manner must be so refreshing given the bullshit he has to pretend to care about most of the time. (There's also the fact that real-people interviews are probably a lot less predictable than those he conducts with, say, Tom Cruise.) As good as Letterman is opposite a Steve Martin, non-celebrities really make him come alive.

And when Letterman's with kids, I'm sorry, but the cute factor cranks up to 11. For one thing, the show's producers are great at finding kids for this bit who aren't in the performing-seal mode of kid actors; if I found out they were the sons and daughters of people who work on the show, it wouldn't surprise me. Letterman is so sweetly solicitous of them: they must be nervous, and he is so warm and kindly to them to make them feel at ease. AND YES I KNOW THAT KIDS ARE NOT THE SAME AS DOGS, but it's really the same kind of energy you see when (rarely) the show features Stupid Pet Tricks: much as you can tell, when a dog comes onstage, that he'd really rather spend the hour playing with it than doing a show, it also seems like he's much more interested in learning about these costume models' brothers and sisters and favourite subjects in school than hear Harrison Ford try to sell Ender's Game.

The point is, as much as I love prickly Dave, the rare glimpses of mushy Dave are a treat. No pun intended.