Matt Damon Carries On A Beautiful Late Show Tradition

Matt Damon movies aren't always good, I'm always glad when a new one comes out, because it means he'll be doing the talk-show rounds. ...Actually, it's not even about the rounds (particularly not after that terrrrrrrrible stunt last year when he hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live); it's basically all about seeing Damon on The Late Show. And even though his conversations with host David Letterman are reliably enjoyable — Damon is clearly someone Letterman likes and respects — the viewer can't help excitedly anticipating its conclusion, whereupon Letterman asks Damon to do his impression of Matthew McConaughey, and Damon self-deprecatingly demurs for a minute or so before giving in. Here's the latest installment, from last night's episode.

Even though Letterman himself says he's heard that Damon has hung up his McConaughey, Damon has to come out of retirement when Letterman asks him to. The Damon doing McConaughey (phrasing) is a Late Show tradition. And David Letterman is the President of late-night TV.

I was already a pop culture obsessive when all the events of Bill Carter's The Late Shift were happening, and even though it must not be true, my recollection is that no one, even then, was Team Jay. (I mean, Johnny Carson wasn't, and probably no one else really matters.) But even though Letterman didn't get to take over the job that (a) he'd wanted for most of his life, and (b) it seemed obvious he was logically being groomed for, he got to take the punk rock route: instead of being the latest guy in a line of guys, he created something new. I mean, fine, newish — The Late Show was still a late-night talk show with all the trappings of same, including several features Letterman et al had ported over from his Late Night — but he got to start a new dynasty at CBS where one hadn't existed before. And even though the ratings were rarely in his favour compared to Jay Leno's Tonight Show, there was never any question about who had more cred, and there still isn't.

That's kind of sad for Jay Leno, whose last (or maybe "last") Tonight Show airs tonight, because is anyone even talking about it, really? For one thing, it's notoriously not even his first last Tonight Show, because Leno cares more about working, no goddamn matter what, than he does about things like grace or class or his legacy. For another, what even is there for anyone to miss about his stewardship of the show? "Jaywalking"? The Dancing Itos? The 4600+ monologue jokes he made about Bill Clinton? What most of us will remember about Jay Leno is that he was a dude in a chair for a while, except when he was eavesdropping on executives from a partially open closet door, or screwing over another dude in the name of being a good company man for NBC or whatever his rationale was for all that stuff that happened in 2010. (And yes, I grant that Letterman's affairs with various young women in his employ complicate his reputation and legacy too. That was not great but he handled it as gracefully as he possibly could, under the extremely weird circumstances.)

If and when Letterman decides to retire, I'll miss his interactions with kids during the annual Hallowe'en-costume bit, his interactions with dogs during Stupid Pet Tricks, his toy testing with Shannon Eis, his Christmas episode starting with the meatball on the Christmas tree and ending with Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," Bill Murray's attention-getting entrances, and Matt Damon's Matthew McConaughey. So if this really is the last time it happens, I'm glad I got to see it. And if Jay Leno is back on NBC late night in eight months, of which there's probably a more than 50% chance, I guess I won't feel bad about not watching his farewell episode with...Billy Crystal? Sure, why not. Who cares.