Dave is still talking scandal on the “Late Show”.
At the taping of tonight’s show, host David Letterman made two quips about his multiple affairs with staffers and the wild extortion plot against him.
Before taping today he warmed up the audience by asking an Ohio woman if she follows Ohio State football.
“I know USC beat them recently, so how have you been doing since then?” Letterman asked.
“Recovering,” the tourist replied.
“I know how that feels,” Letterman said to audience guffaws.
At the start of his monologue, Letterman then hinted at the scandal.
“There is a trend in Broadway theater, the leading characters have understudies, so I was thinking I should get an understudy and I might need an understudy because I might not be here for a wide variety of reasons,” he said, eliciting another round of laughter.
It continued the theme from yesterday, when he apologized to his wife Regina Lasko for bedding ex-producer Stephanie Birkitt and other underlings and allowed the scandal to dominate talk throughout the whole show.
But this time he made no direct mention of his affairs or the attempt of “48 Hours” producer Joe Halderman to extort $2 million from him.
The topic didn’t come up at all when he was interviewing his bandleader Paul Shaffer about his new book on show business.
When his second guest, actress Eliza Dushku, came on stage, Letterman didn’t greet her with a peck to the cheek, as his custom, but with a simple hand shake.
Then KISS rocked the audience.
“Everything was pretty relaxed. There was nothing about the scandal at all. He talked about reality television for a long time and Sarah Palin having a big butt,” said John Danielson, 45, of Sacramento, Calif. “I was hoping he would talk about how is going about his life with the scandal. But he didn’t.”
Added another audience member, Austin Ricca, 21, of Chino Hils, Calif, “It was like any normal show but from before the scandal happened.”
“I think he is being classy about it,” said audience member Stephanee McDowell, 34, from Orlando, Fla. “It’s his Midwest sensibility.”