Without David Letterman, there would be no Jimmy Kimmel.
On the eve of Letterman's retirement, the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host paid tribute to the Late Show host. Kimmel's emotions got the best of him early on. "Oh, no," he said, looking at band leader Cleto Escobedo III. "When I was 15 years old...All right. Let me start over," he said, tears welling in his eyes.
"I wanted to be an artist as a kid and I loved to draw, and every night after my parents went to bed I would sit at my desk in my room and I would draw until it was very late. While I was doing that, I would watch a television show that is very important to me, as you can tell. It was called Late Night With David Letterman."
"Let me collect myself here," Kimmel said, drying his eyes.
"If you watched it without paying attention, it was a lot like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. They had guests and an audience and a band, but it was weird. Even though it looked like every other talk show, it wasn't. It was totally original, primarily because the host of the show—who a lot of times seemed embarrassed to be there [and] did not seem like a part of show business—was uncomfortable. He never pretended to be excited. His way of saying things was so subtle that a lot of times the people he was talking to didn't know he was joking."
Kimmel then shared one of his favorite Letterman bits.
"This is a very small example, but a good one, I think. Dave once took a camera crew into a store that sold nothing but lampshades. The store was called Just Shades...He walked in and he asked the very serious woman who owned the store, 'So what can you get in here?' And she said, 'What can you get in here? Shades. Just shades.' And Dave said, 'But seriously, what can you get in here besides shades?' And she said, 'Nothing.' And he said, 'Have you ever thought about just going crazy and selling lamps also?' And the woman said, 'No. Never. We do not sell lamps, only shades. That is why our name is Just Shades,'" Kimmel said. "It was like he had one of those tiny-sized screwdrivers you use on eyeglasses."
"He was always just gently twisting a little screw all the time. I loved it," he continued. "I started drawing pictures of Dave on the cover of my textbooks at school. When I turned 16, my mother baked me a Late Night With David Letterman cake, and you can see I'm wearing a Dave Letterman letterman jacket," Kimmel said as photos from his childhood appeared on the screen behind him. "My first car, I went to the DMV and I got a L8 NITE vanity plate...We had no VCR, so I'd have Late Night With David Letterman viewing parties at my house in the middle of the night. My friends, who also loved the show...would come over at midnight. My parents would be asleep and we'd drink soda and watch the show. Looking back, I've now figured out why none of the girls at school wanted to have sex with me."
"I watched the show every night and never missed it, and little did I know that many years and many pounds later, that watching the show was a great education for me. I learned almost nothing in college. I really didn't. But watching Late Night, not only did I learn how to do everything from Dave, the reason I have this show is because the executives at ABC saw me when I was a guest on Dave's show and hired me to host this show," Kimmel said, tears freely flowing by this point. "I want to thank Dave and his writers and his producers."
Kimmel also reminded viewers that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will air a repeat episode Wednesday night and encouraged them to watch Letterman's final show on CBS instead. "Dave is the best and you should see him," the ABC host said.
He then showed a vintage clip of Letterman on Late Night.
Afterward, Escobedo also paid tribute to Letterman's bandleader, Paul Shaffer.
The final Late Show With David Letterman airs tonight at 11:35.