Documentary Dave

Last night, PBS aired this year's Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize to David Letterman.  I hope you had a chance to watch, because it was one of the funnier broadcasts they'd had for the show.  It helps that they ran a lot of wonderful clips from Letterman's TV show, but the guest presenters were a hoot throughout, starting with the opening bit with Steve Martin and Martin Short, a hilarious and bizarre appearance by last year's recipient Bill Murray talking about how his reign is now over, and a great pseudo-documentary on two of Dave's supposed-childhood friends back in Indianapolis.

Particularly fun, too, is that they almost did the presentation like an old Late Night with David Letterman show -- rather than using the regular announcer for this broadcast they had Alan Kalter from the Letterman show (on camera and on stage), and instead of the tradition band, it was Paul Shaffer and the old CBS Orchestra.  They even did a "Top Ten List."

I'm trying to track down videos, but thus far I've only been able to find one -- but it's a good one, that aforementioned documentary, done by the Documentary Now! folks (the series on IFC) with Fred Armisen and Bill Hader as Dave's old pals.