Dave to do rare Friday taping, wants to comment on VP debate

CBS has confirmed to TV Barn that David Letterman, newly energized by his insertion into the presidential race, has decided to break with his usual routine of taping his Friday show on Monday. (No, it's not you -- the jokes are awfully generic on Fridays.)

Instead, he will tape next Friday's show day and date, so that his writers can feed him jokes about the Thursday vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

As I've argued recently, the things that late-night talk show hosts say have a way of working their way into the national political conversation in strange ways. Jay Leno was turning on Sarah Palin long before Katie Couric got at her, and Letterman's jilted-lover routine after John McCain blew him off last week was international news.

And now he wants to tell fresh jokes on Friday. Good for him. Dave might as well get into the routine now. Next June, when Conan O'Brien takes over for Jay Leno as host of the "Tonight Show," will be an opportunity for Letterman to take back some of those viewers who used to tune in just for Jay. They're likely to be older, demographically unappealing viewers, and not enough to help Dave overcome a huge deficit (4.7 million for NBC to 3.3 million for CBS, last we checked), but I suspect he'll take a gain any way he can get it. And telling fresh jokes on Fridays, I would think, should be part of that plan.

Previously on TV Barn: I declared Barack Obama the winner of Friday's debate, though I was also unhappy about his decision to run away from McCain's 10-town-halls proposals this summer. Speaking of Couric, a TV Barn reader recently reviewed her performance as a camera operator.

Also, I do write about entertainment shows from time to time! Here's my fall preview guide and there's lots of individual show reviews posted right now on the main TV Barn page.