You know what's creepy? Telling a story about having sex with your employees to people who LAUGH and APPLAUD

Wow.

I don't know where to begin with David Letterman's bizarro, play-it-for-laughs on-air admission that he had sex with staff members.

On the one hand, good for him for telling a fairly unvarnished account of being blackmailed by a Connecticut man for $2 million and admitting to the "creepy things," as Dave kept putting it, the blackmailer was threatening to take public.

On the other hand: Couldn't somebody have gone out between the first and second act and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Letterman is about to talk about something very difficult and though you might be tempted to laugh, please don't."

Instead, Letterman (whether by accident or design) wound up playing the story for laughs, and even drew applause with his admission that he'd had affairs with employees. Here are the highlights...

After a monologue that included more than one Roman Polanski joke -- which I found odd given my knowledge of what was coming -- act two began with Dave, who was clearly enjoying his audience, saying "I'm glad you folks are here tonight and in such a good mood ..... Do you feel like a story?" (Crowd: Yeahh!!)

So he starts talking about finding the package in the back of his car at 6 a.m. and the note, which read, "I know that you do some terrible, terrible things." Laughter. "A guy is going to write a screenplay about me ... unless I give him some money. ... That's a little hinky!" More laughter.

You can tell Letterman is trying to ratchet up the gravity. He uses the word "terrifying" to describe his response to this extortion letter. Later on he says, "This whole thing has been quite scary." But for every one of those statements there's one like this: "If you know anything about me, I am just a towering mass of Lutheran midwestern guilt." Of course, the crowd laughs. It sounds funny.

The first tipoff to the audience should have been Dave's statement, "This guy knows creepy stuff about me" --not "this guy thinks he knows creepy stuff about me."

And then finally, after telling the audience that the suspect, now ID's as Robert Halderman, had been arrested, applause, finally Dave reveals the allegation in the screenplay: that "I have had sex with women who worked for me on the show." And....?

"My response to that is, yes, I have," said Letterman. At this admission, the audience laughs and then rolls into applause.

If this was the reaction of most of Dave's audience at home, then he's home free.

If it wasn't, he's got a lot of damage control to do. Click to hear my reaction on the radio tonight.

I'm sure over time, the blackmailer will merge in my memory with the would-be babynapper and the schizophrenic stalker as evidence that David Letterman is some kind of magnet for seriously disturbed people -- the "King of Comedy" as well as of late night.

But right now, this night stands out as singularly icky in the annals of David Letterman. And I don't think that feeling's going to fade anytime soon.

For one thing, as employees of Worldwide Pants (!), the females who had sex with Dave work or worked for Dave. So there's potentially a power issue involved, as anyone who's been in an unfortunate liaison with their boss already knows. Hello! Summer of 2008!

Don't have time to sift through all the comments? I've pulled some of my favorites and responded to them - plus, Friday morning breaking news on the Letterman fiasco, click to read.

It will be interesting to hear the reaction of his west coast colleague, Craig Ferguson, who's probably the most female-friendly late night host of the bunch.

And on a personal note, CBS is reporting that the suspect works at the CBS newsmagazine "48 Hours." Which longtime readers will recognize as the TV show that came to visit me in my basement apartment in Evanston, Illinois, nearly 15 years ago to interview me about my online fan efforts on behalf of .... "The Late Show with David Letterman."

NEW POST: How will the Letterman story end? Three scenarios ... CLICK HERE TO READ

Previously on TV Barn, I commented this evening to KNX Radio about the Letterman bombshell. And in what seems like two weeks ago, I reported an historic ratings victory for the "Late Show" over "The Tonight Show."

(d/l)

Comments

[Eddie]

I couldn't watch tonight's show because this event strikes me as so awkward. (I'm 27, and watching Dave is my earliest memory; I'm devotedly, maybe weirdly, loyal.)

I'm disappointed to read your write-up though. To play the story for laughs seems not only like a misjudgment of how it will be discussed in the coming days but like an insensitive way to behave, considering that he lives a public life but his family does not. It's not the jokes that make people tune in consistently, because half of them are Catskills-grade; it's not the guests, because they'll be on 200 other entertainment shows and blogs today. I think that people watch it because they're attracted to Dave's personality as it unfolds between the bits and guests. I wonder how this episode will affect that--peoples' desire to 'hang out' with him.

[Frank Barajas]

Is nothing confidential anymore? Letterman did use the right word, it is "creepy", but even more so for him, to garner laughs from it. How could you? You now have to wonder, exactly who did he sleep with, when did he and is this still going on. I didn't need to hear this from him this way. You were right, we needed someone to say this was not a laughing matter. This was a serious thing and to have it played so lightly and for added laughs, well that brings him into a new and lower class of entertainer than I would have ever expected from him.

[Jim Treacher]

There's a 20-year age difference between Alex Rodriguez & Willow Palin. I wonder how much younger than Letterman those staffers are?

Just last week, Letterman told Obama, "I love to watch you work." Turns out that's his standard line around the office.

After all these years, finally we discover that Worldwide Pants actually refers to Dave's breathing.

Right now, Woody Allen is signing a petition to get David Letterman some fresh meat.

[Dan Alvin]

Dave obviously messed up by not telling the audience that he was going to tell them something serious. They even more obviously thought it was the traditional desk chat comedy bit. I'm guessing he was very nervous about the whole thing and that it was accidental. After all, you don't rehearse something like this. I'm not sure at what point the audience caught on that it was serious. Maybe by the end. I really didn't seem him playing it for laughs intentionally, but responding to the moment. He blew it by not framing it as a serious moment and not the comedy that's usually expected at that point in the show.

No one reading this has ever worked at a company where these kinds of affairs didn't take place. Good god, people, bosses have affairs with employees every single day. The only unknown here is what happened to the women during or after the affairs took place in terms of their work environment and position. How about we hold off on branding Dave as a creep before we know all the facts? He had to do this on the show tonight because it was going to be made public tomorrow.

Again, I don't think Dave played this intentionally for laughs. But it's hard for him to be totally serious when he's a comedian after all. Even his post 9-11 talk had a few laughs in it, didn't it? I'm sure he'd like to have this one back for a do-over, but there it is.

[Chad Riden]

Dave's personal life is none of our damn business.

I applaud the honesty to be able to take a VERY personal & intimate & embarrassing story & made it FUNNY. Only David Letterman could a) have something like this happen to him b) take a story like this and make it get constant laughs on his show. That is not easy to do.

Comedy is completely subjective. Either you like Dave or you don't. Either you think his telling of this story is funny or you don't. Watch the video again. The studio audience laughed. A lot. Dave even corrects them at one point saying, "creepy
things that I've done.. well now, why is that funny?" more laughter.

Whether the reality of the situation is funny or not, when he told the story, it got consistent laughs. Say what you will, but as a comic.. the bottom line to me is, "did it get laughs?" Yup.

[evie]

He didn't play it for laughs. He decided to reveal it on his show, as opposed to a press conference outside the show. It's the same way he's dealt with everything else. His audience was expecting laughs, so they laughed, thinking a joke was coming. If his show was Oprah's, no one would have laughed. That doesn't make his choice less appropriate or less sincere. It's his show and he revealed it to his viewers directly. I give him credit.

And I'm glad to hear of celebrities standing up to extortionists -- John Travolta, the coach from the South, and now Letterman. It's a much better way to go... Ensign's parents and Edwards's cronies should have considered such an approach.

[Scott Jones]

I think the audience reaction made the confession seem more flippant. They're attending a comedy show. We've all seen the show, and it's in our brain that when Dave says something, we all laugh. I saw Steve Martin trying to give a serious speech on PBS once and he was getting the same thing: laughs because people think they're supposed to. Even Dave probably doesn't quite know how to NOT joke.

I think he was being sincere, but years and years of comedy training for the host and audience made that hard to understand.

[Boo]

Comedy can be a coping mechanism. It's not unusual for the people to laugh at awkward and uncomfortable things, especially on a comedy show. The arrest was going to blow this wide open anyway. Pouring it out on national TV was Letterman's way of taking control and come clean his way. His past actions may be "creepy", but his handling of this situation has been very smart and professional, in my opinion.

This is about office affairs, which happen everywhere. It's sordid for politicians and actors because they need a clean image. But Letterman has always projected a more... complicated persona and personal life - that's his appeal - so I think he will ride out of this just fine.

[Freud's Slip]

Mountain out of a molehill. He had sex with people who work with him? Oh my gosh! As long as it was consensual, I think I can speak for most people when I say "who cares".

News flash- everyone is having sex with everyone at work, married or otherwise. Remember Leno's last show when he presented the gaggle of kids born from staffers hooking up with other staffers? You think all those kids were born to pretty little nuclear families? Think again. Come to think of it a couple of those kids kinda looked like Leno...

Anyway, what Dave did was smart- he broke the news first, and did it on the show rather than through a press release. Otherwise, the whole affair (pun alert!) would have hung like a pall in the air for the next few weeks. Unless something *major* is reveled, like he had sex with a 13 year old, he can now deal with the matter on his terms- mention it again, or not, joke about it, or not, etc.

I think he struck the right, and necessary tone. If he came out and said "no-one laugh, this isn't funny", he would have had to end the show for the night right there. Can't really do a top-10 list after getting all serious.

I like Dave, and his show is important to me- I've seen every episode from the first. I'll be sad when it's gone from the air, but at the end of the day it's just a TV show- and a talk show at that. Dave isn't my (our your) "friend" or moral compass- any more so than anyone else on TV. He seems like a decent fella' on the tube, and that's why I watch- to hear some decent jokes, see him be funny with guests, and then drift off to sleep about the time Craig starts reading viewer's emails.

Unless he did something truly heinous, this will all blow over in the next couple weeks.

[Johanna Lapp]

Hopefully the talk shows, press and public will treat Dave with the same dignity, privacy, kindness and taste that he showed Sarah Palin's teenage daughters.

[pitter43]

Typical obama voters. letterman is up there telling jokes ( he's funny?)and his brain dead democrat/liberals are laughing. If he's said the sun had exploded there wouldn't have been enough brains in the audience to realize what had happened.

[Ed J, Mamaroneck, NY]

I have long suspected that David Letterman is a real PIG. His admission on national TV last night just confirms my suspicion. How many others were there? Any employer who takes advantage of his position to have sex with his subordinates is a really scarey and creepy individual. His long time girfriend and now wife, would do well to leave him him now before something else happens. What's next will he molest his own child?

[Mike G]

In a world where people are chastised and made a mockery for having affairs...Dave gets off with laughs? How many times has he ridiculed or made fun of those in politics for the same behavior he has done? For the audience to laugh and applaud is just another sign of how this country has lost its morals. God help us.

[Al]

This guy is so perverse! It's extremely creepy the following he has and how CBS keeps promoting this pervert.

[Bill, New York]

I have watched my last David Letterman show. His admissions last night showed the whole world what a callous, egotistical PIG he really is. This guy is a real CREEP! If I were his wife, I'd be worried that he may molest their own child and then make jokes about it on TV. There was nothing normal about his admissions or the way he presented it last night. It was all very, very creepy, to say the least. He should be taken off the air.

[TAs]

Letterman's a jerk. He can trash Palin, Bush and other people. But now when he is under the spot light and he tries to make a joke out of it. He just another hypocrite.

[Annette]

The audiences he has would laugh if he got up and told he raped a girl and murdered her. They laugh at anything he says and hes not funny anymore. Hes a total creep.

[Kreep Watch]

Sarah Palin was right. Letterman is a creep and a molester who takes advantage of subordinates. Shame on everybody in the audience who laughed at this narration. Nitwits and idiots.

[Jack N. Mieoff]

Can anyone say "Irony?" Other phrases like "people in glass houses", etc....

I used to like Letterman back in the early '80's until I found out what a low-life slime-ball he really truly is. Such a small back-biting snipe of a low-class human being.

What goes around comes around Dave.

[Rich]

Most would be fired for having sex with an employee. But this is CBS

[chuck]

So if I hire some pretty young girls, and pay them for a job + sex, it's ok? So what do the girls report on their taxes for a profession?

[Phoebe2]

Not funny, and for those of you who think it is, you are very sick.

[dave]

Dave got old, bitter, cranky, unfunny, angry and creepy years ago. All of this while making fun of Sarah Palin, apologizing for Roma Polanski and schtooping the secretary (or whoever).

[Moe H]

Dave is not a "good looking guy" which is why he has to use his position to take advantage of the staffers. Imagine how "creepy" that is to these people who don't have millions and have to make a living, succumbing to this ugly creep. I think now that it's out in the open, that some of these staffers should sue for sexual harrasment.

[Chuckie]

I don't know if the country has completely lost its moral compass. It just seems people who watch David Letterman have.