Evening talk-show writers appear to be mining the Net for fresh material. These guys have built their careers by sucking material from other media, and David Letterman's Thursday night program was no exception.
Near the opening of Late Show with David Letterman, Letterman did a skit on the NBA Player Relief Fund, an idea found in an email that's been circulating the Net all week.
The email draws attention to the "plight" of National Basketball Association players, who are embroiled in a labor dispute that has postponed the beginning of their season. The players and owners can't seem to decide how to divide up their billion-dollar pie.
"With an NBA player's strike against the team owners, now is the time for us to show the world just how much we care," reads the email. "It's just not right. Hundreds of basketball players in our very own country are living at or just below the seven-figure salary line."
Cut to Thursday's Letterman show.
As Letterman introduced his Top Ten list, he was interrupted by one of the producers, who said he had an important announcement to make.
Schmaltzy mood music cued, recalling the ubiquitous Sally Struthers "Save the Children" TV spots, and the producer began his mock appeal to the NBA players' plight.
A picture of John Paxson's Grand Cayman estate was shown, and the producer said the Utah point guard wouldn't be able to outfit the vacation pad with gold fixtures due to the strike. Patrick Ewing, shown cowering in a picture, was described as a seven-foot menace on the court, but now a mere a five-foot-eight shell of a man, he said.
Although the skit didn't borrow any passages directly from the email, the tone and material was a direct take-off. In the Letterman skit, the audience was asked for several thousand dollars a day, with a comparison to the number of cups of coffee that represents.
Similarly, the email reads, "Two thousand dollars a day may not seem like a lot of money to you, but to a basketball player it could mean the difference between a vacation spent golfing in Florida or a Mediterranean cruise."
And if that wasn't enough Net for one night, just after the Letterman show, Tom Snyder opened up his talk show -- The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder -- by telling a joke: "When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress in ape suits. We have nine days in which to bury the Statue of Liberty up to her head."
The same joke has been working its way around the Net for most of the week.
