Dave Vs. Dave

" 'Uma, Oprah' is completely, 100 percent my fault," says Rob Burnett, who at age 33 looks almost too pixieish to be cast as the villain in the Morton camp's scenarios. "I'm the guy. I should be out of show business. It still keeps me up at night." As for the negative reviews, he says, "Dave was a victim of expectations. People just wanted this to be the greatest Oscars in the history of Oscars, and the minute it wasn't that..." For his part, Letterman takes no consolation in the fact that he brought the awards show its highest ratings since 1983. "I wish that meant something," he says.

The bigger issue for now is how thoroughly his image was damaged by the event. Morton has said that, post-Oscars, it became OK for the first time to criticize Letterman — and an informed source feels the show's present blue period dates to then: "I still, to this day, believe that that's when things turned around. All of a sudden he was no longer the guy who couldn't do wrong."

Four months later, Jay Leno — helped by Hugh Grant's sheepish post-bust appearance on July 10 — would creep ahead in the Nielsens, a lead he's basically held ever since. Joel Segal, director of national broadcasting at the ad agency McCann-Erickson, sums up where Letterman now sits with the core 18-to-49 audience: "For the most recent season, Letterman's ratings are down about 29 percent from what he had the prior year." Letterman, however, remains the clear winner among those aged 18 to 34 — including the affluent males Madison Avenue craves most. "Under the circumstances," says Letterman, "we ain't doing that bad. Despite the erosion of households, we still win in the important demographics and are probably making as much if not more money for the network. That's nice to hear, because if you just look at the raw data, it looks like, 'Oh, my God, we've hit an iceberg, and it's a matter of minutes before we're in the lifeboats.' "

"The key point everybody keeps forgetting," says CBS Entertainment president Leslie Moonves, "is we're doing well in that day part [i.e., late night], where three years ago we weren't." The Late Show is still CBS' biggest profit center and is even more important given CBS' own prime-time ratings nose dive. Moonves assures Dave that the lead-in cavalry is coming (though the signing of Bill Cosby and Ted Danson to do CBS shows skews to an older audience that eschews Letterman).

Still, where did those people who deserted Letterman go? "They went to places other than Leno," says Segal, "because Leno is really only up about 4 percent. They probably went to cable." For Letterman, a Beavis and Butt-head aficionado, the irony of seeing his audience depleted by them must hurt.

On a friday evening in early April, as the Late Show is about to segue from what's called Act 1 (comprising the monologue and a comedy bit) to Act 2 (the Top 10 list, followed by the first guest), some marvelous grotesquerie is about to erupt on the set. In a taped segment, hypnotist Marshall Sylver puts various staffers under. Biff Henderson, the cherubically pudgy and balding stage manager often exploited in Late Show skits, is induced to perform an alarming Madonna impersonation, complete with bleeped-out profanities, then is coached in the absurdity of Dave's big paycheck. Asked if Dave is worth the money, Biff snorts and tee-hees helplessly.

This has all been seen on videotape, but now onstage, Letterman, reminded that Biff can be put under with one command, can't resist dimming Biff's lights just before reading the Top 10 list. "Sleeeeep," says Dave, and Biff lists sideways, jarring the camera. When Dave repeats it, Biff steps up ("like a punch-drunk boxer," Burnett will note) and slumps into the first guest's chair in a trancelike sleep.

Either that, we can see the suddenly-not-chuckling Letterman thinking, or he's dead. As Letterman says later, "I thought, 'Oh, well, you're screwing around, his liver has exploded, and you're looking at a dead man here.'"

Upstairs in the seventh-floor offices, a staffer vaults into the room saying, "Biff's really out! And Dave's really scared!" In the editing room, images from several cameras bounce around amid near-panicky chatter: "Add a minute twenty to the break! ... Are we gonna can the Top 10? ... Get Sylver on the phone in Vegas!" Letterman, staring out toward Burnett at the producer's podium, looks thoroughly rattled as he takes Biff's pulse. "People will look at it," Letterman says now, "and say, 'Was he kidding? Was he pretending to be out?' But I'm telling you, during that commercial that we extended, it must have been like five minutes, he didn't move nothin'. Didn't blink, didn't breathe hard — nothing." Letterman's all-pro sang-froid coming out of the break is as startling as what went before. He tells the audience, "Biff, like many of our staff members, enjoys a nice nap during the show," then takes Sylver's call. When the thoroughly showbizzy Sylver tells Dave he's lucky to catch him between shows in Vegas, Dave needles him ("We have a medical emergency, but I'm glad things are going well for you there in Vegas") and wakes Biff up per instructions.

At his best, Letterman celebrates chaos. Would he rather have a row of solid, topical, witty guests, or does he prefer the giddy feeling you get near the edge of the cliff, when Madonna starts spewing profanities, a dog craps on the stage or Biff suddenly sleeps? "You always would rather have something haywire," says Letterman. "You can only do the perfect show, you know, 80 times, and then you realize, 'Yeah, it's perfect, but something unpleasant and ugly and sloppy is more memorable.' I think that our track record is about 50-50, where we can get something out of it So you do run a risk there. But it's hard to orchestrate anarchy every night."

"That hypnosis show was different, it was totally out there," says Bill Carter, who wrote the Letterman-Leno history The Late Shift while on his Times TV beat, then co-wrote the HBO movie (which Letterman richly despised). "Maybe they need to do stuff like that. That's what got them a reputation years ago."

This February's prime-time Late Show With David Letterman Video Special II evoked that comic strain. It included a favorite gag of making Rupert Jee, co-owner of the Hello Deli, toss out aggravating questions — ad-libbed by Letterman and radioed to Rupert via an earpiece ? to ordinary civilians. Another successful gambit was having the host verbally pester young kids, drawing such retorts as, "You're annoying."

"We were all pretty pleased with it," says Letterman. "I realized then that we are still capable of doing that kind of show each and every night. But we had to make some changes to accomplish that. And I felt Rob, who was the executive producer of the prime-time special, was the best person to give the reins of the show to."

The special, Burnett says, made the Worldwide Pantsers ask, " 'Well, gee, is the nightly show as good as this?' Seeing that kind of rejuvenated all of us — 'We can still do this.' For me it was all in seeing Dave in his element, seeing him with Rupert, seeing him talk to kids. You realize no matter what anyone says, we're riding the fastest pony here. The guy is just amazing."

Though Burnett may sound like a cheerleader, his rise is not due to flattery. Morton was a steadfast Dave-praiser in his own right, and vanity is not one of Letterman's vices. (When Charlie Rose remarked that people often praise him after a good show, Letterman shot back, "Well, they're little suck-up weasels.") But Burnett does have the dual gifts of making quick decisions and, putting his boss, who can be shy even around his own employees, at relative ease. Burnett sifts and funnels a daily cascade of comic material to Letterman. One insider finds that Burnett's "extremely efficient, and he makes decisions very quickly." A lucky thing, because among other jobs he's the link between a dozen or so writers and the boss. The writers work long hours in relative seclusion, getting mostly passed-along feedback from Letterman. The staff winces when Burnett has to convince the host that a joke or scripted segment really can work — just as Letterman's capable of turbocharging a bit, he's capable of throwing one away on the air. "You can tell the nights Dave's pissed off," says the insider, "when he's doing things like saying, 'Hold CD up now,' when it comes up on the cue cards." (Perhaps there's some real-life resonance to one taped bit, unaired at press time, in which Dave induces two staffers to repeat after him, "The big guy wants clams.")

If expert schmoozer Morton had been a thorough contrast to his brooding boss, Burnett is mostly rounded corners, at once private and affable, a guy who says, "I want to work at Worldwide Pants the rest of my life." Burnett, who grew up in North Caldwell, N.J., had been admitted to law school after college but "made the age-old bargain with my parents — give me a year to try to do something else." He took his old Chevy to California, had no luck there, briefly worked for a New Jersey newspaper and, in August of 1985, was hired by Morton as an intern.