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logo fun with Letterman


Ferdinand Cesarano

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On Tuesday night, Billy Crystal made what is likely to be his last appearance with David Letterman. The segment included a lot of reminiscing, with photos of Crystal's appearances with Dave over the years, on both the Late Show and Late Night.

After the end of the appearance, the show went to a commercial over a bumper of a baseball-card-like picture of Crystal, emblazoned with the date of his first appearance with Dave on Late Night, August 2, 1982.

The most interesting thing was that this "baseball card" did not show the usual Late Show logo, but had the words "Late Show" rendered in the manner of the old Late Night logo.

Billy%20Crystal%20-%20Late%20Show_zpsbrh

Here is a close-up of the modified Late Show logo:

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And here is the Late Night logo on which this modification is based:

Late%20Night%20Letterman%20logo_zps7cnmx

As a reminder, here is the actual Late Show logo, which, to the show's great credit, it never changed since day 1 in 1993:

late_show_zpsbecfialq.jpeg

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1993? Hard to believe he has been on CBS about twice as long as he was on NBC.

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1993? Hard to believe he has been on CBS about twice as long as he was on NBC.

It sure is. While Letterman has been great on CBS, I still think of the suit-with-sneakers Letterman from the NBC days as the "real" Dave. And I miss the small four-piece band, as well as the absurdist Top Ten Lists that had been compiled at "the home office in Milwaukee", or in Scottsdale, or wherever else it was eventually located.

That's cool if cbs was able to do, guess they paid or got nbc to be fine with them doing that?

I am guessing that they didn't need to get permission. I'd bet that changing the logo to "Late Show" made it a parody of NBC's mark; and parody is one of the fair use exceptions specifically mentioned in the copyright laws.

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  • 4 weeks later...

As a Letterman geek I can answer this: the "Late Night with David Letterman" and "Late Show" marks are owned by Worldwide Pants, Inc. (Letterman's production company), rather than NBC or CBS. They hold both copyrights, and hold trademarks on "Late Show" and "Late Late Show," licensing the latter to CBS for the Stephen Colbert and James Corden shows.

As for the cards, they've been doing that off-air via social media for quite some time. The Late Night logo use is new though.

Oh, and no... before you may ask... "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," and "Late Night with Seth Meyers" are all copyrights/trademarks owned by NBC. The trademark for "Late Night with David Letterman" is as well, but the copyright for the logo belongs to Worldwide Pants.

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As a Letterman geek I can answer this: the "Late Night with David Letterman" and "Late Show" marks are owned by Worldwide Pants, Inc. (Letterman's production company), rather than NBC or CBS. They hold both copyrights, and hold trademarks on "Late Show" and "Late Late Show," licensing the latter to CBS for the Stephen Colbert and James Corden shows.

As for the cards, they've been doing that off-air via social media for quite some time. The Late Night logo use is new though.

Oh, and no... before you may ask... "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," and "Late Night with Seth Meyers" are all copyrights/trademarks owned by NBC. The trademark for "Late Night with David Letterman" is as well, but the copyright for the logo belongs to Worldwide Pants.

Very interesting (and also very confusing). Can you make a guess as to why the earlier "baseball cards" had the "Late Night with David Letterman" logo transformed into saying "Late Show with David Letterman", while the latter ones have the original logo intact? What would have changed?

Were Dave's people perhaps unsure for a while about whether the trademark situation prevented them from using the original logo?

logo-diamonds-for-CC-no-photo-sig.png

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As a Letterman geek I can answer this: the "Late Night with David Letterman" and "Late Show" marks are owned by Worldwide Pants, Inc. (Letterman's production company), rather than NBC or CBS. They hold both copyrights, and hold trademarks on "Late Show" and "Late Late Show," licensing the latter to CBS for the Stephen Colbert and James Corden shows.

As for the cards, they've been doing that off-air via social media for quite some time. The Late Night logo use is new though.

Oh, and no... before you may ask... "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," and "Late Night with Seth Meyers" are all copyrights/trademarks owned by NBC. The trademark for "Late Night with David Letterman" is as well, but the copyright for the logo belongs to Worldwide Pants.

Very interesting (and also very confusing). Can you make a guess as to why the earlier "baseball cards" had the "Late Night with David Letterman" logo transformed into saying "Late Show with David Letterman", while the latter ones have the original logo intact? What would have changed?

Were Dave's people perhaps unsure for a while about whether the trademark situation prevented them from using the original logo?

No, I doubt that'd be the reason. In the ones I've seen up until recently, the photos depicted on the cards were strictly from their first appearance on "Late Show," and thus no need to use the "Late Night" logo existed. I think some long-time fans expressed confusion about that, and the graphics team (well, team is being generous, but) at Worldwide Pants course-corrected as a result.

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No, from the beginning of when they started doing the cards, the pictures were from the guest's first appearance overall, in many cases meaning the first appearance on Late Night.

Notice the date on the Billy Crystal card: 1982. Likewise, the cards for Alec Baldwin, Martin Short, and others show the guest's first time on Late Night. Yet, up until the cards of Stern and Rickles, none of them had the actual Late Night with David Letterman logo.

Come to think of it, Steve Martin's card showed his first appearance with Dave on the morning show and a date in 1980; and I believe that his card showed the morning show's logo.

logo-diamonds-for-CC-no-photo-sig.png

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Uggh... Steven Colbert was such a terrible choice...


https://www.behance.net/gallery/18927629/Late-Show-with-David-Letterman-Design

There is some absolutely great stuff here, including something that despite following David Letterman's career for 30+ years, I never knew: the original name conceived for his CBS show was "Nightly with David Letterman."

Good thing the didn't go with that twin towers design...

shamrockles.png

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Yeah, in retrospect both the original name ("Nightly with David Letterman") and the imagery could've easily turned out really, really badly. But as I've been learning over the past several days, Mr. Letterman has quite the design sensibility - along with being deeply involved in the branding process for the show, he also apparently designed each season's staff jackets himself.

nightlywithdavidletterman.png

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