Boy, December 1 was a banner night for the late night talk shows, wasn't it? It seemed like many of the shows took it up a notch so they could take even a small amount of attention away from the "big event", the Winfrey/Letterman summit (by the way, Dave did an absolutely brilliant job of building hype for this interview; I'm sure he got his best ratings in years). Just some highlights from the night, at least as far as my eyes and remote were concerned:

 

• The night started auspiciously enough with The White Stripes giving the first musical performance in the history of The Daily Show. They expertly performed two songs from their current album, "Get Behind Me Satan", and left the crowd wanting more.
  
• Then, of course, was the summit. Dave builds up to Oprah's big entrance with an Oprah-themed monolouge and top 10 list. He then goes to introduce her and is scared witless by a drumroll from a kettle drum brought in for the occasion.
• Dave's sincere, heartfelt, and funny four-segment interview with Oprah, who was a little more real than she tends to project on her talk show. Her story about faking a robbery to get rid of her childhood glasses was priceless, as was her bewildered reaction to Dave's serious questions about her work in Africa.
• Oprah and Dave walking hand-in-hand, flashbulbs popping, from the Ed Sullivan Theater to the Broadway Theater, where "The Color Purple" was premiering that night.
• Craig Ferguson does a fantasitc monolouge on The Late Late Show, riffing on everything from he Dave/Oprah meeting to how she won against the cattle farmers (he pointed out that she was able to beat Texas when Mexico couldn't), all the while making some thinly-veiled jokes about Oprah's fluctuating weight.
• Switched over to Conan in time to see Billy Joel tell Conan how, even though he was Jewish, he went to Mass with his Italian friends all the time, even going to confession once or twice. Then Billy launches into two songs he rarely plays live, "Everybody Loves You Now" from the 1971 (!) album Cold Spring Harbor, and "Vienna" from 1977's The Stranger.
• Conan's "Lighting of the Christmas Vigoda". And, yes, Abe Vigoda is still alive.
  

I then went to sleep (sorry, Carson. Had to go to work today). The night was worth the lost sleep, though, because it was one of the best nights of entertainment I've seen in many years. Can people fill me in on what Leno and Kimmel did? I didn't see a second of either show.

[Photo: Keith Bedford/Reuters]