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May 26, 2012

Harvey Pekar does Letterman - VIDEO

by Adam Finley, posted May 20th 2007 11:58AM

harvey pekarFirst, some background:

Harvey Pekar is best known for writing the comic book series American Splendor about life in his hometown of Cleavland, Ohio. Robert Crumb offered to illustrate Pekar's stories after the two men struck up a friendship.

Pekar became a minor celebrity (well, minor in the "mainstream" sense) and it afforded him a few appearances on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman. In one of the show's most memorable moments, Pekar had more than a few nasty things to say about General Electric, the company that owns NBC. The incident got him booted from the show for awhile, but eventually he was asked to come back.

The video below is not of his initial visit to the program, but of a subsequent visit (possibly his last one)? I have no opinion one way or the other about Pekar's attitude or Dave's response, but I love those rare TV moments when things become suddenly and uncomfortably real.

Check it out:

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Harvey Pekar is best known for making a movie about writing the comic book series American Splendor about life in his hometown of Cleavland, Ohio.

fixed that for ya

May 20 2007 at 5:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Teddy

A few scenes from these appearances are in the movie "American Splendor." Pekar also covered them in his comic book -- he said he thought of his banter with Dave as being similar to hanging out in delis with his wiseass friends, where everyone would try to one-up each other.

Eventually he got annoyed because it seemed as if Dave was trying to turn him into a "character" like Larry "Bud" Melman. But Dave was right to kick him off when he started going into political rants about GE -- it wasn't funny, and it took the show in a weird direction. Still, it would be nice if he came back on the show now.

May 20 2007 at 1:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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