This thread is NOT about Dave’s alleged infidelity/affairs/sexual harassment. There is already at least one thread dealing with that topic. If you want to talk about Dave being a jerk in private, please do so there.
But almost any time Dave is discussed, someone will usually come along and say he’s a jerk, is mean, and treats guests or members of the public badly.
I’ve been a fan of Dave’s almost since the first Late Night episode, and watch him practically every night, and I just don’t see it. Through my fading memory, ISTR that he was a bit more abrasive toward celebrity guests on the NBC show, and a few years ago Cher did famously tell Dave that she hadn’t been a guest more often because he was an “asshole.” Of course, many of the apparent feuds on the NBC show were staged, including incidents with Andy Kaufman, Brother Theodore, Charles Grodin, and a few others I can’t recall at the moment. And in the other thread I mentioned a few more recent cases (Madonna, Joaquin Phoenix) where the guests were being jerks and Dave merely responded in kind.
But I’d like someone to provide some unprovoked examples of Dave being a jerk or making people look like idiots, so I can better understand the enmity he seems to provoke. YouTube should make this fairly easy, right? In the other thread Starving Artist couldn’t come up with any specific incidents, for which I don’t blame him. But he’s not alone in thinking Dave is a jerk, and I’d like to see if I just have different ideas of what constitutes jerkhood, or if I’ve been blinded by my appreciation of Dave.
I’ll get the ball rolling with the only examples I could think of that might be perceived as mean. From the other thread:
I recall one time when Rupert was acting as a waiter at an outdoor cafe, and Dave had him serve a drink to a customer with his thumb actually in the liquid. When the woman called him on it and asked for another drink, he came back wearing rubber gloves, but with his thumb still inside. The woman really exploded.
IIRC, at one point someone did actually threaten to beat Rupert up over something Dave had had him say, and that’s when they stopped doing those bits.
They were rather outrageous, but mainly the gag was that Rupert/Dave was acting like an idiot and provoking ordinary folks to amusement, surprise, or (rarely) anger. Presumably after it was over, they all enjoyed the joke and gave their consent for the piece to be aired. I don’t recall these segments making the people on the street look stupid.
So how has Dave been a jerk?