THE old warning “Be careful what you wish for – you just may get it” could have special meaning to the ABC execs who are pursuing David Letterman.
Letterman is famous for needling his bosses mercilessly – which means Disney chiefs Michael Eisner and Robert Iger and and newly minted ABC entertainment chief Susan Lynne can expect to become the newest targets of Letterman barbs and arrows.
Letterman’s boss-bashing tradition began when he was on NBC, hosting “Late Night” and making fun of both NBC and its corporate parent, General Electric.
“Bozos” and “losers” are among the terms he has used to ridicule the people who pay his salary.
And the brass has not always been amused.
Particularly CBS chief Les Moonves.
When Moonves and several other prominent entertainment execs traveled to Cuba in early 2001, for example, Letterman began a string of jokes at Moonves’ expense – including a skit called “Lunch with Les and Fidel.”
In the skit, a fake Fidel Castro lectures “Les” on how he’s “starved my countrymen and tortured and murdered my political opponents.”
” ‘The Bette Midler Show’ was my idea,” the faux Moonves shoots back – a double-edged dis since the Midler sitcom was a high-profile flop for CBS.
“I think he’s carrying the sketch a bit longer than I would like,” Moonves said at the time. “Some of it’s funny and some of it isn’t.
“But Dave is Dave. It goes with the territory. I’m OK with it.”
With his history, it would be out of character for Letterman to ignore Eisner, Iger and Lyne.
Iger, ABC’s former entertainment president, is now president of Disney. He is married to CNN business anchor Willow Bay.
Eisner is the big boss of Disney who has been trying to become – like the founder of the company – a personality himself.
Eisner appears regularly on ABC’s “Wonderful World of Disney.” Lynne, Eisner’s hand-picked entertainment chief, could be a regular target for Letterman, since she put his pal Regis Philbin’s show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” on the back burner.