Yes, I know. Dave Letterman is retiring.

We have heard about how Dave is the "Reining King of Late Night," a title I doubt Dave would ever agree with.

There was only one King of Late Night: Johnny Carson. Dave is the prince, but there was only one king. God rest his soul.

And we know Dave's successor is The Real Stephen Colbert, not Stephen Colbert from "The Colbert Report" on the non political but really political Comedy Channel.

But I will throw one more name into this mix. A guy you might not have heard of right off the bat. He's mostly a sportswriter, but has a good grasp of current events as well. His name is Bill Simmons.

He's a New York Times best-selling author, and writes for ESPN's website Grantland, named after famed sports scribe from the early 20th century Grantland Rice.

He wrote a story about Dave retiring called smartly "Letterman’s Last Great Moment" and it's a fine read. He has quite the memory of what Letterman brought to late night back in the '80s.

BUT, most importantly Simmons published the story on April 8. Last Wednesday. Why is this important? Because of these two sentences.

"Now, we’re already thinking about the Next Next Guy — within 12 hours of Letterman’s stunning announcement, names like Tina Fey, Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres and even Conan were being thrown around for his job. I will spare you the suspense — it’s going to be Colbert."

Either Simmons is way more in tune with entertainmetn then he lets on, or he is a great prognosticator. Either way, he was right. Pretty amazing.

CBS/ScreenCrush
CBS/ScreenCrush
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