Don Giller

Someone asked if I'd catalogued all of the mail read over the air. I hadn't, so a new project! Starting with the 1980 morning show, the very 1st readings were on July 11. 8 letters were read with no responses. No snappy answers, prepared bits, nothing. (1)

For the next number of weeks, Dave referred to this segment as "Mail Day." Paired down first to 6 letters, then to an established 5. All but a select few with short "snappies," the remaining with either photo props or clips from previous shows. (2)

But then on September 5, Dave got tongue-tied when introducing the segment: "Today is -- uh -- Viewer Day -- Mail Day -- uh --Viewer Mail Day is what it is." And thus was the phrase "Viewer Mail" born, lasting to the end of LN 13 years later. (3)

Yes, this is what life here is like, lockdown or no lockdown. (4/)

One of my favorites was when Nabisco's PR dep't sent an invite to David to attend a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Oreo cookie...But he couldn't attend because he was already booked to host a tribute to Cheez-Its with Gavin MacLeod.