Who Ever Said Comedy Had To Be Fun?

The show's unabashed heart also comes from Burnett and Beckerman, who turn out to be a couple of romantics. "Sometimes I secretly wonder if moments in the show make Dave's skin crawl," admits Burnett. "Because it's a realm we never explored on The Late Show."

Put him and Beckerman in a room -- or adjoining offices, as is the case in Northvale -- and they'll chew on high school, crushes, dreams, the meaning of life. Which brings us to Show 315. After taking a life-span-estimation test, Ed becomes obsessed with his mortality. He learns that he should live to be 83 and frets over how best to spend his remaining 50 years. He meets Peter Evashavik, a renowned artist who has a train wreck of a personal life. He's self-absorbed and thrice divorced. Evashavik wants a legal contract that would deter anyone from destroying his art, even after he dies. Which matters more, Ed wonders: your life or your legacy? It's an interesting question for Ed, who isn't much of an artist. But it's a far more interesting question for Burnett.

"Jon and I talk about this all the time, and it's a question that makes my head spin," he says. "People say, 'Oh, your life is so great, you've got this TV show.' Yeah, but the past three years of my life have been sucked away by this show. So it's confusing. We literally have no lives outside the show, and here I have the best wife in the history of the world and the best three kids in the history of the world. And Jon has the best fiancé e in the history of the world. Last week, I worked 96 hours. That's nutty. I have this friend with a normal job who works 9-to-5 and does quite well. He's got a great life and a great family. But you know, I have this creative side that has to be realized. And I may never have an opportunity like this again. Right now, this show is our life's work. This is the thing we're leaving behind."

Rob and Dave's Demanding Adventure

"Dave, if you're watching at home, it looks like the fake heart surgery paid off!" -- Rob Burnett, while accepting the Emmy award for best variety, music, or comedy series on behalf of The Late Show in 2000.

Burnett's career path is an inspiration to interns everywhere. Eleven years after starting with Letterman in 1985 as a 23-year-old intern, he was executive producer of The Late Show and president and CEO of Worldwide Pants. Of his intern days in the Late Night talent department, he says, "I was an assistant to an assistant to an assistant."

Burnett, who graduated from Tufts University in 1984, soon began writing jokes on the side for comedian Wil Shriner. One night during an appearance on The Tonight Show, Shriner told Johnny Carson, "I'm in this big movie, Peggy Sue Got Married, and my wife is worried that I'm going to get a big head. But I'm going to have my people call her and tell her not to worry about it."

Carson laughed. "That's funny," he said.

Burnett, who was watching with his buddies in his Brooklyn apartment, had written the joke. He turned to his friends and said, as if he couldn't quite believe it, "Johnny Carson thinks I'm funny."

So did his boss at Late Night. Letterman encouraged Burnett, who had been hired as a researcher, to send him material, which began making its way on the air. "Rob, because he's Rob, did more than a normal researcher," recalls Gaines, one of four employees who have been with Letterman from the beginning. "From the get-go, he was creative and had something to say."

Burnett joined the writing staff in 1988, and four years later, at just 29, he became head writer. It's the most difficult job there, he says, because you're responsible for coming up with enough material to fill the show five nights a week, 44 weeks a year. One of Burnett's gifts, Beckerman says, was "turning funny ideas into actual pieces." Burnett ran the writers' morning meeting, edited the ideas into shape, then headed into Letterman's office to pitch dozens of items: Dave-on-the-street segments, monologues, jokes, top-10 lists. "You get used to hearing 'no' a lot more than 'yes,' " Burnett says. No one is tougher on material than Letterman.

Over the years, though, no one has developed a better sense of Letterman's taste than Burnett. His Will-Dave-like-it? radar is "on the money 98% of the time," says Gaines. "I can't remember when he's been wrong." For Kelly Kulchak, in Worldwide Pants development, Burnett functions as "a filter for Dave." A large part of the job, Burnett says, is freeing Letterman to concentrate on his top priority: The Late Show. "Asking me if I like something is the same as asking, 'Will Dave like this?' " he says. Letterman and the staff still turn to Burnett for ideas, whether it's for a drop-in by Regis Philbin or an appearance by Steve Martin.