Watch ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’’ Shot-For-Shot Recreation of the ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ Opening Credits

There have been a lot of tributes to David Letterman this week in honor of the venerable talk-show host’s final episode. (Ours, if you haven’t read it yet, is here.) My favorite so far, though, is this one from Late Night with Seth Meyers. Late Night was the show created by and for Letterman on NBC as a follow-up to Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Letterman hosted Late Night from 1982 to 1993, when he defected to CBS to compete with The Tonight Show, now starring Jay Leno.

Letterman was replaced at Late Night by Conan O’Brien, and then by Jimmy Fallon. When Fallon graduated to The Tonight Show, he was replaced by Seth Meyers, who’s hosted the show for the last year. And last night, in tribute to the man who started it all, Late Night with Seth Meyers ditched its standard opening credits for ones that aped the original Late Night intro. They went the extra mile, too; returning to the exact streets and buildings where Late Night filmed its first intro, and trying to approximate its imagery as best as they possibly could. In some cases, that simply wasn’t possible; as Meyers quips in his opening monologue, there are a lot less porn theaters in New York City now than there were back in 1982.

For sake of comparison, here’s the opening to an episode of Late Night with David Letterman from early in the show’s run. The video’s a little grainy, but you get the idea. Meyers’ team did a really great job. All that’s missing is the sleaze.