Later in the year, comedian Stephen Colbert will take over behind the hosting desk.
The iPhone on my host's desk starts going berserk with incoming messages.
Here, in chronological order, are 11 musical guests who stood out during Letterman's lengthy time behind the host's desk.
But give Notre Dame credit for trying to freshen up an old standby, the weekly football luncheon, with a David Letterman-style format: a host, a desk, a couple of player-guests and that comedic phenomenon: a top 10 list.
At one point, she went on David Letterman, jumped on the chatshow host's desk, gave him a table-dance, flashed her breasts and jumped back into her seat grinning like crazy, wondering what the hell she had just done.
After he rolled out his introduction like a red carpet for the boss, and after Carson delivered his nightly monologue, Mr. McMahon, in jacket and tie, would take his seat on the couch beside the host's desk, chat and banter with Carson a bit before the guests came on and almost invariably guffaw at his jokes, even when he was the butt of them.
A celebrity guest then gets into the act: to the whoops of the crowd, Marlon Wayans bounds onstage and mounts the host's desk to simulate sex with the computer screen image of Ms. Bernhard, with whom he must then share air-kisses and pleasantries.
She picked up a pack of gum from the late-night host's desk.
Once on the show, Sam notes a strange toy bear on the host's desk, the source of the hypnotism.
