Camping with Barry White on Letterman, May 24, 1983

First, five short clips from earlier Late Nights leading up to the special:

1. December 30, 1982 (taped December 18): During the Opening Remarks, Dave mentions that someone on the show's staff once went camping with Barry White, and the concept is lit.

2. March 14, 1983: Three months pass, and Dave announces that "Camping with Barry White" is in the works.

3. March 16, 1983: Another announcement but no date set.

4. March 24, 1983: The show is now planned for sometime in May.

5. May 19, 1983: Two more months pass, the date nears, and Dave mentions some trouble but expects resolution soon.

Then, at last, "Camping with Barry White" airs on May 24. Featuring guest appearances by Jacqueline Bisset, who's promoting her film "Class" (clip edited out due to copyright caution), and the network television debut of Bob "Bobcat" Goldthwait, then two days shy of turning 21, with a stand-up and homebase chat with Dave.

But the night belongs to Barry White, with camping tips, an essay contest, multi-segment chats with Dave, and performances of "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" and, to close the show, "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," with an extended ending that was cut from the broadcast and heard here for the first time.

On discovering Bob Goldthwait
From an interview with Gerard Mulligan in the long-defunct AOL Late Show Online forum on February 3, 1997:

Q Do you like any of the new stand-up comedians?
Gerard: I used to go to clubs and that was cool, although there was a time when everybody was doing Seinfeld, doing observational stuff. You just start thinking that's the only kind of humor there is and then somebody like Bob Goldthwait came along. I remember we went to see a night of Boston comics at The Comic Strip and there's this idiot just standing there screaming, "My grandma's really fat! How fat?! I don't have a joke! I don't have to have a joke for everything!" Wow, that was cool cause you just get so tired of "So did you ever notice when you go into the library...?"

On the September 23, 2003, episode of Late Show, guest Ben Stiller tells Dave that he was at this show and wormed his way into the Green Room. He was 17 at the time.