I'd say he's placed about right and wouldn't argue if he were a little higher. Letterman is my generations Johnny Carson, and it occurs to me that at this point he has been on late night television almost as long as Carson was on The Tonight Show. Combining grumpiness with sometimes bizarre, sometimes childish humor, Dave brought a different kind of funny to television. It's odd to think that so many of us actually looked forward to watching someone drop things off a roof just to see what it looked like when it hit the ground, or that we stayed up late to see cheesy acts like Kmar the Magician. Almost a quarter of a century later we still find ourselves looking for that odd sense of humor and it is still there, it just dresses nicer and comes on an hour earlier.

Although he is too much of a smartass.

My favorite of the current late night guys, but as far as I'm concerned, anyone who comes on TV after the local news just doesn't quite cut it as a TV icon.