New station, same attitude > Will Bangor watch Letterman now?

Six seasons ago, long before Johnny said goodbye, years before Dave would get in a snit because he wasn’t offered Carson’s chair, Letterman was in a snit about Bangor.

It seemed absolutely no one in Bangor watched “Late Night With David Letterman,” according to Neilsen researchers. Letterman’s response to this cruel cut was to whip out the phone book on his Sept. 30, 1987, show and start calling the Queen City’s citizens.

Apparently Bangor was listed as the place with the fewest number of Letterman viewers in the United States for a reason. Letterman dialed and dialed, but all he got was “Dave who?” click.

Being the good sport he is, however, Letterman selected for his Top 10 List on a show later that season a Paul Bunyanesque caricature of him done by Bangor Daily News graphic artist Eric Zelz.

A lot has changed since those cult show days. Bangorites still get up early and go to work, so Letterman is still on too late for just about all of them, but now many not only have VCRs, they can program them. A pet trick can be just as stupid viewed the next day on tape. Also, David Letterman, the $14-million man, may qualify as a household name, if not a magazine coverboy these days.

So will the Kenneth Mitchell of Bangor, who unplugged his phone six years ago when Letterman called him four times in 30 seconds at 1:30 a.m., tune in tonight (or even set his VCR) for “The Late Show With David Letterman”?

“No, definitely not,” says Mary Mitchell, Kenneth’s wife.