The Jimmys — Fallon and Kimmel — pay tribute to Letterman

With David Letterman’s final show on the horizon, tributes have started rolling in from fellow latenight hosts.

Jimmy Fallon thanked the retiring “Late Show” host on Monday night’s “Tonight Show.” He said he’s grateful to Letterman for offering “33 years of innovation, fun and just plain weirdness … but mostly fun.”

“I, like every kid who grew up watching him, will miss him,” Fallon said. To prove his attachment to the comedian, Fallon showed a page from his eighth grade yearbook signed by a teacher who had predicted that he would take over for Letterman on “The Late Night Show” one day.

Fallon became especially emotional while remembering Letterman’s post-9/11 show.

“He’s always just there when you need him. I remember after 9/11, we needed somebody,” Fallon said. “The city was in shock. We’re all looking for answers. We wanted to see what Dave had to say and we looked at him to say something.”

“He said, ‘There is only one requirement for any of us and that is to be courageous, because courage, as you know, defines all other human behavior.’ We needed that. David Letterman is courageous. Have a nice retirement, Dave.”

‘LETTERMAN WAS MY JESUS’

“David Letterman, growing up, was my Jesus to the point where it’s embarrassing,” Jimmy Kimmel said at Variety’s Actors on Actors Emmy Studio.

In discussion with Kerry Washington at Variety’s studio, Kimmel fessed up to his obsession for Letterman, as he had his own dreams on bursting onto the latenight scene.

“You know, I had ‘L8NIGHT’ written on my my license plate. It was personalized,” he admitted, giving a nod to Letterman’s first latenight series, which premiered in 1982 on NBC and ran for 11 seasons before he famously left for CBS. Kimmel added, “I had a Letterman jacket … my 16th birthday cake said, you know, ‘Late Night With David Letterman’ with the cake.”

Washington, who was at the Actors on Actors studio to chat with Kimmel, asked him if Letterman is aware that he was his childhood role model.

“Yeah, he knows, he knows,” Kimmel joked, quickly rephrasing, “I know it would really alarm him more than flatter him, so I keep that close.”

Letterman’s final episode of “Late Show” airs Wednesday on CBS.

NEW KID CORDEN SPEAKS OF FEARLESNESS

“The Late Late Show With James Corden” is the new kid on the block when it comes to after-midnight TV, but the British-born host says he couldn’t do the program he does if it hadn’t been for the groundbreaking style of Letterman.

What impresses you the most about David Letterman’s hosting style?

I’ve watched quite a lot of the early 12:30 Letterman shows. He had this fearlessness, bordering on recklessness, that I thought was incredible. He managed to combine mainstream and alternative comedy. That’s not easy, but he made it look very, very easy.

What are some of your favorite Letterman moments?

Once he turned the camera 360 degrees so for part of the show he was upside down — and then never mentioned it. Then there’s that classic where he’s in a shop called Just Bulbs. When they don’t have a shade, it just cuts and he’s in a shop called Just Shades. All they sell is lampshades. No bulbs or lamps. Just shades. He held a mirror up to the ridiculous world that we live in. For one of the royal weddings he said, “Let’s go and let’s find out what the royalty in New York think about this.” He’d go to the Mattress King or he’d go to Queens or the King of Hot Dogs.

What’s Letterman’s greatest legacy?

The bravery he had — you’ll never, ever know where the influence of that will end. It certainly won’t stop with me.