Worldwide Pants Incorporated

Infobox Company
name = Worldwide Pants

type =
genre =
foundation = 1993 [http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/107/107309.html Worldwide Pants Inc. Company Profile] from Yahoo! Finance]
founder = David Letterman
location_city = New York City, New York
location_country = nowrap beginUSAnowrap end
key_people = Rob Burnett (President/CEO) Peter Lassally
industry = Television and film production company
products =
services =
market c

revenue = $14.1 million (2007)update after|2009|03|30
operating_income =
net_income =
assets =
equity =
owner = David Letterman
num_employees = 70 (2007)
parent =
divisions =
subsid =
homepage =
footnotes =
intl =

Worldwide Pants Incorporated is a Peabody Award-winning American television production and film production company owned by comedian and talk show host David Letterman. Its on-going productions are "Late Show with David Letterman" (1993-present) and "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" (2005-present).

The company is headquartered at the Ed Sullivan Theater Building in New York City. The president and CEO is a former "Late Show" executive producer, Rob Burnett; Peter Lassally, a former "Tonight Show" and "Late Show" executive producer and current "Late Late Show" executive producer, is a senior vice-president.

Past television productions

The first Worldwide Pants production was "Late Night with David Letterman", produced in partnership with NBC and Carson Productions. The company, then known as Worldwide Pants Productions, shared a 1991 Peabody Award, saying the three production companies managed to "take one of TV's most conventional and least inventive forms — the talk show — an infuse it with freshness and imagination." [ [http://www.peabody.uga.edu/winners/details.php?id=49 1991 Peabody Award to "Late Night with David Letterman"] from the Peabody Award website]

Productions for CBS include:
*"The Building" (1993)
*"The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" (1995-1999)
*"The Bonnie Hunt Show" (1995-1996)
*"Welcome to New York" (2000-2001)
*"The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn" (1999-2004)
*"Everybody Loves Raymond" (1996-2005)

The company also produced "The High Life" (1996) for HBO, "Ed" (2000-2004) for NBC, and "The Knights of Prosperity" (2007) for ABC.

2007 WGA strike

Production of new episodes of the company's two late-night CBS talk shows ceased on November 5, 2007 when the Worldwide Pants writers joined the strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the trade association to which Worldwide Pants is a member.

During the first part of the strike reruns of Worldwide Pants shows were aired. This changed when Worldwide Pants broke ranks with the AMPTP by negotiating an independent, interim collective bargaining agreement with the Writers Guild of America in which Worldwide Pants essentially agreed to operate in accordance with the contract demands of the WGA for the duration of the labor dispute. The agreement allowed both The "Late Show with David Letterman" and "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" to return to the airwaves with their full writing staffs on January 2, 2008.

The agreement gave Worldwide Pants and CBS a perceived advantage over their rivals at NBC. The latter network was unable to make similar arrangements for its late night programming because NBC has retained control of production operations for both "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Unlike CBS, NBC would have had to negotiate an agreement covering the entire network in order to have writers work on the two late night shows. NBC aired new episodes of its late night shows on the same night as CBS, but without writers. This meant, among other things, that Leno and O'Brien were unable to perform their traditional monologues without violating strike rules (as the WGA had determined Leno did with monologues he claimed to write) and were unable to secure the appearance of many A-list celebrities, since most SAG celebrities refused to cross a picket line.

The granting of complete control of "The Late Show" to Letterman was originally a condition CBS accepted in exchange for Letterman's agreement to switch networks in 1993.

Film production

The company produced its first film, "Strangers with Candy", a movie prequel to the TV show of the same name. The film premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, within the "Park City at Midnight" category. Warner Independent Pictures subsequently signed up as North American distributor of the film, before ThinkFilm acquired the rights from Warner, giving it a limited release in summer 2006. The film grossed slightly more than $2 million, on $2 million production budget and $1.5 million prints and advertising budget. [ [http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/STRWC.php Strangers with Candy] from The Numbers]

Other announced deals

A 2002 "Forbes" article comments on the approach Letterman takes for Worldwide Pants television productions: [ [http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0708/136_print.html Celebrity 100 article about Letterman and Worldwide Pants] , from a July 2002 "Forbes article] :Letterman's approach is to nurture an idea with seed money from his production company, then get someone else to pay for the rest of it. He isn't particularly hands-on once the programs get past the initial stages, but his imprimatur carries weight with network buyers. "They've got a point of view about everything they do," says Chris Albrecht, president of original programming at HBO. "These guys are making television every night and have been for a long time. You feel more comfortable with them."

In April 2005 the Sci Fi Channel announced that Worldwide Pants would produce a half-hour animated ensemble comedy for the channel from Brendon Small, called "Barbarian Chronicles". A fall 2007 interview with Small posted on a hardcore/metal music review website made it clear that there are no plans to go through with the deal. [cite web| url=http://www.lambgoat.com/features/interviews/brendon_small.aspx| title=Brendon Small interview | date=Interview conducted in fall 2007, posted online on 7 April 2008| publisher lambgoat.com, a hardcore/metal music review website]

In October 2007, it was announced that Worldwide Pants would co-produce its first non-comedy project, a documentary about young adults running for public office. [ [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117974916.html Documentary fits Worldwide Pants] from "Variety (magazine)" magazine] The documentary, titled "The Youngest Candidate", was written and directed by Jason Pollock and premiered July 2008 at the Traverse City Film Festival. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1133997/releaseinfo Release dates for "The Youngest Candidate"] from the Internet Movie Database]

In March 2008, EcoMedia announced a "content partnership" with Worldwide Pants to "create original,unscripted, environment-related content, in the style of "The Late Show" remote segments, for television and Internet distribution." [cite web| url=http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS140902+07-Mar-2008+PRN20080307| title=EcoMedia and Worldwide Pants Incorporated Announce Content Partnership| work=EcoMedia press release| publisher=Reuters]

In 2008 Worldwide Pants signed a product placement deal with Ford to promote the Ford Flex during "The Late Late Show", using a series of weekly custom-written skits in which Ferguson played the leader of a band riding in a Flex as they traveled from Los Angeles International Airport to the CBS Studio. [cite web| url=http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS172059+03-Sep-2008+PRN20080903| title=Innovative Marketing Campaign Puts Ford Flex in Front of Millions of Potential Customers| date=2008-09-03| accessdate=2008-10-10| publisher=Reuters| work=Ford press release]

Company name and logo

The reason for Letterman using the word "pants" in his production company's name dates back to an early incident on Late Night.fact|date=October 2008 While playing a piece of stock film showing people's pants, Dave read a joke consisting of the line "Dr. Ruth has a new game show: "Guess what's in my pants". However, when the piece aired that evening the NBC censors decided to mute the word "pants" from the punchline. Letterman talked extensively on-air about the absurdity of the word "pants" somehow being considered offensive or risqué. Letterman used pants humor extensively for two or more weeks.fact|date=October 2008

The Worldwide Pants card following "The Late Show With David Letterman" is usually accompanied by a one-liner somehow involving pants. Examples of this include "Nice pants, Pepe", "Time for pants!", "Take off the pants, Penny", "Mmmm...Deep-Dish Pants!" and "Did you say 'pants?'"fact|date=October 2008 Sometimes the voice-over is unrelated, for example, "That's damn good mayo," "I hate bread" and "Nice Shoes, Big Shot." The stranger lines are performed by show announcer Alan Kalter, while the mock-serious versions are usually voiced by freelancer Jay Gardner.fact|date=October 2008

The card first appeared when older "Late Night with David Letterman" episodes were rerun on the A&E cable network.fact|date=October 2008 In that case, the logo aired at the beginning of the show, was more elaborately animated, and featured an unchanging voiceover from Gardner: "Worldwide Pants! The leader in pants and entertainment... and pants."

References

External links

*
* [http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/70/burnett.html Who Ever Said Comedy Had To Be Fun?] , from a May 2003 "Fast Company" article