Humor & Life Quote by David Letterman

Letterman’s line works because it punctures a famously self-mythologizing industry with the dullest needle imaginable: a spreadsheet. “There’s no business like show business” is an old showbiz anthem, the kind of glitzy self-affirmation performers repeat to make irregular paychecks and public humiliation feel like destiny. Letterman borrows that saccharine setup and then yanks the curtain aside to reveal a less cinematic truth: most work is interchangeable, and most people’s jobs don’t come with a standing ovation.

The joke’s engine is deflation. Show business sells itself as uniquely volatile, uniquely glamorous, uniquely meaningful. Accounting, by contrast, represents the archetype of predictability and replaceability. By claiming “several businesses” resemble accounting, Letterman flips the hierarchy: the supposedly singular world of entertainment is just another industry with payroll, metrics, and tedium. The laugh comes from the snap recognition that the backstage reality of “show” is closer to office life than it wants to admit.

The subtext is also a quiet critique of celebrity exceptionalism. Letterman spent decades inside the TV machine, watching “special” get manufactured nightly by writers’ rooms, booking departments, advertisers, and network standards. So the line isn’t just a drive-by at bean counters; it’s a veteran’s side-eye at an industry that treats itself like art while operating like any other business - and sometimes like a particularly needy one.