--- title: David Letterman Stopped by Kimmel to Tease Fallon and Conan description: David Letterman couldn't help but tease his fellow late night hosts when he stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! canonical: https://time.com/4987364/letterman-on-jimmy-kimmel/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-18T15:39:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:48:07.345Z og:title: David Letterman Stopped by Kimmel to Tease Fallon and Conan og:description: Letterman also explained why he bought Conan a horse og:url: https://time.com/4987364/letterman-on-jimmy-kimmel/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: David Letterman Stopped by Kimmel to Tease Fallon and Conan twitter:description: Letterman also explained why he bought Conan a horse twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # David Letterman Stopped by Jimmy Kimmel to Tease Jimmy Fallon and Conan O'Brien by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 18, 2017 3:39 PM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 18, 2017 3:39 PM UTC David Letterman came out of [his retirement](http://time.com/3892146/david-letterman-final-goodbye/) from late night comedy to stop by _Jimmy Kimmel Live!_ and couldn’t help but seize the opportunity to tease the current late night stars. While Letterman was ostensibly on the show to discuss receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor as well as the Netflix show he is developing, he also had to do a little explaining about a certain horse. Last week, [Conan O’Brien](http://time.com/4556212/ryan-reynolds-conan-obrien-made-out-notebook/) appeared on [Stephen Colbert](http://time.com/4618102/stephen-colbert-david-letterman-face-the-nation/)’s _Late Show_to complain that when he started on _The Tonight Show_, Letterman had sent him a horse as a congratulatory gift. “It was a joke,” Letterman explained to Kimmel on Tuesday night’s episode, saying that he had hoped the horse would “take a dump on the stage” before he was sent back. “Conan will not shut up about the horse,” Letterman complained. “The horse has gone crazy. Maybe it’s from being around [Conan](http://time.com/4966067/conan-obrien-addresses-las-vegas-shooting/) all day… So now he’s complaining, and there may be litigation, and maybe I’ll get a call from PETA. And \[the horse\] apparently broke into Conan’s mansion.” Despite the aggravation caused by the horse incident, Letterman seems to have a great deal of admiration for the current slate of late-night hosts, although he couldn’t help but rib them a little. “For the purpose of this conversation I have nothing but the highest regard for all of the talk show men and women – even Jimmy Fallon. I’ll include him,” Letterman said. Watch the full interview below. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4987364/letterman-on-jimmy-kimmel/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4987364/letterman-on-jimmy-kimmel/"},"headline":"David Letterman Stopped by Jimmy Kimmel to Tease Jimmy Fallon and Conan O'Brien","datePublished":"2017-10-18T15:39:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:48:07.345Z","description":"Letterman also explained why he bought Conan a horse","url":"https://time.com/4987364/letterman-on-jimmy-kimmel/","keywords":["Newsfeed","David Letterman","Conan O'brien","Jimmy Kimmel","jimmy kimmel live","Late Night Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4987364/letterman-on-jimmy-kimmel/","name":"David Letterman Stopped by Jimmy Kimmel to Tease Jimmy Fallon and Conan O'Brien"}}]}] ```