Watch Maine’s Stephen King Give His Opinion of ‘The Shining’ Film in 1980

Maine horror writer Stephen King has been on David Letterman's show many times, publicizing his latest book or discussing some of the top 10 lines from his novels. Not Dave's best top ten list ever, but I've seen worse.

The very first time that Stephen King was on the Letterman show was 1980. This is before The Late Show and ever before Late Night with David Letterman.

Dave had a very short stint with The David Letterman Show, which aired on NBC weekdays at 9 a.m. It only lasted for five months, and not because it was bad. It was really good, but just a bit out of place at nine in the morning with viewers who wanted soap operas and game shows. Two years later, NBC would launch Late Night, and Dave would go on to be a legendary late-night talk show host surpassed only by Johnny Carson, in my opinion.

A 33-year-old Stephen King was his guest on The David Letterman Show, his first time appearing on Letterman. He was there to promote his latest novel Firestarter, which Dave kept calling "The" Firestarter, but Stephen was polite and didn't correct him.

Dave asked Stephen many questions about horror writing, things that scare him, and how he feels about film adaptations of his movies, specifically the one that was in theaters at the time, The Shining. His answer was about what I expected it would be.

He talks about living in Western Maine, his children, and the whole process of turning his novels into movies.