KANKAKEE, Ill. — High school students in a city that David Letterman lampooned as an awful place to live are plotting some tongue-in-cheek revenge, more than 15 years later.
The late-night TV talk show host piled on in 1999 after Places Rated Almanac called Kankakee, and its surrounding area in northern Illinois, the worst metropolitan area to live in the U.S. and Canada. To spruce things up, Letterman sent Kankakee two gazebos, which the students plan to turn into a rocking chair to commemorate Letterman’s upcoming retirement.
“I think we know that Dave likes a good joke,” Barbara Wells, the area’s board of education president, told the (Kankakee) Daily Journal. “So, I thought he’d like this. And I like seeing the kids get so involved. This will be one class they tell their kids and grandchildren about.”
A spokeswoman for CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” said crews plan to film the project next month and to air the footage on the show.
