While you were out filling your body with the kind of mood-altering chemicals that could lead to a tragic drivers license suspension of your own on Friday night, David Letterman was luring recently rehabilitated probation-violator Paris Hilton into a Late Show ambush, promising Hilton a chance to promote her latest brand-extension efforts (another perfume and a straight-to-video acting credit—oh yeah, and some, like, charity thing or whatever) to a national audience of eager consumers.

But once Hilton took her place in the guest chair, Letterman, channeling the feared talk-show inquisitor of his NBC past, went at the heiress like a playfully sadistic, hose-brandishing prison guard offering his favorite inmate an ice-cold, in-cell shower, refusing to discuss anything but her brief time behind bars. What follows is an instant television classic.