David Letterman returned to the Late Show on Monday, his first broadcast since word got out that a jihadist had marked him for death and demanded his tongue be cut out over a nonsensical joke about Sarah Palin.

And never has the old showbiz adage that 'death threats' plus 'short hiatus' equals 'comedy gold' been more apparent than in tonight's show, during which the dyspeptic host riffed at length on the matter. CBS.com released a preview of tonight's monologue, embedded above.

The New York Times, meanwhile, has some additional jokes, which weaved in jabs at the president and Letterman's go-to nemesis, Jay Leno:

"I have a fatwa on me. And they say the guy that issued the fatwa is an Internet jihadist. Internet jihadist, and I said, ‘Well, heck, who says Obama isn't creating jobs?' "

"And so now, State Department authorities are looking into this. They're not taking this lightly. They're looking into it. They're questioning, they're interrogating, there's an electronic trail - but everybody knows it's Leno."

As if that wasn't enough to provoke the ire of his faceless enemies — radical extremists haters gonna hate! — tonight's Top 10 was also devoted to the topic, with "Top 10 things that went through my mind after heard about the threat."

Examples:

Number 8: "Why is the staff in such a good mood?"

Number 4: "How can someone be so angry at a time when Kim Kardashian is so happy?"

Well, the good news is that tickets for the Late Show should be a lot easier to come by in the coming months! Feeling lucky, tourists? [NYT, video via CBS.com]