Name: The Best of Martin Scorsese | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2026-01-28T16:01:04.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best of Martin Scorsese | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-28. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best of Martin Scorsese | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-28. Transcript available.

The Best of Martin Scorsese | David Letterman

do you object to talking about your movies uh and by that i mean the one that's
yet to be released
but has already uh created a lot of the interest and anticipation the king of
comedy yeah yeah we
can talk about a little bit actually the king of comedy was in preparation
while we were mixing
raging bull mixing raging bull this is how uh it became a very difficult
process the mixing of the
film the sound was very complicated we didn't realize it became 16 weeks
schedule and my god we
were one week overdue in the theaters and actually your program your morning
program used to keep us
going yeah and there was really almost a mutiny for my people yeah we sent you
something you did get
very nice yes it was very nice of you very upset because we didn't know what to
do yeah yeah there
was nothing to do yeah i had a year and a half of nothing to do yes but it was
gone you see i mean
that was so we took even even if we took the tv back into the still with us it
didn't work it didn't
work let me uh just briefly here apologize to you a couple of years ago i guess
we threw away a pair
of your lucky slippers you remember that yes were they in fact lucky did you
use them when you worked
i don't think they were lucky they were they were i i wore those slippers
during uh not actually during
the shooting of new york new york but during the editing of new york new york
the editing of um last
waltz the editing of raging bull and a few other pictures so you did some
pretty good work with those
slippers but they had they had they had used themselves up i think and it's the
only fitting
way for them to go yeah was the way they went yeah we i think they were just
incinerated we were
we were going to do something it was a celebrity clothing and uh night after
night we'd have articles
of clothing from various celebrities and they'd come down and we'd say martin
scorsese slippers and we'd see
them and somehow they were delivered to the office and they were just somebody
thought well junk mail
from omaha and they were burned they were gone yeah my apologies well it's okay
i wear the new ones you gave me
uh we gave you new slippers yes you did yes that's awfully nice of us oh yeah
now i remember picking
them out yeah is it true that for for that scene and others uh she she provided
the props she actually
cooked the food yes yes what was the menu for that meal that night was because
it was a snack was just
potatoes and eggs a light snack a light snack that the guys were eating you
know piles of it and they
were making out in the backyard and uh lots of bread and also some pizza yeah
uh and she has she cooks for
for uh film scenes and also for the crew and has done this for quite a while
very important very
for my very first short films we had scenes with cooking in them but in goodfellas
the food was very
important the uh um the uh the menu was important and uh she supervised uh the
different uh dishes that uh
that were in the picture um and you know really actually made the food and she
also cooked for cape fear
a bit okay but mainly behind the scenes it's a american family in the south it's
a different type of
cuisine yeah uh and and and she is uh excuse me bill where'd he go oh darn i
thought i thought maybe
he had a question there he is well do you have any questions for mr scorsese uh
how do you how do you
get a red sauce out of a white shirt why are you punk don't make me come over
there this woman this
lovely woman here is martin's mother katherine katherine pleasure to have you
with us on the
program thank you for being here and for us tonight you're making uh what
obviously pizza of some kind
right push no he's supposed to learn all right yeah what what what is special
about this pizza
well it's made by hand that's why it's special now do you make the dough do you
start from scratch
i start from scratch that's right i'll put this on all right what do i put on
no yeah i'll show you how
to put this on just let me put this on what what kind of a boy was uh martin at
home oh martin was a
gem yeah always been very good boy do you enjoy being in the films well i have
to be in the films
otherwise he threatens me and and have there been films that uh that you see
and you think and you
have suggestions and you tell him about change this or do that differently well
he says to me if it's
good i'll leave it in different now it gets out yeah and what do you think of
cape fair did it scare
your shorts off no no i'll do anything you want did you ever see nick nolte
sneaking around like a monkey
all right i put some sauce around did you make the sauce yourself watch your
shirt oh yeah i don't
want to get on you smear it around nice not too much don't make it too too much
it gets too heavy
all right that's it robert de niro comes over and eats this pizza and robert de
niro loves it he says
i make the best pizza in the whole world why is this different than other pizza
because it's made by me
now what do we do here so all right we we have the dough we have the cheese we
have the sauce
and i believe that the cheese go the mozzarella goes under the sauce will you
leave her alone
it's the whole secret i'm sorry i'm a little i'm a little jumpy tonight with
that murray thing
my nerves are shot first and then you put the mozzarella on top so it stays in
place okay now let's
see i'll leave this over here all right i'll put this some cheese can i
sprinkle that on there
on there what what sort of table manners does robert de niro have does he eat
in his t-shirt
no he comes dressed up in clothes what's the matter with you
too much too much i don't know what's the matter with me
all right okay all right we we have a half a minute now now catherine can we
can we see the
finished product here yes sure yeah yeah go ahead yeah yeah you use those oven
mitts marty
oh boy that's beautiful all right yeah come here come here come on come on
slice it up
you know you know bill murray yeah okay get some pizza you're using your
scissors on that why is
that scissors because my mother-in-law taught me how to use a scissors right
she says you always cut
it better with a scissor instead of using like a like a knife you don't scratch
your pan okay all
right well that's important for all of us don't scratch your pants catherine
thank you very much
it was very nice of you to come here and make this pizza for us and
congratulations on cape
fear thank you very much i'm going to start with something that happened on our
show a couple of
weeks ago don rickles was here you know you know don yes and don was shooting
his mouth
off about working in a movie with you and robert de niro in las vegas called
casino is that
the name of the casino tell us a little bit about that experience it seems like
a great idea
for a movie for you guys well with don don was with us for um i think oh about
five months
pain in the ass don oh absolutely yeah no don don was it was amazing uh we were
for the first six
weeks of shooting we were shooting at night at the riviera hotel um from about
10 o'clock at night
to 10 10 9 or 10 in the morning that's las vegas yes yes and it was a live
casino too and what they
did outside was they said come and watch the film starring robert de niro and
you know uh joe pesci
and sharon stone oh this is a great cast it's just you know it was a wild cast
but don uh i needed
don he was playing the casino manager i needed him every shot if i could with
de niro because he
only had to follow de niro around he has a great look especially because he
comes out of vegas in
the 50s and 60s and 70s the suits were great and the ties and uh but we never
really got to him
after about four or five hours he was waiting so when he finally would come on
the set the first
thing he'd come on the set looking around for me he'd find me he'd say i have a
life
i have a life i don't need this and then he'd start with the crew we'd go to
each crew member
you don't have to take this leave this guy and this this building this little
complex the ed
sullivan theater building i understand have special significance to you in your
career yeah it does
this um this building the lobby of it is where i uh location scouts founded for
a taxi driver
for one scene in taxi driver in which uh when i saw the lobby i realized how to
shoot the picture
there's one shot i made up uh which uh kind of represented to me all his disorientation
and this
is very special to us because everybody who works here we walk right through
this lobby each and every
day roll the uh film here and let's see what he's talking about my flowers yeah
that's it
you didn't get them but i sent some flowers
well yeah now is the camera still out there or not
all right let's let's see what that shot looks like live right now there it is
there now we fixed
it up just a bit we have no phone but we have the phone books yeah there's that
same move there hey
somebody leaving early what the hell is going on here oh look at that oh my god
man they're running
like flies like ramps on the ship same deal yeah with how many movies have you
made with joe pesci and
robert de niro oh god eight eight with uh bob eight with bob de niro and uh
three of three with joe was
was joe pesci's first he was in raging bull was that was that his first that
was his first that was
that's an amazing find wasn't it bob actually found him in a movie that he was
in he did a very
small picture there apparently is this this uh uh uh little industry in new
jersey that makes films uh
i guess uh sort of uh mob films it was that's true what are you looking at a
mob they make it like
for under a million dollars they make it for themselves i guess it was called
it was called oh they're making their own movies yeah it was called the death
collector
the death collector and joe played something for the holidays yeah why not it
was good ralph
de vito directed it was good and uh joe was in this scene and bob de niro saw
him he said this
guy is great he was running a crap game and he came in but he had quit the
business up to that point
but he used to be he had him and frank vincent together they had a uh a little
act uh back in
the early 70s they were doing comedy together comedy together and also uh
singing at italian weddings
but now my feeling about joe pesci is and he's been on the program and he
couldn't be a nicer guy
but he is the guy in the movies isn't it pretty much just that's the guy yeah
there's a line that's
kind of crossed that's true yeah but he's not joe is a warning he's he's one of
the most
compassionate people i know that's why he is what he's taking there is what he
saw growing up uh-huh
and he says i know a guy just like like in goodfellas he based it on somebody
that he knew you
think i'm funny you think that's funny you think i'm funny you think i'm funny
that actually happened
to joe boom uh letter number three hey dave have you ever noticed that uh tony
inky mendez looks
a lot like steven spielberg this uh letter ladies and gentlemen if i can have
the camera give
me the damn shot thank you very much this letter here refers to one of our
employees one of our fellow
staff members tony inky mendez tony stand up and take a bow or just continue to
squat that's just
fine whatever whatever you're more comfortable doing there you go just hey okay
okay that's fine
all right this this letter now here is in reference to tony or cue card man tony
inky
mendez says the letter looks a lot like steven spielberg marcel claxton uh rormand
uh the netherlands
oh we're big big in the netherlands they love us there oh uh you know i haven't
noticed that
similarity marcel i have noticed however that our drummer anton figg looks a
lot like martin scorsese
did anybody ever tell you about anton that you look like martin scorsese no no
dave no
but i did i did i did read goodfellas once oh you did you read it yeah and did
you like it well it
was okay all right anton fig ladies and gentlemen our drummer what was your
family's response to the
the first movie 