Name: It's Dave's Elf Night! | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-12-24T16:01:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'It's Dave's Elf Night! | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'It's Dave's Elf Night! | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-24. Transcript available.

all right i wanted to wait a couple of minutes for the show to begin before i
mention this so
you can gather your family your loved ones and neighbors into your front room
ladies and gentlemen tonight here on the program that's right it's elf night
it looks like one of those restaurants on long island where you go in for like
9.99 you get all
the roast beef you can eat people dress like knights and gondoliers and elves
come over and
sing well uh here's sad news kids to dampen our spirits on elf night dr carl
richter is dead in
baltimore at the age of 94. if you're not familiar with this gentleman he is
the guy who invented the
concept of the biological clock he also came up with the biological toaster
oven the biological
knife sharpener and the and oh screw it it's elf night
i uh are you done with your christmas shopping paul am i done i've got a few
more things i'm done i'm
officially finished with my christmas shopping and i'd just like to apologize
to everyone who's
receiving a gift from me anywhere in north america they're they're lousy awful
gifts i just it didn't
work this year i'm sorry usually great stuff this year no great stuff here's
what it boils down to
you're either in two categories yeah we have two categories of gifts you're
either in the flashlight
category or the meat category you gave meat this year i've given the gift of
meat this year
who did you give me which looks like one of the little elves has been roughhousing
with santa over
there he's got a bum arm uh i gave uh the flashlights to various friends of
mine yes which would you put
yourself in the well you of course you may get a flashlight come to think of it
would you rather
have the flashlight or would you rather have the meat oh oh now stop it i asked
lauren hutton that
last night she didn't know exactly what to say um no but my family gets meat my
entire family that's
right you're getting meat for christmas i'm sorry i didn't know what else to
give you they have
everything what kind of cuts of meat i don't know it's like combination stuff
like a flank steak yes
they're flank steaks a butt steak i don't know about that but they're getting
they're getting roughly
you know like 200 worth of meat now that's not a bad gift is it no it's lovely
yes i know
uh what are we doing oh oh you know in addition tonight to uh having uh elves
here
we're going uh to look at last minute christmas tree shoppers here in manhattan
hal let's take a
look at the christmas tree lot can we do that now well what the hell is that
what are we looking at
uh this is apparently a uh a christmas tree lot on the northwest corner of west
28th street and 6th
avenue uh the owner's name is rob lapidas we think that's his name and this is
where you can come
and for a couple hundred dollars buy yourself a christmas tree and a double
cheeseburger across
the street with those aliens hiding in the trees that's kind of kind of a bad
sign i think and uh
perhaps in a moment we'll chat with customers and uh how do you do ma'am are
you are you tree shopping
tonight no i see excuse me sir are you buying your christmas tree this evening
i'm selling tonight
you're selling a tree yeah and what are they giving you for your tree i hope
money uh-huh all right just
keep moving okay all right let's see if we can find how do you do sir are you
buying a tree this
evening fun oh i'm here to buy a tea yeah uh is it cold up it's all right not
too cold i'm having
a soda here are you aware the five trees yeah but i need some more for my uh
country house so i'm
buying another one or two over here you're buying trees for your country house
uh-huh well don't
trees grow in the country sir but who has the time to go and uh chop them out
uh-huh what's in the bag
uh let's see you buy a tree right now buy a tree right now buy a tree yeah you
want to sell me a
tree let's show you a tree wait a minute does he work there you guys have
killed the owners haven't
pick out an ice tree how much does that go for right there how much is that sir
75
no is that right can it be 75 bucks it is 75 dollars yes sir how tall is that
oh it's about
six and a half seven feet 75 dollars for a six and a half foot tree it's
cheaper than ten dollars a
foot oh my god about 90 uh the prices are pretty okay here though uh-huh yeah
this is a fascinating
conversation and gosh i wish we had all night to chat in there for a second i
thought we would
uh i'll tell you what uh it's it's elf night here uh in 6a uh hal uh can you
get a shot of one of
those trees and show people what it might look like fully decorated 75 dollars
for a tree that's
unbelievable all right we're the hell has gone wrong we can get a shot of one
of the trees there that's
lovely all right now is there any way we can show the folks what that might
look like fully decorated
okay
hal is pretty much nothing you guys can't do there in the control room is that
true
that's right david um put put the head and face of andy griffith on top of that
tree
or matlock what do you what do you think paul mayberry mayberry hal
unbelievable
how you mean you could have done matlock sure all right
okay so all night long paul we're going to be watching new yorkers buying those
trees would you
spend 75 bucks on a christmas tree yes definitely would really yes you know the
last time i bought
trees like that in indiana 20 would be an expensive tree i know 75 pigs have
you bought a tree i haven't
bought a tree lately uh my gosh oh well it's winter time and it's christmas
time uh what would we do
without a little snow here in new york city ladies and gentlemen watch this
uh
you know paul elf drill some of them elves is drunk
and uh in addition to a uh a great program tonight we'll be watching new yorkers
buy christmas trees
although i can't believe they'd be selling many at 75 a pop hal do me a favor
if it looks like
is this money changing hands here hi how are you did you just buy that no i'm
taking i'm one of the
owners i'm taking it home oh i see how much is the wreath sir uh they're nine
and ten dollars nine and
ten dollars then how can you justify uh asking 75 for a tree if a wreath is
only 10 bucks uh what can
i tell you yeah yeah you're the owner you don't have to tell me anything i'll
give you a hundred
dollars for that hat though no problem it's a polish desert hat it's a what
kind of hat my father calls
it a polish desert hat good one uh gee somebody ought to tell dave about head
and shoulders
uh hell let's uh take a look at what's going on in the christmas tree lot while
i tell you about the
rest of tonight's show and tomorrow's uh program this is somewhere over on the
west side it looks
like a guy's getting very close to hi you buying a tree i'm buying a tree what
would you spend for
it uh about 25 dollars all right well what is it one of those six inch trees
could i see the tree
you've purchased for 25 bucks well now this makes no sense they had another one
there almost that big
for 75. that's because i'm just kidding you oh what what did you really spend
how much was this tree
again 26 26 dollars yeah right we'll have the better business bureau over there
like that uh congratulations
on your tree sir i hope you have a happy holiday same to you thank you
something odd going on at the
christmas tree right uh let's see uh oh john witherspoon will be joining us in
a minute and also
gina davis tomorrow on the program paul riser andy williams will be here and uh
expert gift rapper louise
maynor expert gift rapper louise maynor we're not we're not kidding around an
expert gift rapper and
david sanborn is with us tonight
is that is that a saxophone uh tonight yeah yeah all right uh i i think we we
have a couple of
minutes here and tonight we'd like to talk about uh something that we're sort
of excited about with
our own paul shaffer paul come on over here and uh this is uh it's uh it's a
project that you've been
working on for quite some time kind of exciting yeah it's a a feature film
first uh my first feature
film now you've been you've been in films before it's true i have but you know
supporting roles
right a little thing i did in spinal tap uh-huh my brief appearance in scrooge
with david sambo and
miles but this is the first time you know you're the star of this motion name
above the title in this
particular one and what kind of movie is it well it's a christmas movie
actually it's a it's a
family picture and it's out now or will be out for next christmas it's uh it's
it's out now as a
matter of fact and it will be out for next christmas now now didn't you uh
audition for a role in that
santa claus movie a couple of years ago with uh dudley moore it's true as a
matter of i i i tested for
the uh for the role of patch the elf that eventually uh dudley moore got the
role yeah i think we have
a picture of that where's the picture of you as period right there yeah i was a
little heavier at that
time a little bigger than yeah maybe too heavy for the role but i've lost a lot
of weight now i feel
terrific and uh i thought i'm going to make my own christmas movie now what is
the title of this film
well this one is called the man who saved christmas the man who saved christmas
absolutely right and
you have a you have a clip i did bring a clip actually this is a we're going to
look at a clip
this is the first meeting between santa claus and myself me playing the man who
will eventually
save christmas the man who saved christmas this is not like earnest saves
christmas this is the man who
saved it's just a coincidence of two titles you know sometimes movies come out
it happens all the
time yeah all right we have a clip let's let's take a look now at a couple of
minutes from paul
schaefer's new holiday film the man who saved christmas
santa claus what are you doing here in guatemala shouldn't you be at the north
pole making toys for
christmas there may not be a christmas this year no christmas madre de dios
that is why i need your help
you must be the man who saves christmas very well i i will try to do as you say
is that dub was some of that dialogue i i forgot to mention that actually we
shot the film in mexico
and you know the devalued peso there and everything we were able to stretch the
budget just that much
yeah uh and it seemed like there for a second was that uh the video uh system
here did it actually go
to black and white there yeah we ran out of color stock that day i i didn't
think anybody would know
oh no you can barely notice i'm sorry i guess i'm nitpicking now yeah i don't
think the average movie
goer would notice that no it's just one of those things uh and we have another
scene here another
one more clip you and santa were in guatemala that's how it begins we go yeah
and he comes to
me i'm the man who's got to save christmas now in this next clip this is we
blew almost the whole
budget on special effects on this particular scene uh what happens is a mexican
vampire is out to
steal christmas right and in this scene i'm fighting an octopus in the vampire's
cave so
you'll see okay this is another scene from the man who saved christmas uh paul
schaefer let's take a
look at this one
did you uh did you did your own stunts right i insisted on doing it it's so
much more real that
way i hurt myself a little bit too during that particular yeah and was that was
that sid mcginnis
playing santa well the first santa claus we had came down with a little dysentery
something about a
parasite in his colon and sid was nice enough to fly down and fill in well you
did a great job
one thing i would like to mention i'd like to mention this we have a
promotional tie-in with the
the good folks at hardy's fast food and uh from now until january if you're
buying any large sandwich
uh you can take one of these man who saved christmas tumblers home there's four
and a
saturday as you can see there's me me the vampire and santa claus jimmy khan jimmy
khan oh james khan is
in the film yeah small part wow and these are dishwasher safe yeah absolutely
and you can uh you
know good for many many washings and the good folks at hardy's were kind enough
to chip in and i hope this
is a huge hit for you and maybe this generation's a wonderful life thank you we
have our fingers
all right good nice going paul paul shaffer pal let me know when somebody buys
another tree i'm
going to pick it up for them okay i'll treat them to a tree and we'll throw in
a sack of cheeseburgers
our next guest is a lovely and talented actress whose films what do you think
paul is it time for
another elf drill absolutely you never you never know you really can't plan
these elf drills or they
lose their edge they have to be spontaneous that's right oh screw it let's do
one
so
one of those damn elves kicked over my coffee i'm sorry they're drunk i tell
you you you got a lot
of snow in your hair right now thank you very much yeah welcome to mission
impossible
our uh huh do what
it's nothing one of the elves thought this would be funny
what it up tissue from a little elf cold
fine there one of the elves is coughing now

It's Dave's Elf Night! | David Letterman

all right i wanted to wait a couple of minutes for the show to begin before i
mention this so
you can gather your family your loved ones and neighbors into your front room
ladies and gentlemen tonight here on the program that's right it's elf night
it looks like one of those restaurants on long island where you go in for like
9.99 you get all
the roast beef you can eat people dress like knights and gondoliers and elves
come over and
sing well uh here's sad news kids to dampen our spirits on elf night dr carl
richter is dead in
baltimore at the age of 94. if you're not familiar with this gentleman he is
the guy who invented the
concept of the biological clock he also came up with the biological toaster
oven the biological
knife sharpener and the and oh screw it it's elf night
i uh are you done with your christmas shopping paul am i done i've got a few
more things i'm done i'm
officially finished with my christmas shopping and i'd just like to apologize
to everyone who's
receiving a gift from me anywhere in north america they're they're lousy awful
gifts i just it didn't
work this year i'm sorry usually great stuff this year no great stuff here's
what it boils down to
you're either in two categories yeah we have two categories of gifts you're
either in the flashlight
category or the meat category you gave meat this year i've given the gift of
meat this year
who did you give me which looks like one of the little elves has been roughhousing
with santa over
there he's got a bum arm uh i gave uh the flashlights to various friends of
mine yes which would you put
yourself in the well you of course you may get a flashlight come to think of it
would you rather
have the flashlight or would you rather have the meat oh oh now stop it i asked
lauren hutton that
last night she didn't know exactly what to say um no but my family gets meat my
entire family that's
right you're getting meat for christmas i'm sorry i didn't know what else to
give you they have
everything what kind of cuts of meat i don't know it's like combination stuff
like a flank steak yes
they're flank steaks a butt steak i don't know about that but they're getting
they're getting roughly
you know like 200 worth of meat now that's not a bad gift is it no it's lovely
yes i know
uh what are we doing oh oh you know in addition tonight to uh having uh elves
here
we're going uh to look at last minute christmas tree shoppers here in manhattan
hal let's take a
look at the christmas tree lot can we do that now well what the hell is that
what are we looking at
uh this is apparently a uh a christmas tree lot on the northwest corner of west
28th street and 6th
avenue uh the owner's name is rob lapidas we think that's his name and this is
where you can come
and for a couple hundred dollars buy yourself a christmas tree and a double
cheeseburger across
the street with those aliens hiding in the trees that's kind of kind of a bad
sign i think and uh
perhaps in a moment we'll chat with customers and uh how do you do ma'am are
you are you tree shopping
tonight no i see excuse me sir are you buying your christmas tree this evening
i'm selling tonight
you're selling a tree yeah and what are they giving you for your tree i hope
money uh-huh all right just
keep moving okay all right let's see if we can find how do you do sir are you
buying a tree this
evening fun oh i'm here to buy a tea yeah uh is it cold up it's all right not
too cold i'm having
a soda here are you aware the five trees yeah but i need some more for my uh
country house so i'm
buying another one or two over here you're buying trees for your country house
uh-huh well don't
trees grow in the country sir but who has the time to go and uh chop them out
uh-huh what's in the bag
uh let's see you buy a tree right now buy a tree right now buy a tree yeah you
want to sell me a
tree let's show you a tree wait a minute does he work there you guys have
killed the owners haven't
pick out an ice tree how much does that go for right there how much is that sir
75
no is that right can it be 75 bucks it is 75 dollars yes sir how tall is that
oh it's about
six and a half seven feet 75 dollars for a six and a half foot tree it's
cheaper than ten dollars a
foot oh my god about 90 uh the prices are pretty okay here though uh-huh yeah
this is a fascinating
conversation and gosh i wish we had all night to chat in there for a second i
thought we would
uh i'll tell you what uh it's it's elf night here uh in 6a uh hal uh can you
get a shot of one of
those trees and show people what it might look like fully decorated 75 dollars
for a tree that's
unbelievable all right we're the hell has gone wrong we can get a shot of one
of the trees there that's
lovely all right now is there any way we can show the folks what that might
look like fully decorated
okay
hal is pretty much nothing you guys can't do there in the control room is that
true
that's right david um put put the head and face of andy griffith on top of that
tree
or matlock what do you what do you think paul mayberry mayberry hal
unbelievable
how you mean you could have done matlock sure all right
okay so all night long paul we're going to be watching new yorkers buying those
trees would you
spend 75 bucks on a christmas tree yes definitely would really yes you know the
last time i bought
trees like that in indiana 20 would be an expensive tree i know 75 pigs have
you bought a tree i haven't
bought a tree lately uh my gosh oh well it's winter time and it's christmas
time uh what would we do
without a little snow here in new york city ladies and gentlemen watch this
uh
you know paul elf drill some of them elves is drunk
and uh in addition to a uh a great program tonight we'll be watching new yorkers
buy christmas trees
although i can't believe they'd be selling many at 75 a pop hal do me a favor
if it looks like
is this money changing hands here hi how are you did you just buy that no i'm
taking i'm one of the
owners i'm taking it home oh i see how much is the wreath sir uh they're nine
and ten dollars nine and
ten dollars then how can you justify uh asking 75 for a tree if a wreath is
only 10 bucks uh what can
i tell you yeah yeah you're the owner you don't have to tell me anything i'll
give you a hundred
dollars for that hat though no problem it's a polish desert hat it's a what
kind of hat my father calls
it a polish desert hat good one uh gee somebody ought to tell dave about head
and shoulders
uh hell let's uh take a look at what's going on in the christmas tree lot while
i tell you about the
rest of tonight's show and tomorrow's uh program this is somewhere over on the
west side it looks
like a guy's getting very close to hi you buying a tree i'm buying a tree what
would you spend for
it uh about 25 dollars all right well what is it one of those six inch trees
could i see the tree
you've purchased for 25 bucks well now this makes no sense they had another one
there almost that big
for 75. that's because i'm just kidding you oh what what did you really spend
how much was this tree
again 26 26 dollars yeah right we'll have the better business bureau over there
like that uh congratulations
on your tree sir i hope you have a happy holiday same to you thank you
something odd going on at the
christmas tree right uh let's see uh oh john witherspoon will be joining us in
a minute and also
gina davis tomorrow on the program paul riser andy williams will be here and uh
expert gift rapper louise
maynor expert gift rapper louise maynor we're not we're not kidding around an
expert gift rapper and
david sanborn is with us tonight
is that is that a saxophone uh tonight yeah yeah all right uh i i think we we
have a couple of
minutes here and tonight we'd like to talk about uh something that we're sort
of excited about with
our own paul shaffer paul come on over here and uh this is uh it's uh it's a
project that you've been
working on for quite some time kind of exciting yeah it's a a feature film
first uh my first feature
film now you've been you've been in films before it's true i have but you know
supporting roles
right a little thing i did in spinal tap uh-huh my brief appearance in scrooge
with david sambo and
miles but this is the first time you know you're the star of this motion name
above the title in this
particular one and what kind of movie is it well it's a christmas movie
actually it's a it's a
family picture and it's out now or will be out for next christmas it's uh it's
it's out now as a
matter of fact and it will be out for next christmas now now didn't you uh
audition for a role in that
santa claus movie a couple of years ago with uh dudley moore it's true as a
matter of i i i tested for
the uh for the role of patch the elf that eventually uh dudley moore got the
role yeah i think we have
a picture of that where's the picture of you as period right there yeah i was a
little heavier at that
time a little bigger than yeah maybe too heavy for the role but i've lost a lot
of weight now i feel
terrific and uh i thought i'm going to make my own christmas movie now what is
the title of this film
well this one is called the man who saved christmas the man who saved christmas
absolutely right and
you have a you have a clip i did bring a clip actually this is a we're going to
look at a clip
this is the first meeting between santa claus and myself me playing the man who
will eventually
save christmas the man who saved christmas this is not like earnest saves
christmas this is the man who
saved it's just a coincidence of two titles you know sometimes movies come out
it happens all the
time yeah all right we have a clip let's let's take a look now at a couple of
minutes from paul
schaefer's new holiday film the man who saved christmas
santa claus what are you doing here in guatemala shouldn't you be at the north
pole making toys for
christmas there may not be a christmas this year no christmas madre de dios
that is why i need your help
you must be the man who saves christmas very well i i will try to do as you say
is that dub was some of that dialogue i i forgot to mention that actually we
shot the film in mexico
and you know the devalued peso there and everything we were able to stretch the
budget just that much
yeah uh and it seemed like there for a second was that uh the video uh system
here did it actually go
to black and white there yeah we ran out of color stock that day i i didn't
think anybody would know
oh no you can barely notice i'm sorry i guess i'm nitpicking now yeah i don't
think the average movie
goer would notice that no it's just one of those things uh and we have another
scene here another
one more clip you and santa were in guatemala that's how it begins we go yeah
and he comes to
me i'm the man who's got to save christmas now in this next clip this is we
blew almost the whole
budget on special effects on this particular scene uh what happens is a mexican
vampire is out to
steal christmas right and in this scene i'm fighting an octopus in the vampire's
cave so
you'll see okay this is another scene from the man who saved christmas uh paul
schaefer let's take a
look at this one
did you uh did you did your own stunts right i insisted on doing it it's so
much more real that
way i hurt myself a little bit too during that particular yeah and was that was
that sid mcginnis
playing santa well the first santa claus we had came down with a little dysentery
something about a
parasite in his colon and sid was nice enough to fly down and fill in well you
did a great job
one thing i would like to mention i'd like to mention this we have a
promotional tie-in with the
the good folks at hardy's fast food and uh from now until january if you're
buying any large sandwich
uh you can take one of these man who saved christmas tumblers home there's four
and a
saturday as you can see there's me me the vampire and santa claus jimmy khan jimmy
khan oh james khan is
in the film yeah small part wow and these are dishwasher safe yeah absolutely
and you can uh 