Name: Dave's 360 Degrees Rotation Show | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-12-03T01:27:57.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's 360 Degrees Rotation Show | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's 360 Degrees Rotation Show | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-03. Transcript available.

Dave's 360 Degrees Rotation Show | David Letterman

From New York, where this time of year, the streets are coming with something
very much
like eggnog. It's Late Night with David Letterman. Tonight, it's the 360-degree
rotation show
with Peter Ustedoff, Mark Bauman from Hamaka Schlemmer, and comedian George
Miller, plus
Paul Schaefer and the band. And now, a man who has his own late-night talk show
on NBC.
Hey, that's not a joke! David Letterman!
Hey, that's not a joke! David Letterman!
Hey, that's not a joke! David Letterman!
Hey, that's not a joke! David Letterman!
Hey, that's not a joke! David Letterman!
Hey, that's not a joke! David Letterman!
Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the program. My name is
Dave Letterman,
and welcome to our little studio here in New York City. I didn't get a chance
to see the
entire set of hearings today. Has John Dean testified yet, or was it...?
You know, I hate to say something that's going to depress all of you this time
of year, what,
being so festive and the holidays just around the corner. Or are they just up
the street?
No, I guess they are just around the corner. There was a sad event here in midtown
Manhattan
and the kind of thing, unfortunately, that you read about from time to time. A
man, very despondent gentleman,
with a severe stomach ulcer, took his own life today by ordering the rib dinner
at Bojangles.
Oh, my God. And Joan Collins is getting divorced. Now, there's a kind of a
shock, isn't it?
I guess any marriage is in trouble if the age difference is greater than that
of the nationwide
maximum speed limit. So that's...
At the House Foreign Relations Committee hearings today, Lieutenant Colonel
Oliver North's
lawyer said that all his client would say about the Iran-Contra affair was that
a few dozen
Marines were involved and no one was injured. Coincidentally, Peter Holmes said
the same thing
about his marriage to Joan Collins. So...
Thank you so much. Well, you can probably see what's happening to your
television picture
here in the studio and at home as well. Ladies and gentlemen, on August 15, 1932,
CBS experimented with a television transmission, and I believe the name of that
program was called
The World Wide Review. That was in 1932. Now, since that time, of course, we've
had local
television all over the country. We have network television. We now have cable
television.
We have satellite communications. We have color television. We have stereo
television.
And now, tonight, another experiment, another step forward. Thanks to the
technological geniuses at RCA
and General Electric. Tonight, we bring you the 360-degree image rotation
television program.
That's right. Tonight, during our program, the picture will rotate once
entirely, as I'm guessing many of you do at home.
You think it's annoying now. Wait about ten minutes. It's kind of starting to sicken
me, as a matter of fact.
I'll tell you more about this noble, bold experiment in a moment. But first,
here's who's on the show tonight.
Oh, George Miller, a very funny man, is with us tonight.
Peter Ustinoff is here tonight. And we have...
You know, this has actually given me vertigo.
From Hemacher Schlemmer, we have a gentleman named Mark Bauman, and he's here
with new gift items from Hemacher Schlemmer.
You know, kids are kind of...
Oh, yeah.
Oh, Schaefer, folks.
Great. Great, Dave.
Boy, is this annoying.
Is there any way to be... History is being made.
Yeah.
I am going to be just standing and sitting.
If you stand this way, there's really no problem.
The whole thing goes around completely.
I'm excited, though, about the show.
Nice to see you. Did you have a nice night?
Thank you.
Last night?
I had a kind of quiet night. I worked on my soundtrack last night. What did you
do last night?
I had a quiet evening. It was interesting. I never did this before. I had a guy
come out to the house and shave my back.
So that was going to be...
Lifestyles of the rich and famous, eh?
Yeah, well, I thought I'd try it once. Woo!
Let me tell you a couple of things about this show tonight.
First of all, here's what's going to happen. I guess you can see what's
happening already.
Let's say that this is your television at home.
This is Paul. Remember that show, Paul, you and me?
Yeah, look how healthy we looked then.
So every...
About every 15 minutes, the show will rotate 90 degrees, so...
There we go.
It'll be like that.
Yeah.
And then when it's completely 180 degrees, it'll be like that.
And then finally on the other side, about a quarter after, it'll be like that.
That's Howard Vanitsky in one of his favorite sound effects, ladies and
gentlemen.
And then finally, when we come back down, the show will be...
Just like that.
And by the way, thank God for this handy visual aid, huh?
Why did we need to show them what's going to happen?
It's happening here.
It's happening right now.
Yeah, we should have more meetings, I guess.
Oh, Hal, can we see the...
This is...
Can we see the inclinometer, Hal, to indicate what the degree of incline is?
We're now at 39 degrees.
And because experts don't fully understand the dangers of this and viewing in
your own home,
you're advised to look at tonight's show through one of these things.
Or if you have an opportunity to smoke some glass and look through that, so you
don't get hurt.
Yeah, I was smoking a little glass before the show.
I said glass, Paul, smoking glass.
Glass, yeah.
Yeah, all right.
Now, when the picture is completely 180 degrees, we have a little graphic
demonstration for you featuring our own Larry Budd Melman.
Larry, are you back there?
Larry.
Larry, when we get to 180 degrees, what are you going to do there for us?
I'm going to dance upside down on the ceiling.
Uh-huh.
And do you know how to dance, Larry?
Yeah.
And is that your own suit?
Sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that'll be when we're completely upside down.
Yes.
You'll be dancing.
Do you know what the music will be?
Larry?
Huh?
Top hat.
Top hat.
Okay.
So Larry will be dancing on the ceiling.
He's standing on the ceiling right now, isn't he?
Yeah, he is.
He's standing on the ceiling.
But see, when it's turned upside down, it'll be...
It'll be what?
We'll just edit that out.
Okay.
And now, while we're waiting for this wonderful experiment to unfold in our
laps, let's do some
dumb ads.
Actual advertisements culled from actual periodicals from all over the free
world.
Paul, do you have music for dumb ads tonight?
There's actual periodicals culled from all over the free world.
Yeah.
They're called dumb ads.
Okay, here we go.
Thank you very much, Paul.
Our first ad, "How to turn a dirty diaper into a bundle of joy."
You know, I think a Christmas gift always means so much more if you make it
yourself, don't you?
Here's an ad.
It says, "Introducing Adidas, the fragrance."
Mmm, boy.
Mmm, someone smells like running shoes.
50, 55 degrees.
Have we passed the...
I guess we haven't, haven't we?
I guess we did.
Isn't that...
This is "kiss the fat goodbye" is what it says here, see?
Isn't that how Dan Rather ends the evening news?
What happened to our little 45-degree message?
Did we pass that?
Comes at 90, Dave.
Oh, 90, I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
Okay.
That's Hal, Hal Gurney, our director in the booth tonight.
Here we have...
Hal Gurney.
Hal Gurney, I'm sorry.
Here we have an ad that says, "Allegheny Hearing and Speech Associates, dead or
hard of hearing?"
This must be a pretty powerful hearing aid.
Here we have...
Let's not do that one.
Okay, here we have a little something.
"Now we'll pay you to watch TV."
Boy, those folks at the new Fox Network are really desperate, aren't they?
Here's something.
What's a correction from a newspaper in Boston?
Correction.
The new Chinatown restaurant ad that ran in Sunday's journal was incorrect.
It read...
It should have read...
We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.
Here's an ad. It says, "You've been a good boy, so you deserve a new browning."
Yes, looks like it's going to be a John Hinckley Christmas, doesn't it?
I won't do that one.
Let's see...
We won't do that one.
Let's just go right to the last entry.
We're moving on...
This is an audible.
We're going to number 11 now.
Moving to number 11.
We have an ad for something called, "Snuggles the Musical Bear."
A musically enchanting gift.
And you can see there on the heart it says, "Touch me."
And I guess from the location of the pillow, Snuggles gets his thrills any way
he can.
Is that music for us?
Okay.
All right.
How close are we now to...
We'll do a commercial and then we'll come back.
We'll do a commercial.
Okay.
It's a very exciting night for us.
Peter Usternoff is here and George Miller and Mark Bauman from Hemmacher Schlemmer.
Plus we're rotating the image for your enjoyment at home.
So, we'll do this and more.
Thank you so much ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much.
Welcome back to the show.
And if you're just joining us tonight, we're rotating our image for your
enjoyment at home.
And I think we're coming very close to the 90 degree mark, aren't we Hal?
Pretty soon.
Okay.
Pretty soon.
Any second now, we'll hit the 90 degree mark.
We have achieved 90 degrees.
Oh, there you go.
One quarter revolution and proceeding.
Please, no flash photos.
No flash photos and now we just keep going on over.
At various times in his life, our first guest has worked as a writer, an actor,
a director, and a winemaker.
He is a linguist, a bon vivant, a history buff, and obviously on the wrong show.
Ladies and gentlemen, please say hello to Peter Usternoff.
All right.
How dare you.
Come on over here.
Be very careful.
It's a...
Hang on.
It's like being on a really cheap cruise, isn't it?
Yes, or else it's something I'm not used to, which is weightlessness.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How were things since I last saw you?
You look fine.
You look fit, happy.
A little topsy-turvy.
Enjoying the holidays, are you?
No, I haven't had any, no.
Yeah?
No, I've been running from town to town.
I was in Washington this morning.
I'll be in Ottawa tonight.
Yeah.
Somebody mentioned to me that you do a Ronald Reagan impersonation.
Is that true?
No.
I was on the Great Wall in China the other, just quite recently.
How recently?
It was very exhausting, about six weeks ago.
Uh-huh.
Very exhausting.
And I got very tired at one point, because it's almost this angle.
And I got to a point where I had a camera with me.
I had the television with me, and I said, both Nixon and Reagan gave up here,
because it's a very strenuous wall.
They both decided to stop and make a statement, and Nixon was so out of breath
and mentally fatigued by it, he couldn't think of anything to say except, "It's
a great wall."
But I think I heard that Reagan had something else to say.
He said, "Well, this great wall of ours, uh, of theirs."
Well, that's not a bad Reagan.
Thank you.
Uh, when was the last time you were in Russia?
The last time?
Yeah.
About four weeks ago.
I had to go for a very short time.
when's the last time you were in Russia the last time about four weeks ago I
had to go for a very
short time is this did you get a chance to meet Gorbachev then have you met the
man yes yes and
how did he strike you he didn't uh-huh why thank you what was the nature of
your exchange with the
man well I went together with some very distinguished Americans such as Arthur
Miller James Baldwin Alvin
Toffler in order to discuss what the future what the next Millennium should be
like and it was an
extremely interesting very affable meeting and then what did you come up with
what should it be
well well I can't I mean that's that would be silly to say that we came up with
anything except he did
encourage us to in our work together with some sociologists and people like
that and he said
we have many deficits in the world the most crushing of them is the lack of new
ideas
and I thought that was wonderful coming from a country which has been very
satisfied with old
ideas for a long time it was very unusual in any case we we of course have no
problem coming up with
new ideas on this show and I can I give you this piece of cra