Name: Dave Talks with Late Night Legend Jim Downey | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-11-18T16:00:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave Talks with Late Night Legend Jim Downey | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-11-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave Talks with Late Night Legend Jim Downey | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-11-18. Transcript available.

Dave Talks with Late Night Legend Jim Downey | David Letterman

Hi, I'm Barbara Gaines. This is, of course, of Dave.
How you doing? Six, seven, deadbeats.
So six, seven. That's a thing.
And this is Jim Downey, long-time head writer of SNL, actor,
subject of the new documentary on Peacock called Downey Wrote That,
and most importantly, the head writer of Late Night with David Letterman from
1982 to 1983.
Hello, Jimmy.
Hi, Jim.
Hi, everyone.
Nice to have you here.
It's nice to be here.
I don't want to jump right in, but I'm going to jump right in.
I am so excited.
I am so pleased.
I am nothing but full of questions.
I've watched the documentary.
I'm thrilled on, and also an actor,
but I'm thrilled that Jim is getting this kind of attention and this kind of
recognition,
and I think it maybe comes because of the 50th anniversary of SNL,
but, oh, my God, to have somebody surface a half-century of the comedic talent
that is on exhibit at the Saturday Night Live,
here is the guy at the very pinnacle.
So we're very, very pleased to have you here.
The amount of time that you spent with the ever-changing cast members,
had I been there in any capacity, I don't care, not writer, not performer, not
switchboard operator, switchboard,
I would have been scared silly of the people in that cast.
One, just nonstop, unhinged, unharnessed funny, and two, just physically
frightened.
Well, the only one who was frightening from time to time was Belushi.
Yes.
But Belushi, he was nice to me, which I felt bad for the people.
He was very mean to, but, you know, better you than me.
But was the meanness, what was that of?
He could just be very difficult, and I don't know if we talk about this in the
documentary,
but Al Franken and I, we used to do what we called 1230 pieces,
which were kind of experimental.
We figured, hey, there's no great harm.
Sure.
The best way to describe the piece was the playing note was a very, very bitter,
very world-weary, very cynical, but also extremely stupid person.
And, you know, usually you think of cynics as more intelligent,
but anyway, so it's John Belushi on a bus trip, like one of those, like, you
know,
Trailways, Greyhound, kind of, you know, the cheap alternative things.
And he's Jill Clayberg, the late Jill Clayberg is there, is sitting next to him,
and she says, and the scene starts there on this bus, and it's in the middle of
the night.
She goes, hey, we're going to be going over the continental divide,
and if you want to switch seats, you can have the window.
He goes, nah, nothing to see out there.
Well, no, it's the continental divide.
It's at dawn.
He goes, well, just a bunch of blurry, out-of-focus mountains.
I've seen that.
I've seen it all.
And then they get talking, and he's describing how his whole life he's been
disappointed by things.
Like, you know, they made this big deal out of the Louvre.
He went through just a bunch of fuzzy, ill-defined paintings and out-of-focus
statuary.
I don't know what the fuss is about.
And anyway, so basically, that was the basic thing.
So it turns out that it's never occurred to him to have his vision checked.
And he's very bitter about things.
But it was just every variation of fuzzy, out-of-focus, ill-defined stuff.
So anyway, I was sharing an office with Bill Murray.
We had, you know, been assigned as roommates and so office mates.
And so in those days, we had our read-through.
You go back to your office.
Then you would, Lauren would call you individually, and his assistant would
come and knock me to
go, hey, Jim, Lauren needs you.
So I come in.
So he gets me.
And I don't know where Al was, but he wasn't with me.
Although we wrote the piece together.
And so I go back to Lauren's office, and Belushi's sitting there.
And Lauren's goes, Jim, John doesn't understand the piece.
And Belushi's like, yeah, what's, I mean, I don't get it.
And John, you're a very bitter, yeah, okay, very, very cynical, very world-weary,
you know,
like George Sanders in, what was that, what was that, what was that, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
And, but you're also really, really stupid.
It's like, huh, I don't know, I don't get it.
And so, and so Lauren goes, well, okay, well, that's what it is.
And so I go back to the office, and Billy says, so what, are they doing the
piece?
And I go, I don't, doesn't look like it, Belushi doesn't like it.
And, and, and Billy's like, I'll do it.
I'd love that piece.
I, I fucking love that piece.
I'll do, I'll do it.
I go, really, really like it.
And at that time, I hadn't written too much for, for, for, for Bill.
And so I was great.
It was great because he's sparked to something I'd done.
And so I, I go back to, to Lauren's office.
And I say, hey, Lauren, Billy said he'd love to do it.
He's not that heavy in the show.
So it's fine with me and Al if, if we just switch out the parts.
Really?
Okay, great.
That's fine.
So he goes and puts the card up on the board and then five minutes later, I get,
I get it.
You got to go back to see Lauren and Belushi's in the office again.
Jim, John will do the piece.
And it was totally actor stuff, you know, like, no, give it to someone else.
No, in that case.
How long, you started second year and then what was your run at Saturday Night
Live?
Well, okay, so that I did like seasons two through five, which ended in May of
1980.
And that's, well, that's, that's when you came with us.
That's when the whole group.
Came to us in 82.
82.
82, yeah.
It was like playing major league baseball and then going down to triple A.
No, it was not.
Or maybe instructional league.
I talk about, okay, the summer of 80, I was out with Frank, with Frank and
sharing a house
in Sag Harbor.
And my mother called me and said, Jim, have you seen this David Letterman show?
And I, and I knew who you were because I'd seen you when Carson said, Jim, it
is the funniest
thing, actually the most brilliant thing.
It's so, no offense, so much for me.
I'm sorry, but it is.
You have to see this show.
And so I started watching, watching the show.
I thought it was genius.
And, and I, um, uh, obviously, you know, very different kind of thing.
Cause it was, it was, it was much brainier than what we did at HeadRite Live,
you know?
When you came in, we're the head writer for us.
And when I was interviewed for the, the documentary and delighted and pleased
to be there, I was reminded
then of material specific pieces that you had done for us and, and you yourself
were part
of, and I was part of.
And, uh, I think I dislocated my sternum from laughing at these things that had
happened.
Uh, and it was, uh, one was the world's largest doorknob.
And then the, the giant doorknob was a George Meyer thing.
Oh, is that right?
It was one of his gift idea.
Yeah, yeah, well, we didn't, we didn't get to that in the documentary, but this
is the
kind of stuff that, that because you found this stuff funny, we could do the
way it worked.
I was sort of the, the point man between the writers as a group and you.
And I sent, we spent all that time in your office and, and there was stuff
sometimes that
you, you thought was funny, but you just said, I can't do that.
I'm not going to do that.
And, and, um, and some, and sometimes I'd have to explain to some of the, the,
the more
hothead writers, like, um, you know, I felt like I was a communist trying to
explain to
the Spartacist workers, workers brigade that we weren't sellouts.
You know what I mean?
Well, I remember George Meyer took a hike over something and he just vanished
and quit showing
up and I believe that we were, we were being too middle of the road and I would,
I would
go, George, trust me.
If America got to vote on the writing staff, they like Dave, if they got to
vote on the
writing staff, none of us would have jobs.
And, and I, I remember one of the things that I always felt, and I, I've said
this before.
Uh, I don't think I said the documentary, but like having been at Saturday
night live and,
and at late night, this compliment Saturday night live as a show wanted was
that's really
hip that late night, that's really smart.
And I, I much, I mean, my heart was always with the kind of, um, smart, just
stuff that,
that you could almost train the audience to like, like when, when the first
time we did
the giant doorknob, uh, it just, it was, uh, I remember the thing was like, and,
and from
south of the border, El, El Nabe Grande or whatever.
And it was, it's, but, but we laugh at it now, but the audience kind of, and
then I remembered
I, I was pushing the idea of like, we should bring it back.
And you, so like two nights later, we did this thing where you go, um, two
nights ago,
and we introduced the giant doorknob and, and frankly, we were disappointed by
the reaction
of the audience.
And we think we failed, we failed you, the audience.
We late night failure because we did not convey to you just how big this doorknob
is.
And that's, that's on us, that is on us, ladies and gentlemen, so we had like a
chart where
it's like giant doorknob, great white whale or something, brontosaurus, you
know.
But the doorknob, we kept having it get bigger and bigger and bigger.
We kept, I remember one time.
It was, it was constantly being disputed that we would have other, oh, no, wait
a minute.
That, that, that was giant vase.
That was a giant vase.
That was, that was the thing that started with a postcard that Ian Frazier had
sent me
from Zanesville, Ohio.
They put the world's largest vase as their like most famous thing about Zanesville.
We decided the first thing we did was, um, we found out that the owner was the
head wrestling
coach at Iowa State, you had him on the phone.
Then we had a guy in Canada who disputed our claim that he thought his vase was
larger.
And we had on F. Lee Bailey to do a lie detector thing to determine if he was
telling the truth.
He had a voice stress analyzer.
And remember we, we, we had an opening like cocktail party for swells.
I mean, like Chris Elliott in a tuxedo.
And like, and shipping cocktails with a waiter with hors d'oeuvres and stuff as
a select group
got to see the vase up close.
And then, but the last night was the world's largest vase issued its farewell
to late night.
That was you.
That was my voiceover.
And it was in the time I have spent among you, I have observed much that
impresses me
and much that leaves me disturbed.
Your, to me, your civilization resembles a rickety end table on which the vase
of brotherhood
is perched precariously.
And there is Daniel Stern, who was one of the guests, like, what the fuck is
going on?
Right, right.
He was at the party.
Well, he'd been on the show.
So he was one of the people, the band, Paul Schaefer and Will Lee and Steve
Jordan,
like, listening to the wisdom of the world's largest vase.
And like, I, you know, for better or for worse, there's no other show.
Well, in listening to it and being reminded of it through the documentary and
the small
part that I was in the documentary, I so wish that could have been the vein of
the show
from that point to the very end.
Because listening to it now, it's just like, oh my God, to have been able to
ride that wave
or to, to, yeah, to ride that wave.
Well, the thing that, that, um, the thing, another example of that type of
thing was when
we did Camping with Barry White, which totally started as me just trying to
make you laugh.
And you, you said like, um, so where'd you go on the break?
And I go like, well, you're gonna, you're not going to be happy that I went
camping with
Barry White and that, and that was it.
You laughed and then we're on to actual, you know, helping the show.
And then that night you said, you said like, ladies and gentlemen, if I seem a
little distracted
tonight, I, I've just learned that a member of my staff, which is again, a
member of my
staff had gone camping with Barry White.
And then over the next couple of weeks, you would bring it up randomly.
Like you just go, um, you know, um, how soon are we, Paul, how soon are we
doing camping with Barry White?
So then we had to book him.
Oh, so yes, I was sort of feeding the machin