Name: Who Is Dave's Mystery Guest? | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-10-01T18:59:28.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Who Is Dave's Mystery Guest? | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-10-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Who Is Dave's Mystery Guest? | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-10-01. Transcript available.

Hi, I'm Barbara Gaines. Welcome to the Barbara Gaines Show. I'm here with our
wonderful Dave
Letterman. Hello, Dave. Hi, Barbara. Hey, listen, I couldn't be happier to
start off a brand new
season for you if that, in fact, is what you're doing. But once again, thank
you for inviting me
to be on your show. So I know you probably see fingers in the third box. Yes,
yes. Is there
someone being, what is that? We're going to play a little game. I don't know if
you remember in 1950
there was a show called What's My Line? John Charles Daly. It was on, I think,
NBC or CBS on Sunday
evenings or something. I'm not sure. Yeah. So it was a fun show. We're going to
try to. Oh, so we have
a mystery guest. We have a mystery guest. Dave, you've got 10 questions. What's
your first question?
This is exciting. Are you a woman, mystery guest? No, I'm not. Okay. Are you in
show business?
I'd have to say I am, yes. That's two down, eight to go. Okay. So it's a man
doing a woman's voice.
Is impersonating women, what you do in show business?
I have.
What? We're down six to go.
She has. Are you, would you be a well-known, popular drag queen?
Let me conference with Barbara. Barbara.
I would say no, no, no, no, no. Who can understand the answer? I can't. I can't.
I think we, I think we have to turn over all the cars.
Okay. Who is it, Barbara? Who is the guest? Who is it?
It is Paul Schaefer. Oh, beloved musical director, Paul Schaefer.
Thank you very much. Yay!
Hi, Paul. Nice to see you.
Welcome back.
Thank you. I just closed at the Regency doing my nightclub act, and I ran over
here.
I just got off the bus. I have a, I have a part in the new movie, the new Sinatra
movie, None But The Brave.
And I've been promoting it all day long on the bus, and I just got off. I'm
sorry about my outfit.
I didn't, you know, my tux was in the cleaners.
I ran over.
I understand.
You've all dressed formally, I know, but I'm, it's fun to be here. Nice to see
you both.
Good to have you.
Paul, you're in Toronto, correct?
I am. I'm, I'm here for the big Toronto Film, International Film Festival.
Someone has made a, a chap named Nick Davis has made a documentary on that 1972
Toronto production of Godspell.
Oh, yes.
The legendary company from which came so many of, of today's big stars in
comedy.
Me too.
Like Eugene Levy and, and Andrea Martin and everyone's favorite Martin Short
and Victor Garber.
All these people.
Gilda Radner, was it?
He's the late, great Gilda Radner.
Whoa.
Thanks for reminding me.
And so this is a documentary about that.
Well, Paul, to what, to what do you attribute the, the solid, highly congested,
ultra talented group of people from Canada who represented such a fundamental
element of American entertainment comedy?
Well, number one, everybody, all we, it was so cold up here.
All we could do is you stay in, turn the TV on and study American and long to
be on American television.
That's what all everybody was doing.
And an open call went out.
Everybody for a certain age, you know, early 20s, there's a show coming to town
from New York, Godspell.
Everyone auditioned.
It was whittled down to a certain manageable number.
And then Stephen Schwartz, the composer, he's the composer of Wicked.
There's no one bigger now, but he is, this was his first show.
And he came to Toronto.
And I think it was he, he, at about 23 years old himself, just found the
funniest people in town.
They were all there for, for the picking.
But he put together this great cast.
Yeah, well, and the, the, the names, it seems to me like there's a solid dozen
people who have been key to popular comedy in this country.
And those people are all Canadian.
And why did so many Canadians become the fabric of SNL?
Well, Lorne, the producer was Canadian.
Of course.
Yes, of course.
So he had, you know, he knew who he was building up, you know, who are the
funny people he would, he knew that there was the Second City Club in Chicago.
That was a source for him.
The Groundlings in L.A. was a source for him.
Players of this style.
And then Toronto.
And he'd seen Gilda in Godspell.
Lorne hired Gilda first.
Kind of, as we read in the book about him, he built the first cast around her.
Did you read the Lorne book?
I sure did, yeah.
Absolutely fascinated by it.
Because I was there observing everything.
Exactly.
Like a hawk, you know.
And this explains a lot of things.
He had guys around, and I didn't know who they were.
Cool guys.
One guy is named John Head.
He was kind of without portfolio.
Not sure what he was doing.
Ended up producing when David Sanborn had a music show.
He produced that, but otherwise he was around.
And this other guy, Joe Boyd, was around a little bit.
These tall, cool guys.
One guy, Gary.
And in the book, it's explained to me.
Finally, Lorne likes to have tall, cool guys around.
Right.
He just likes to have cool guys around.
Yeah, that's basically, yeah.
It seemed very odd to me that he liked to have all these, you know, celebrities
and cool
people around, because that was not the culture that our show was.
Our show was we just like to have schlubby, downtrodden people around.
I read that Johnny Carson said you can only have schlubby, downtrodden people.
Well, we took that to heart.
As your guess.
Isn't that true?
Well, it wasn't just yes.
That was just who we hung with.
By the way, this all came from Dave Tebbitt, who was on the Johnny Carson
payroll, and he
was a lieutenant for Johnny and a man who controlled things around Johnny.
I think of mostly secondary importance, perhaps primary importance.
I'm not certain.
But certainly in terms of us, it was smaller issues.
Couldn't have an orchestra.
Yeah.
Couldn't do a monologue.
Couldn't use any of Johnny's guests.
So those three things were formative for us, and we were able to use those
guidelines
or prohibitions to our advantage.
We had a great band, and we got fascinating, interesting guests that would
never appear
on The Tonight Show.
So it worked to our advantage.
But I don't know that the memo went out only schlubby, unwanted people with no
personality
or a bit.
I see.
But admittedly, Dave Tebbitt's proscriptions, you were able to turn them around
and make them
into a style, a new style.
Well, I can't take credit for that.
It's the tools that were given to us, and both of you were part of that.
So the three of us, and everybody involved with us in those days, had that as a
mindset and
worked well under those restrictions, if in fact they were restrictions.
If you look at the old Tonight Show, it was classic show business, human
interest stuff
handled by Johnny, who was just rock solid and smooth on day one as he was the
final day.
We were a little lumpy.
Whatever happened to a little lumpy?
One of my favorites.
Thank you.
And we got away with it because nothing else was on.
We got away with murder.
That is how we got away with it.
Nothing else was on.
There was nothing else on.
I also must say, we didn't do much editing, if I say we, meaning, I guess,
gains.
At NBC, stuff would go out.
Horrible mistakes would go out.
That's right.
But the people thought it was great, or you'd never seen that before.
Yeah, I know we got away with murder.
Yeah, by the time we got to CBS, I lost complete self-control and would take an
eight-minute
segment and make it a 20-minute segment.
And I thought, this is someone else's problem.
As you would say to me, time cues are for losers.
I said that?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, listen, Paul, I know you got a show tonight, so thanks for dropping
by.
I got to go.
Yeah, I'm opening over the St. Regis room with my quartet.
So come by and see me, and I got to run.
And thanks for your shake hands.
Dorothy Kilgallen, I love you.
And Aldine Francis is fantastic.
And as John Charles Daly, Barbara Gaines, thanks for having me.
Dennis Nerf.
Great job and great job as panelists.
Great to see you.
And nice seeing all you guys.
Thank you, Paul.
Nice to see you.
Appreciate the drop in.
Bye.
Good night.
All right.
Thanks, Daniel.
Thank you, Paul.
See you soon.
Thanks for having me.
See you soon, everyone.
Bye-bye.