Name: Dave's Tribute To Johnny Carson | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-03-07T16:00:46.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's Tribute To Johnny Carson | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-03-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's Tribute To Johnny Carson | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-03-07. Transcript available.

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to The Late Show. How about
this for bad news here in New York City, the basic cab fare, say you're from
out of town, you want to take a cab someplace. The basic cab fare has gone up
from $2 to $2.50. $2 to $2.50. Or as any cab driver in New York City can tell
you, that's a 22 rupee increase.
Well, here is a sad story. I hated to hear about this. Paris Hilton, you know
Paris Hilton? Paris Hilton has a dog named Tinkerbell, and Tinkerbell was
missing for a while. Don't worry, they found Tinkerbell. They found the dog. Tinkerbell
was with the Taco Bell Chihuahua making a sex video. So that's a happy ending.
How many people are on a low-carb diet? And do you find that it's working? Is
it effective, the low-carb diet?
Everything is low-carb now. They have the low-carb beer, they have low-carb
pizza, low-carb ice cream. And earlier today, I was reading in the Times
something that makes no sense to me. You can now actually buy low-carb condoms.
Are you aware of that? Makes no sense.
This was interesting and kind of a strange... John Kerry, you know John Kerry,
came...
You heard he didn't win.
Well, he was criticized for throwing away his military service medals back in
the 70s. So, not to be outdone, today, President Bush threw away his National
Guard spotty attendance ribbon.
But, you know, President Bush was overseas, he was in Rome, he was visiting the
Pope. Did you see those photos?
Oh, my God, the poor guy, he's just... He looked old, he looked just confused,
like he didn't know where he was.
And then the Pope told Bush to relax and enjoy himself, and then after that,
everything was fine after that.
And then, on his way back, President Bush stopped in Canada, where he received
a cool reception, but on the bright side, he was able to go to a Canadian drugstore
and fill his prescriptions.
So that was, that was something good for him.
I saw this in the paper over the weekend. The Red Cross went into Iraq to
interview, what's his name, Saddam Hussein, you know?
And he's apparently out of it. He kept asking, when is Sean Penn coming back?
That's a bad sign.
But, this is kind of exciting. These guys have built this rocket ship, and they're
sending people into outer space.
It's unbelievable. They, they went up and they sent new records, new altitude
records for civilian spacecraft 50 miles into space.
50, and from that height, you know this probably, there are two things, two man-made
things that are visible from 50 miles up.
One, of course, is the Great Wall of China, and the other, Donald Trump's hair.
Two things, and you know, the more you think about it, there are so many things
to miss about Johnny Carson, and when this all happened, I had the strange
feeling that I had been through this before, and I'll tell you why, and I think
many people felt this way.
I was nearly this sad when the guy retired, as when you find out that he's
actually passed away, because he's, you know, that part of our lives.
And Johnny Carson, and you probably all know this, I just want to underline a
couple of things here.
It was like a public utility, you know.
At the end of the day, that's who you wanted to be there, you know.
It didn't make any difference what kind of a day he had, if he had a great day
or a bad day, or, you know, the Watergate and Vietnam and the Gulf War, and it
didn't make any difference who was president, didn't make any difference.
So, what the economy was, or the unemployment, or what was going on, at the end
of the day, the guy you wanted there was Johnny Carson.
What a tremendous luxury, if you think about it, to be tucked in at night by
Johnny Carson.
Oh, that's so true.
And the thing that I used to love most about Johnny Carson, and I guess I have
a different perspective, because if you think about it, there's really only a
handful of people in the world who kind of do this.
And so the thing that I used to love about Johnny, because it's really
difficult, and the thing that you really take the most pride in is making
people laugh.
You know, you come out and there's an audience full of folks, and you want to
make them laugh.
The best part about Johnny is when a joke would not go well.
And he would look at the audience and give them that look like he had just
bought them drinks and nobody said, thank you.
And then he would go on, and maybe two or three more jokes wouldn't work.
And then Doc and the band would start playing, was it T for Two or something
like that?
Yeah.
That's right, that's right.
And then Johnny would start dancing.
And it was the funniest thing of the night and the funniest thing of the week.
And to be able to get people to laugh like that in such an effortless fashion
was unbelievably admirable.
And then the way that you know that Johnny was such a tremendous part of your
life is on the nights when there would be a guest host.
And you'd be waiting all day to see Johnny, and you'd tune in, and there was a
guest host.
And it would make you angry.
And you would be steaming mad, but not at Johnny.
I like that you would always take out your anger on the guest host.
On the host, yeah.
The poor stooge who was filling in for Johnny.
Tell me about it.
But it made such a tremendous difference to have.
And, you know, we're not talking about five years or ten years or 20 years.
This guy did it for 30 years.
30 years.
He was part of our life.
You know, several generations, you know, my age, my parents, people older,
people younger.
And I guess it was Steve Allen.
Well, before that, they had the Broadway whoop-dee-doo with Jerry Lester or
something.
Buddy Lester.
I don't know who it was.
And then it was Steve Allen, who was the first Tonight Show host.
And then it was Jack Parr.
And Steve Allen was a remarkable talent.
He was tremendous.
And Jack Parr was an incredible talent also.
But the Tonight Show didn't really become the Tonight Show until Johnny Carson
started to host it.
And he created the template for that show.
And everybody else who was doing a show, myself included,
we're all kind of secretly doing Johnny's Tonight Show.
And the reason we're all doing Johnny's Tonight Show is because you think,
well, if I do Johnny's Tonight Show, maybe I'll be a little like Johnny and
people will like me more.
But it sadly doesn't work that way.
It's just, if you're not Johnny, you're wasting your time.
I mean, really everything, the band, the chairs, the desk, the announcer,
it's all because we just want to be a little bit more like Johnny.
And I moved to Los Angeles from Indianapolis in 1975.
And the reason I moved is because of Johnny Carson, the Tonight Show.
And I'm not the only one.
I would guess that maybe three generations of comedians moved to be where
Johnny was.
Because if you thought you were funny and you wanted to find out if you could
hit Major League pitching,
you had to be on the Tonight Show.
And that's exactly what I did.
And all of my peers moved out there for the same reason.
And I was lucky enough to be on the Tonight Show in 1978.
And from that, I got a show that Paul and I used to do over at NBC.
And from that, we got this show.
And truthfully, no stretch of the imagination, I owe everything in my
professional career,
whatever success we've attained, to Johnny Carson.
Because he was nice enough to give me the opportunity and throughout my career
was always very supportive.
As a matter of fact, every one of those jokes I did a few minutes ago were
written for us over the last couple of months by Johnny Carson.
And tremendous, tremendous act of friendship.
A friend of mine who's been on the show before, and Paul knows him quite well,
his name is Tom Dreesen.
And Tom and I started out as comedians about the same time in Los Angeles.
And Tom's fond of telling a story.
And when Tom's fond of telling a story, he'll tell it a thousand times.
But he's fond of telling this story, traveling around, and people say, oh, hi,
what are you doing?
And he says, well, I'm a comedian.
And invariably, people would say to him, oh, you're a comedian.
Have you been on Johnny Carson?
And, of course, what this meant was, as far as the world is concerned,
if you had not been on Johnny Carson, you just weren't funny.
And, by God, that was the truth.
Absolutely.
And that doesn't exist anymore, either.
The first time I was on The Tonight Show as a guest was November 24, 1978.
And I was on, I don't know, a couple dozen times after that.
And of all of the appearances that I made with Johnny, there is one thing that
people today still ask me about.
And they think it was unbelievably funny, and they can't get over it.
And they always, did that actually happen, and what was the deal on that?
And the interesting thing about this, it had nothing to do with me.
It was all Johnny.
And this was at a time when we all thought we were kind of, you know, setting
new territory for comedy and being cutting edge.
And the truth of it is, Johnny was still the best and could still do it and
always did it effortlessly.
So this is something that happened to me on The Tonight Show.
And the date of this was April 18, 1986.
And this was right in the middle when we were doing the show over at NBC.
So I go out to California, and Johnny's nice enough to put me on his show, and
this is what happened.
I went by your house this morning on the way to work.
No, no.
And I want to show you, I took this picture myself.
Would you roll the tape that we made this afternoon since you have come?
This is a view of the truck.
Oh, no, no, no.
I want you to see this fine automobile close-up.
Take a look at the appointments inside the cab.
It was locked.
How did you unlock this?
Now, look at this. Look at the seat.
This is David's truck.
Yeah, yeah.
Look at this. Fine automobile.
Parked out in front of expensive homes in Malibu.
Oh, good. Good. Steal it. Sure.
Did you get some of Gaddafi's boys to go out there?
What the hell is this?
They're stealing a truck.
Oh, no.
And there you go.
David, this is your truck.
No, no, no.
Look at this.
Look at this.
Look at this.
Look at this.
Now, look at this.
Look at that.
Wait a minute.
He scratched the damn truck.
Look at this fine automobile.
This wasn't here before.
How about that for an idea?
Oh, your truck.
The thing I love about that in watching that, I'm just sitting there.
I bring nothing to the table.
It's all Johnny.
He's in complete control, and I couldn't look like a bigger boob.
And before we bring out Peter, you know, after Johnny retired, which was in 92,
he was nice
enough to appear on this program in little cameos and little skits and stuff
that we would
do from time to time.
And it was always a great kick.
And we put together a few of those moments.
Take a look.
Please say hello to Johnny Carson.
You will find out, David, after a few years, this is the only way I can talk
with anybody.
I was out to dinner last night at a restaurant.
I take this with me.
I go home after the show.
I use this in our bedroom.
I do not perform well without this desk.
You know, I noticed something right off the bat.
I think your desk is bigger than mine.
Well, another 20 years, you will have this desk.
How are things going there in California?
Pretty good.
The mudslides are putting out the fire.
Well.
Look, he's still got it.
Dave.
How you doing?
What a surprise.
Yeah.
Listen.
Very often after I finish my show, I come to my office and have a camera
standing by just
in case somebody might call.
David, I'm going to fax you this joke.
And no matter what happens back there, it left here funny.
Johnny, can I have the top ten list?
He's going to be the top ten list?
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
Is there anybody that good?
No, sir.
There's nobody that good, and maybe one day there will be somebody that good.
But right now, all of us doing these shows combined collectively are not that
good.
Wow.
And you get the feeling that in the case of Johnny's show, people actually
watched it.
In the case of our show, you get the feeling people are just kind of putting up
with it.
You know, I mean, when you see the two of us together, would you rather watch
my show or his show?
No, I'd rather watch his show, for God's sakes.
It's going to be very nice.
Our next guest was the musical director of The Tonight Show, starring Johnny
Carson for 25 years
and now performing with Tommy Newsome and Ed Shaughnessy.
Please welcome Doc Severinsen.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.

Dave's Tribute To Johnny Carson | David Letterman

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to The Late Show. How about
this for bad news here in New York City, the basic cab fare, say you're from
out of town, you want to take a cab someplace. The basic cab fare has gone up
from $2 to $2.50. $2 to $2.50. Or as any cab driver in New York City can tell
you, that's a 22 rupee increase.
Well, here is a sad story. I hated to hear about this. Paris Hilton, you know
Paris Hilton? Paris Hilton has a dog named Tinkerbell, and Tinkerbell was
missing for a while. Don't worry, they found Tinkerbell. They found the dog. Tinkerbell
was with the Taco Bell Chihuahua making a sex video. So that's a happy ending.
How many people are on a low-carb diet? And do you find that it's working? Is
it effective, the low-carb diet?
Everything is low-carb now. They have the low-carb beer, they have low-carb
pizza, low-carb ice cream. And earlier today, I was reading in the Times
something that makes no sense to me. You can now actually buy low-carb condoms.
Are you aware of that? Makes no sense.
This was interesting and kind of a strange... John Kerry, you know John Kerry,
came...
You heard he didn't win.
Well, he was criticized for throwing away his military service medals back in
the 70s. So, not to be outdone, today, President Bush threw away his National
Guard spotty attendance ribbon.
But, you know, President Bush was overseas, he was in Rome, he was visiting the
Pope. Did you see those photos?
Oh, my God, the poor guy, he's just... He looked old, he looked just confused,
like he didn't know where he was.
And then the Pope told Bush to relax and enjoy himself, and then after that,
everything was fine after that.
And then, on his way back, President Bush stopped in Canada, where he received
a cool reception, but on the bright side, he was able to go to a Canadian drugstore
and fill his prescriptions.
So that was, that was something good for him.
I saw this in the paper over the weekend. The Red Cross went into Iraq to
interview, what's his name, Saddam Hussein, you know?
And he's apparently out of it. He kept asking, when is Sean Penn coming back?
That's a bad sign.
But, this is kind of exciting. These guys have built this rocket ship, and they're
sending people into outer space.
It's unbelievable. They, they went up and they sent new records, new altitude
records for civilian spacecraft 50 miles into space.
50, and from that height, you know this probably, there are two things, two man-made
things that are visible from 50 miles up.
One, of course, is the Great Wall of China, and the other, Donald Trump's hair.
Two things, and you know, the more you think about it, there are so many things
to miss about Johnny Carson, and when this all happened, I had the strange
feeling that I had been through this before, and I'll tell you why, and I think
many people felt this way.
I was nearly this sad when the guy retired, as when you find out that he's
actually passed away, because he's, you know, that part of our lives.
And Johnny Carson, and you probably all know this, I just want to underline a
couple of things here.
It was like a public utility, you know.
At the end of the day, that's who you wanted to be there, you know.
It didn't make any difference what kind of a day he had, if he had a great day
or a bad day, or, you know, the Watergate and Vietnam and the Gulf War, and it
didn't make any difference who was president, didn't make any difference.
So, what the economy was, or the unemployment, or what was going on, at the end
of the day, the guy you wanted there was Johnny Carson.
What a tremendous luxury, if you think about it, to be tucked in at night by
Johnny Carson.
Oh, that's so true.
And the thing that I used to love most about Johnny Carson, and I guess I have
a different perspective, because if you think about it, there's really only a
handful of people in the world who kind of do this.
And so the thing that I used to love about Johnny, because it's really
difficult, and the thing that you really take the most pride in is making
people laugh.
You know, you come out and there's an audience full of folks, and you want to
make them laugh.
The best part about Johnny is when a joke would not go well.
And he would look at the audience and give them that look like he had just
bought them drinks and nobody said, thank you.
And then he would go on, and maybe two or three more jokes wouldn't work.
And then Doc and the band would start playing, was it T for Two or something
like that?
Yeah.
That's right, that's right.
And then Johnny would start dancing.
And it was the funniest thing of the night and the funniest thing of the week.
And to be able to get people to laugh like that in such an effortless fashion
was unbelievably admirable.
And then the way that you know that Johnny was such a tremendous part of your
life is on the nights when there would be a guest host.
And you'd be waiting all day to see Johnny, and you'd tune in, and there was a
guest host.
And it would make you angry.
And you would be steaming mad, but not at Johnny.
I like that you would always take out your anger on the guest host.
On the host, yeah.
The poor stooge who was filling in for Johnny.
Tell me about it.
But it made such a tremendous difference to have.
And, you know, we're not talking about five years or ten years or 20 years.
This guy did it for 30 years.
30 years.
He was part of our life.
You know, several generations, you know, my age, my parents, people older,
people younger.
And I guess it was Steve Allen.
Well, before that, they had the Broadway whoop-dee-doo with Jerry Lester or
something.
Buddy Lester.
I don't know who it was.
And then it was Steve Allen, who was the first Tonight Show host.
And then it was Jack Parr.
And Steve Allen was a remarkable talent.
He was tremendous.
And Jack Parr was an incredible talent also.
But the Tonight Show didn't really become the Tonight Show until Johnny Carson
started to host it.
And he created the template for that show.
And everybody else who was doing a show, myself included,
we're all kind of secretly doing Johnny's Tonight Show.
And the reason we're all doing Johnny's Tonight Show is because you think,
well, if I do Johnny's Tonight Show, maybe I'll be a little like Johnny and
people will like me more.
But it sadly doesn't work that way.
It's just, if you're not Johnny, you're wasting your time.
I mean, really everything, the band, the chairs, the desk, the announcer,
it's all because we just want to be a little bit more like Johnny.
And I moved to Los Angeles from Indianapolis in 1975.
And the reason I moved is because of Johnny Carson, the Tonight Show.
And I'm not the only one.
I would guess that maybe three generations of comedians moved to be where
Johnny was.
Because if you thought you were funny and you wanted to find out if you could
hit Major League pitching,
you had to be on the Tonight Show.
And that's exactly what I did.
And all of my peers moved out there for the same reason.
And I was lucky enough to be on the Tonight Show in 1978.
And from that, I got a show that Paul and I used to do over at NBC.
And from that, we got this show.
And truthfully, no stretch of the imagination, I owe everything in my
professional career,
whatever success we've attained, to Johnny Carson.
Because he was nice enough to give me the opportunity and throughout my career
was always very supportive.
As a matter of fact, every one of those jokes I did a few minutes ago were
written for us over the last couple of months by Johnny Carson.
And tremendous, tremendous act of friendship.
A friend of mine who's been on the show before, and Paul knows him quite well,
his name is Tom Dreesen.
And Tom and I started out as comedians about the same time in Los Angeles.
And Tom's fond of telling a story.
And when Tom's fond of telling a story, he'll tell it a thousand times.
But he's fond of telling this story, traveling around, and people say, oh, hi,
what are you doing?
And he says, well, I'm a comedian.
And invariably, people would say to him, oh, you're a comedian.
Have you been on Johnny Carson?
And, of course, what this meant was, as far as the world is concerned,
if you had not been on Johnny Carson, you just weren't funny.
And, by God, that was the truth.
Absolutely.
And that doesn't exist anymore, either.
The first time I was on The Tonight Show as a guest was November 24, 1978.
And I was on, I don't know, a couple dozen times after that.
And of all of the appearances that I made with Johnny, there is one thing that
people today still ask me about.
And they think it was unbelievably funny, and they can't get over it.
And they always, did that actually happen, and what was the deal on that?
And the interesting thing about this, it had nothing to do with me.
It was all Johnny.
And this was at a time when we all thought we were kind of, you know, setting
new territory for comedy and being cutting edge.
And the truth of it is, Johnny was still the best and could still do it and
always did it effortlessly.
So this is something that happened to me on The Tonight Show.
And the date of this was April 18, 1986.
And this was right in the middle when we were doing the show over at NBC.
So I go out to California, and Johnny's nice enough to put me on his show, and
this is what happened.
I went by your house this morning on the way to work.
No, no.
And I want to show you, I took this picture myself.
Would you roll the tape that we made this afternoon since you have come?
This is a view of the truck.
Oh, no, no, no.
I want you to see this fine automobile close-up.
Take a look at the appointments inside the cab.
It was locked.
How did you unlock this?
Now, look at this. Look at the seat.
This is David's truck.
Yeah, yeah.
Look at this. Fine automobile.
Parked out in front of expensive homes in Malibu.
Oh, good. Good. Steal it. Sure.
Did you get some of Gaddafi's boys to go out there?
What the hell is this?
They're stealing a truck.
Oh, no.
And there you go.
David, this is your truck.
No, no, no.
Look at this.
Look at this.
Look at this.
Look at this.
Now, look at this.
Look at that.
Wait a minute.
He scratched the damn truck.
Look at this fine automobile.
This wasn't here before.
How about that for an idea?
Oh, your truck.
The thing I love about that in watching that, I'm just sitting there.
I bring nothing to the table.
It's all Johnny.
He's in complete control, and I couldn't look like a bigger boob.
And before we bring out Peter, you know, after Johnny retired, which was in 92,
he was nice
enough to appear on this program in little cameos and little skits and stuff
that we would
do from time to time.
And it was always a great kick.
And we put together a few of those moments.
Take a look.
Please say hello to Johnny Carson.
You will find out, David, after a few years, this is the only way I can talk
with anybody.
I was out to dinner last night at a restaurant.
I take this with me.
I go home after the show.
I use this in our bedroom.
I do not perform well without this desk.
You know, I noticed something right off the bat.
I think your desk is bigger than mine.
Well, another 20 years, you will have this desk.
How are things going there in California?
Pretty good.
The mudslides are putting out the fire.
Well.
Look, he's still got it.
Dave.
How you doing?
What a surprise.
Yeah.
Listen.
Very often after I finish my show, I come to my office and have a camera
standing by just
in case somebody might call.
David, I'm going to fax you this joke.
And no matter what happens back there, it left here funny.
Johnny, can I have the top ten list?
He's going to be the top ten list?
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.
He's going to be the top ten list.