Name: Dave's Big Oscar Bonanza | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-02-28T16:00:52.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's Big Oscar Bonanza | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-28. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's Big Oscar Bonanza | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-28. Transcript available.

Dave's Big Oscar Bonanza | David Letterman

Let me just say one thing, ladies and gentlemen, as you watch the Academy
Awards tonight, they're on ABC, I guess, tonight, which probably means you're
not really watching this show.
Nobody watches the Academy Awards. I mean, nobody watches this show. Everybody
watches the Academy Awards.
It's movie. And, you know, there's a good reason for it. Do you have any idea
why everybody watches the Academy Awards?
No, why?
And it's not televised just here in this country. It's around the world. It's
in other countries. It's in, like, Germany. It's in, like, Spain. And several
other countries.
Around the world. And people are transfixed, sitting there, glued to the
television sets. Do you know why that is, Paul?
No, why?
Because in Hollywood, Oscar is king.
Ah, Oscar is king.
There you go. You can have one of those.
It's like kale. I like chocolate.
Oh, man. Chris, you're from, I think you're from Wisconsin, right? Madison,
Wisconsin?
Yes, sir.
Beautiful state and a very nice city. Madison, I think, is the capital of
Wisconsin, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Madison's capital of Wisconsin.
What about your mom? You mentioned your dad. How's your mom doing?
Oh, she's great.
What kind of a life did you and your folks have when you were a kid?
Oh, Lord, Dave, I put them through hell.
I'm sorry about that.
You said Samuel Jackson last year.
I'm going nuts. I'm going nuts. I can't stop it.
Oh, Dave, I never thought it could happen.
All right. Now, what if I just start falling in love with you?
No, don't. No, we're just kidding around. It's TV, and it's, you know, it's all
for charity.
So that's the charity.
Oh, man. You know, I didn't get any sleep last night. I'm having those dreams
again.
Oh, no.
It's beginning to drive me nuts. It's less than two weeks from tonight.
I got to host the Academy Awards, and I'm having these recurring nightmares
about stuff going wrong.
It's just anxiety. That's all that is, you know, and it's the same every night.
I got my tuxedo on. I'm right there and in front of all of the people in the Shrine
Auditorium,
and there's like a podium. I got one of those Academy Awards right there, and
then everything goes haywire.
I keep having these dreams night after night after night. They're beginning to
drive me nuts.
Man, this one I had last night, whoa, God, it was so vivid. It was so real. It
was unbelievable.
There I was.
You know, ladies and gentlemen, ever since the founding of the Academy, this
statuette here has come to...
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Yeah!
Driving me nuts. I get no sleep. I'm getting no sleep.
Good to see you, Dave.
Nice to see you, and by the way, and you're probably sick and tired of hearing
this, but again, another nice job won the Academy Awards.
Thank you.
You did a great job, Dave.
Thanks.
And it's nice to see...
Had a good time.
It's good to see you back doing it, because as you remember, a few years ago, I
pretty much put him out of business.
I was out of town. I didn't see you.
I'll get you some clippings.
It was fun. We had a good time.
Any behind-the-scenes stuff that we'd like to hear about?
So is Shirley Temple.
Oh. Now, that must have been a thrill, I guess.
Very cool. Very... You know, she's lived in Los Angeles. I mean, I've been part
of Hollywood, I should say, for 70 years.
Yeah.
And she was fooling around acting like little Shirley Temple, but she's 70, I
guess.
Where's the ladies' room?
She was fooling around. It was pretty cool.
Now, did I dream this, or was she like the ambassador to The Hague at one point
in her life?
I was at the United Nations.
To the United Nations?
Hey, I object, Mr. Russia!
She was like that.
Well, we had that bear. Did you see the show?
No, I was driving home.
You know, I really felt like Ed Sullivan, you know, following this 1,800-pound
grizzly bear.
What was the bear doing there?
He was presenting.
Oh, that's the bear, the TV bear, the actor bear.
Yeah, the actor bear.
Yeah.
He was presenting, and I applaud him because I thought he was going to be
nominated for The Edge, and he wasn't, and he came, he drove himself, they had
an electric fence, 17,000 volts backstage, there was a SWAT team.
No, they didn't.
They did, they had an electric fence, 17,000 volts, SWAT team with a tranquilizer
gun.
No, they didn't.
Yes, and if he jumped the fence, they had real bullets in case he went for
Peter Fonda, who still smelled from honey from Uli's Gold.
This is true.
I'm not fooling around with you, Dave.
No, they had this bear, and they gave you.
They had the same security for Jack Nicholson, too, didn't they?
They did.
The electric fence.
There you go, boys.
There you go.
I was going to go for to keep Shelly Windus from a buffet, but I didn't because
you did that.
That's pretty good.
It happened again last night, Paul.
What?
Well, in a couple of weeks, I get to go out to Los Angeles.
They're having the Academy Awards again this year, and they were nice enough to
ask me to be involved and participate in that program.
And ever since I found out that I was going to do that, I've been having these
silly, silly dreams.
Uh-uh.
And some of them are laughable, but they're happening now with increasing
frequency, and I'm beginning to become a little concerned about them.
Yeah, I guess it's silly and nothing really to worry about, but, man, you know,
at the time, it just scared me silly.
So you had another one last night?
Yeah, gosh, I remember I was out there, I had my tuxedo on, everything.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Tom Hanks.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Hey, America, dump this.
It's scary, I can tell.
That's right.
Yeah.
Very scary stuff.
I get in my, every day I get like a four-pound pack of stuff from the Academy
Awards people, and they send you, you know, of course, I know all of the
winners.
I know all of the actors and actresses who have won.
You know all that already?
I know them all, yeah.
I know all of the films that won.
I know all of that information because it comes in the little hosting brochure
you get.
Yeah.
And so today they send me this, and I don't know if this is a real one or not,
but look at this.
This is what I always thought.
It's kind of cool.
Look, can you see that?
No.
Look at that.
Right in there.
Chocolate.
See?
Yeah, it's chocolate.
Delicious milk chocolate.
Unbelievable.
I never realized that.
I had no idea.
Yeah, that'll make the evening much more fun, don't you think?
You know, if you don't mind what we could do here tonight, because this is it.
Monday night's the big night.
Yeah.
Excuse me while I finish chewing the Oscar.
Maybe we could practice.
Do you mind, Paul?
Practice doing the Oscar?
Yeah, just giving out some awards and stuff.
Oh, sure.
All right, all right, all right.
Did you hear that?
Did you hear a woman do this?
I did, yeah.
I have a question.
I've been in show business a long time, and I wonder now, because that happens
from time
to time.
Is that the same woman that does that?
Comes to every show, yeah.
Comes to every show and does that?
That's right, yeah.
Or is it just a series of people who have adopted that?
It's the same woman.
It's the same woman?
Yeah, remember in the Lucy show, you'd hear that woman, ah, ha, ha, ha.
Now she's changed her act.
She's changed, updated her act.
Now she's this one.
Well, God bless you, ma'am.
Okay, so what we're going to do here is we can just practice giving away these
awards.
Okay.
Oh, we need a drum roll.
Anton, how about a drum roll?
There we go.
May I have the envelope, please?
Here we go.
It's real milk chocolate.
Take that up to the room with you later.
All right.
And the Academy Award for Best Cue Card Boy goes to...
Tony Mendez from The Late Show.
Oh, look at you.
You didn't really win anything.
We're just practicing.
But congratulations nonetheless.
When is it, Paul?
Have we done the Academy Awards yet?
No, it's a week from Monday.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I'm having them again every night for the last two or three months.
I have these nightmares.
I've got to host the Academy Awards.
And I wait...
Oh, yeah, that'll be great.
And it's getting to me.
It's under my skin.
It's making me a little hinky.
You know what I'm saying?
You know, hinky.
You know what I'm talking about?
A little yee-oh.
Like that.
And I keep having these dreams, recurring nightmares, if you will.
And it's always the same, but yet just different enough
to terrify the holy hell out of me.
And I had another one of those dreams last night.
Now, here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to rub my forehead, tilt my head back.
You're going to hear the music, and then you're going to see videotape of my
dream.
Jeez, I remember it as though it was just...
Oh, my God.
It was so lifelike.
And now, please welcome the host of the 67th Annual Academy Awards, Conan O'Brien.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Louise, I like that Conan O'Brien.
He's funny, ain't he?
Let's practice giving out another award, okay?
All right.
Here we go.
Anton.
Oh, did you hear that?
That woman did that again.
There she is again.
That woman did that again.
Okay.
All right.
You're making us sick, ma'am.
All right.
May I have the envelope, please?
The Academy Award for the best deli guy on 53rd Street goes to Rupert G.
Oh, my God.
It's really a pleasure.
It's really a pleasure.
Congratulations.
There you go.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
Thank you, Lord.
That's something.
In the words of one of our audience members, whoo, whoo, I'm kind of proud of
one little
thing that happened last night.
You remember Julia Roberts was on the show, I don't know, a month ago, six
weeks ago?
And she's always very nice to us when she's on the show.
And we were talking, and I predicted, well, here, we're talking about whether
or not she
would win.
And she was saying that old thing.
She said, you know, it's just a pleasure, just an honor to be nominated.
And I feel like I've won something already, and I think we should all just be
happy with
the recognition.
She couldn't have been more gracious about the nomination.
And I was, you know, hounding her, saying, no, no, no, you're going to win.
Everybody else in this list is washed up.
You're a shoe-in.
And I'm generally, you know, making a fool of myself being annoying, which is
what the
network pays me for.
And she was demuring and being very, very nice and poised about the whole thing.
But I do believe, if you watch this videotape, ladies and gentlemen, I called
it here.
Take a look right there.
This is Julia Roberts on the show, I don't know, a month ago.
A month ago, ladies and gentlemen.
If I, and I could do this, I'm not a wagering man, but if I wanted to, I'd bet
on you a big
money.
I'd put big money on you.
There you go.
You see?
You see?
I called it right there.
I predicted her victory in the Academy Awards last night, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And I would have put big money on it had I been living in Elko, Nevada.
But of course, sadly, that ain't the case.
Of course.
All right, stop it.
We're tired of seeing that guy.
I thought Steve Martin was very funny.
Did you like Steve Martin?
He sure was.
Did you like Steve Martin?
I thought he did a nice job.
And the reason I watched last night, as you know, I hosted it about six or
seven years
ago, and this is the first year that I've been allowed to even watch the
Academy Awards.
I've been on, I've been on suspension ever since.
And this is the first year, so I was really looking forward to tuning in and
seeing what
was going on.
And Bjork with the big dead bird.
Did you see the, got the big, like a giant, like a giant dead swan.
Do we have a picture?
This is Bjork last night performing with her big ass.
You see, that's actually the head of a swan.
She's got draped around her like that.
Remember when Fabio got hit in the face with a goose?
Oh, yeah.
That's what that reminded me of.
I did it.
I'm like, how?
Boy, we were just talking earlier about the Academy Awards and the Academy
Award fever
and, of course, the Oscar fever.
And I