Name: Phil Donahue Reveals His Most Annoying Guests | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-08-19T14:55:38.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Phil Donahue Reveals His Most Annoying Guests | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-08-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Phil Donahue Reveals His Most Annoying Guests | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-08-19. Transcript available.

Let me, I forgot something. Drop the calendar down, if you will.
Yes, sir. We're not kidding around anymore. That was neat, wasn't it?
Wasn't it? I like that.
Remember in the beach party movies when something like that would happen, they'd
say, wasn't that? Nah.
Okay.
I wonder if they'd be this way at nine in the morning.
Sure they would. You are beloved. People love you.
They love you and they respect you and you've changed the face of daytime
television. Don't you think so?
Well, I thank you for the nice words. I'll show you some mail, which may disprove
the nice welcome you've offered me.
Incidentally, the calendars that are coming out under my corporate name...
...beginning for next year. We'd be happy to give you a score at half price.
Oh, that's good. I'd be interested in that.
Let me, you mentioned your, 1967, the show went on the air.
November, yes.
Are we, so we're breathing down here 20 years?
Well, actually, we're in our 18th year now and we've got a couple more to, we'll
celebrate 20th here, good Lord and NBC willing.
We're looking forward to that.
That's, that's an amazing statistic. Now, let me ask you about the calendar.
I couldn't get off airplanes. I couldn't get on airplanes.
I couldn't go, uh, shopping. Every time I turned a corner, uh, when are you
going to New York? Uh, how long's the calendar, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, but I, and
I was very pleased to see that, uh, you were able to get, uh, you were able to
say something in your time slot, or you weren't able to say it.
Dr. Westheimer had to. Now, this is very interesting. A couple of days ago,
Phil did a show. I came back from running, it was 9:03 in the morning. And Phil
said, I think, the most provocative words I've ever heard on American
television. Now, I can't say it here at 12:30 at night. You said it at 9:30,
nine, not even 9:30, nine in the morning.
Dr. Westheimer: Uh, it had to do with urology, I think. It was urology. It was,
it was a breakthrough in surgery that required no incisions or no cutting and,
you know.
Dr. Westheimer: Right. Uh, well, I'm not going to repeat it if, uh, I work here
now, too. Yeah. So, uh.
Dr. Westheimer: But now, let me ask you about that. You're sitting there with a
room full of how many women?
Dr. Westheimer: About 250. Dr. Westheimer: 250, nicely dressed, well-educated,
intelligent Midwestern women. And you're talking about, not only, not only did
you have film.
Dr. Westheimer: Yeah.
Dr. Westheimer: You had a device.
Dr. Westheimer: Yeah.
Dr. Westheimer: Well, this was equal time. You know, we've spent so much time
talking about, uh, women and anatomy. And I don't think there's any place we
haven't, uh, we've had physicians from every area of the body on our program.
Dr. Westheimer: We have taped, we once taped the birth of a baby at home. And
as you know, there are a number of women who are rebelling against what they
perceive to be gynecology's treatment of pregnancy as a disease. So, as you
know,
Dr. Westheimer: fathers are now accompanying mothers into the delivery room.
And all this is, I think, everybody's applauding that. Some have taken this to
the extreme of saying, no more hospital for me, I'm having the baby at home.
Dr. Westheimer: Sure.
Dr. Westheimer: Much the concern of some doctors. One of whom gave me a bumper
sticker last week that said, "Home deliveries are for pizzas."
Dr. Westheimer: They're not crazy at all about this idea. But we were, we were
in the apartment with one camera and the husband was holding the woman by the,
in the obstetric position, helping her breathe and count.
Dr. Westheimer: Yeah.
Dr. Westheimer: And their son, Ben, about four years old, was wandering around,
climbing up on the bed, off the bed, eating candy bars.
Dr. Westheimer: And the, and the water broke and the contractions came more
frequently. And of course, we had only one camera and the doctor was waiting
there with his gloves, rubber gloves, no intervention, no episiotomy, just let
God and nature take, take its course. And as, as the, as the dilation began,
the camera panned down and the woman was breathing very, very, very heavily. As
you saw the dilation and the baby begin to present, Ben, the kid, leaned into
the shot and said, "Man."
began the camera panned down and the woman was breathing very very very heavily
as you saw the
dilation and the baby begin to present Ben the kid leaned into the shot and
said mommy it's a puppy
so after so many of these this is that actually happened after so many of these
shows we figured
it was time we've seen aunt Harriet more than she ever wanted us to so we
decided to bring an uncle
Harry and that's what we did with you sure did we got to see uncle Harry and
inside and out by the
way it was fiber optics we're showing us what would look like just a drive
through the Lincoln Tunnel
for those who for those who didn't see the show it was amazing by the way it's
called a trans urethral
resection t-u-r for short and most men have to get it sooner or later it's
about the prostate and it
actually is surgery which in which the entry is is come on Phil well it hurts
me just to even discuss
it but apparently all of us sooner or later all of us male sooner or later are
candidates for the
surgery and this is what we're sure but you know i was i was truly amazed that
you and of course you've been at it a long time but you were able to do this
and pull it off uh not only were you on television doing it but in front of a
room full of women you don't know but and you did it without making jokes or snickering
or you know none of that or uh do you ever feel that just a twinge of oh i wish
i was at home reading or something oh yeah
uh there's always the shows where i just walk around and hold the mic up let
the audience ask
the question sure i get somewhat lots of times i'm glad when the show is over i
don't know if you've ever had that feeling yourself
but and you did it without making jokes or snickering or you know none of that
or uh do you ever feel that just a twinge of oh i wish i was at home reading or
something oh yeah
uh those are the shows where i just walk around and hold the mic up and let let
the audience ask the question sure i get somewhat there are lots of times i'm
glad when the show is over i don't know if you've ever had that feeling
yourself
oh no oh no that doesn't happen here um welcome back to the program folks phil
donahue is of course with us tonight thank you in the uh in the middle of uh
when we first started the countdown calendar when we heard you were coming we
started we had facts about you and your show to go along with it as we'd pull
off the day we'd have a fact and we came across one uh while you were in
college you played uh biff in death of a salesman
this is at notre dame now did you in those days entertain notions of uh a more
theatrical career
i don't think so i never thought of myself as all the other that uh uh talented
as a performer and also i i felt
that it would be more responsible for me to take advantage of this education
that my parents paid for in my
uh in getting into a line of work that'd be a little more reliable yeah what
was your first job out of college
uh actually as a summer replacement announcer at a television station in cleveland
it was kyw which is
now in philadelphia was used to be in cleveland and at that time i went and
held my ear for the whole
summer and said kyw tv cleveland yeah that's that's invigorating work isn't it
you you sit there in a
booth for 59 minutes yeah and uh you had seven seconds uh it's eight o'clock
bull of a watch time b-u-l-o-b-a
and uh i can remember uh you know and if you blew it there you know it was
awful because there's no way
to recover you only had it's eight o'clock b-l-o-b-b it's eight o'clock and you're
off and there's egg all
over your face in uh in just seven seconds did you ever have the problem where
uh i this is how i started by
the way the same job uh and and i had trouble staying in the booth and so i'd
wander away and
would be talking with the engineers or somebody and i'd miss it and and of
course they uh they were
very subtle about letting management know that the announcer had wandered off
and could not be found
they had a pa system and they just said booth announcer please report to the
booth please report
to the booth well there you go right away he won't be here too long uh it's
nasty i don't think that much
of that is done too much anymore i know here in new york they have it but other
places it's sort of
uh you mean we have to wait for the whole hour i'm not sure i'm just grateful
that i uh i learned a
lot though i actually grew up with the today show as the as the fellow in a
booth in south bend indiana
waiting to give the break uh after j fred mugs and all of the stars of the
today show now phil the show
started as i recall in dayton that's right uh which is an amazing feat to think
that you can you can do a show
out of dayton and and gain national success i mean not not a lot of shows start
in dayton do they well
we had awful time really we people say yeah the soapbox derby in which you know
that's akron now don't
go to akron we had to beg people to do the show a lot of people do our show in
the early days just to
get rid of us uh because we really would pester uh and we also discovered that
uh because stars were
not on call for us we had to improvise and feature shows that uh that spoke to
issues about which the
audience cared and that actually served us very well it's what's really been
the backbone of our show
so then you moved to chicago now why are you coming to new york well i've for
several reasons one uh
it gets us off the airplane marlo and i have a commuter marriage which is not
to be recommended to
anyone we've both seen laguardia and o'hare enough for several lifetimes now
this means that uh
you maintain a residence in chicago she maintains a residence right yeah and i
get to now actually
leave work and uh go home just like a regular person and live here every week
uh all week without
getting on an airplane that's a big big change in my life beyond that uh there's
a certain amount of
creative uh energy that's you know it's like when you start your show there's
you're a little scared
and nervous and everybody works harder uh we found that when we moved to chicago
10 years ago we got scared
what if they don't like us and i think uh as hard as you try and we have we're
very proud of the fact
that we think we've stayed on top of it and stayed hungry uh this new move for
everybody in the office
renews the creative juices and i think that the show will reflect it and uh we
also get to deliver the
show sooner in other words we will use satellites here so that we don't have
right now we have some
markets uh that are five weeks late and you know it's hard to do topical we
have linberg landing in
one of us do you know what studio you're gonna be in here we're in uh i think 8g
yeah you're on the
sixth floor we're on the sixth floor now can we come up and bother you from
time to time by all
means i hope you do i'm just looking here and see i think your studio is bigger
than ours now wait a
minute here uh now i know paul wanted to know are you gonna have a band with
the show here uh
not unless uh we have a ratings problem and uh as you know uh there's a lot of
uh pressure on you
when well you wouldn't know you've never had a you've never been in a situation
where everybody
starts to produce your show when the ratings get soft and that certainly has
happened to us on more
than one occasion throughout the 17-year history of our show and one of the
first recommendations
they make is a band so if anything i assume everything's okay with you and david
oh yeah we're
fine but i was thinking we could just stay up right through the night and then
come in hit your show
that's good that's good morning and then go to sleep after that now you get uh
uh you'll find of
course here we get terrific audiences and you get great audiences in chicago
but you put your audiences
to work don't you well that's right there is no donahue show without the studio
audience uh that's
probably one of the biggest reasons why we get away without having a band uh
when the woman really when
the woman in the fifth row stands up and says how she feels that's our show and
we feel the best shows
are the ones in which a community develops between the guests your audience and
myself but do they do
homework do they know the issue before they come in no no we try to no you get
a ticket with a date
stamped on it and so we don't allow a guest to uh uh an audience member to
choose a guest or a show
otherwise you know you'd have them down the around the block for the big stars
and then you wouldn't have
anybody to work with for the issues which is really what makes us go who who
really has annoyed you
in the past 18 years i mean guests on the show me uh oh i you know i hate to
name names because it
might have been my fault well uh i'll tell you a guest you've had a guest who
says first of all you
ask a six-minute question and the guest says uh-huh yeah yeah that's sweaty i
mean but we need names here
now uh what about uh i remember phil a long time ago abby hoffman a long time
ago yes i think this
was still in dayton uh it was possible are you gonna say he called he called me
merv for the whole show
yeah that's right that's right uh you know i i really uh for a week i was
depressed and uh
he uh he he's to this day apologized in fact he was on the show just a couple
weeks ago and said
you know i'm really sorry is that right yeah well he wasn't he wasn't being
nasty just you know here's
a guy who wasn't sure who he was for a long time uh no you got this you got the
sense that he was
goofing but doing it with um maybe just a little less a little mean spiritedness
but yeah um i don't
know it's possible i i don't think so abby and uh well i'll tell you who uh jerry
rubin is one is a
show that we drag out uh you know johnny has the axe handle with uh with ed ames
and that's my show he
just tore me up this was 1970 you know that's who i was thinking it was jerry
rubin he said that you
were outside selling drugs to the kids he said that and uh you know here i am
in dayton ohio uh where we
we were getting lots of angry mail because we had madeline murray o'hare and
other unpopular people
on the program people thought the world was going to hell and we were leading
it there and here comes
jerry rubin with the tie-dye t-shirt and and i'm saying uh uh you say ah a lot
do you have an anal
problem you know that was you know and we were only two or three minutes into
that this was a live
television program i'll never forget now we were talking about you this
afternoon and it came up that
for i believe it was your 15th anniversary on the air and i hope this doesn't
embarrass you you took your entire
staff to paris well we went to france we did 10 days in france we had
i took the kids to blimpies last year
uh well we never thought we'd make it to 15 years really uh as you mentioned uh
dayton ohio was not the
hotbed of television programming at the time and and also we did break a lot of
rules we had no desk no
couch and and uh we were making people angry we were the sponsors were canceling
and we really didn't we
we weren't sure at all what kind of future we had so when we made it to 15 and
the show has done well
and uh a couple of bucks for the company store why i said let's you know do you
love me let's go
and uh forgive me for all the insecurities over the years and we did have a
wonderful time we had balloon
rides we were we did a barge uh for three days we did chateau for three days
and stayed at the creon
and paris for three days good heavens now when we say the staff what are we
talking about you and a secretary
uh it was a little larger than that of course uh everybody brought spouses and
our friends
um and it there were 47 people on the trip this is a very impressive thing yeah
we had two buses
and uh of course i was a nervous wreck i just you know like father time walking
around
looking at the weather and wondering if everything yeah i was uh sure the
pressure is on you boy it's
your part well after yeah for all this right fooling around i thought uh this
better be good and
it was it was everybody had a good time that's terrific it's a very classy
thing to do and it's
a very classy show boy you showed me plenty last week with that that deal with
that guy
um all right mr donahue and all of your staff coming yeah actually we uh we
have about two-thirds
of uh are coming one-third uh for family and other reasons uh this is uh as you
know moving to new
york i assume you've probably by now found a place to live i got a car we rent
we keep on the streets
uh all right december 3rd i guess you'll be in the building and the new shows
will start
show will be jan 7 yes uh but we do get here in december and uh we're all
excited about the skating
rink and rockefeller plaza christmas we're very fortunate well we're very
excited about the prospect
of having uh such terrific neighbors in the building and listen i'm not kidding
you uh this has been a
people don't believe me when i say i had nothing to do with this has been a
publicist dream i cannot tell
you how what a to plug into your audience if we don't make it here kid it ain't
gonna be your fault i thank you
very very much for what you're doing well you're doing us a favor thank you
very much we have the ride back

Phil Donahue Reveals His Most Annoying Guests | David Letterman

Let me, I forgot something. Drop the calendar down, if you will.
Yes, sir. We're not kidding around anymore. That was neat, wasn't it?
Wasn't it? I like that.
Remember in the beach party movies when something like that would happen, they'd
say, wasn't that? Nah.
Okay.
I wonder if they'd be this way at nine in the morning.
Sure they would. You are beloved. People love you.
They love you and they respect you and you've changed the face of daytime
television. Don't you think so?
Well, I thank you for the nice words. I'll show you some mail, which may disprove
the nice welcome you've offered me.
Incidentally, the calendars that are coming out under my corporate name...
...beginning for next year. We'd be happy to give you a score at half price.
Oh, that's good. I'd be interested in that.
Let me, you mentioned your, 1967, the show went on the air.
November, yes.
Are we, so we're breathing down here 20 years?
Well, actually, we're in our 18th year now and we've got a couple more to, we'll
celebrate 20th here, good Lord and NBC willing.
We're looking forward to that.
That's, that's an amazing statistic. Now, let me ask you about the calendar.
I couldn't get off airplanes. I couldn't get on airplanes.
I couldn't go, uh, shopping. Every time I turned a corner, uh, when are you
going to New York? Uh, how long's the calendar, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, but I, and
I was very pleased to see that, uh, you were able to get, uh, you were able to
say something in your time slot, or you weren't able to say it.
Dr. Westheimer had to. Now, this is very interesting. A couple of days ago,
Phil did a show. I came back from running, it was 9:03 in the morning. And Phil
said, I think, the most provocative words I've ever heard on American
television. Now, I can't say it here at 12:30 at night. You said it at 9:30,
nine, not even 9:30, nine in the morning.
Dr. Westheimer: Uh, it had to do with urology, I think. It was urology. It was,
it was a breakthrough in surgery that required no incisions or no cutting and,
you know.
Dr. Westheimer: Right. Uh, well, I'm not going to repeat it if, uh, I work here
now, too. Yeah. So, uh.
Dr. Westheimer: But now, let me ask you about that. You're sitting there with a
room full of how many women?
Dr. Westheimer: About 250. Dr. Westheimer: 250, nicely dressed, well-educated,
intelligent Midwestern women. And you're talking about, not only, not only did
you have film.
Dr. Westheimer: Yeah.
Dr. Westheimer: You had a device.
Dr. Westheimer: Yeah.
Dr. Westheimer: Well, this was equal time. You know, we've spent so much time
talking about, uh, women and anatomy. And I don't think there's any place we
haven't, uh, we've had physicians from every area of the body on our program.
Dr. Westheimer: We have taped, we once taped the birth of a baby at home. And
as you know, there are a number of women who are rebelling against what they
perceive to be gynecology's treatment of pregnancy as a disease. So, as you
know,
Dr. Westheimer: fathers are now accompanying mothers into the delivery room.
And all this is, I think, everybody's applauding that. Some have taken this to
the extreme of saying, no more hospital for me, I'm having the baby at home.
Dr. Westheimer: Sure.
Dr. Westheimer: Much the concern of some doctors. One of whom gave me a bumper
sticker last week that said, "Home deliveries are for pizzas."
Dr. Westheimer: They're not crazy at all about this idea. But we were, we were
in the apartment with one camera and the husband was holding the woman by the,
in the obstetric position, helping her breathe and count.
Dr. Westheimer: Yeah.
Dr. Westheimer: And their son, Ben, about four years old, was wandering around,
climbing up on the bed, off the bed, eating candy bars.
Dr. Westheimer: And the, and the water broke and the contractions came more
frequently. And of course, we had only one camera and the doctor was waiting
there with his gloves, rubber gloves, no intervention, no episiotomy, just let
God and nature take, take its course. And as, as the, as the dilation began,
the camera panned down and the woman was breathing very, very, very heavily. As
you saw the dilation and the baby begin to present, Ben, the kid, leaned into
the shot and said, "Man."
began the camera panned down and the woman was breathing very very very heavily
as you saw the
dilation and the baby begin to present Ben the kid leaned into the shot and
said mommy it's a puppy
so after so many of these this is that actually happened after so many of these
shows we figured
it was time we've seen aunt Harriet more than she ever wanted us to so we
decided to bring an uncle
Harry and that's what we did with you sure did we got to see uncle Harry and
inside and out by the
way it was fiber optics we're showing us what would look like just a drive
through the Lincoln Tunnel
for those who for those who didn't see the show it was amazing by the way it's
called a trans urethral
resection t-u-r for short and most men have to get it sooner or later it's
about the prostate and it
actually is surgery which in which the entry is is come on Phil well it hurts
me just to even discuss
it but apparently all of us sooner or later all of us male sooner or later are
candidates for the
surgery and this is what we're sure but you know i was i was truly amazed that
you and of course you've been at it a long time but you were able to do this
and pull it off uh not only were you on television doing it but in front of a
room full of women you don't know but and you did it without making jokes or snickering
or you know none of that or uh do you ever feel that just a twinge of oh i wish
i was at home reading or something oh yeah
uh there's always the shows where i just walk around and hold the mic up let
the audience ask
the question sure i get somewhat lots of times i'm glad when the show is over i
don't know if you've ever had that feeling yourself
but and you did it without making jokes or snickering or you know none of that
or uh do you ever feel that just a twinge of oh i wish i was at home reading or
something oh yeah
uh those are the shows where i just walk around and hold the mic up and let let
the audience ask the question sure i get somewhat there are lots of times i'm
glad when the show is over i don't know if you've ever had that feeling
yourself
oh no oh no that doesn't happen here um welcome back to the program folks phil
donahue is of course with us tonight thank you in the uh in the middle of uh
when we first started the countdown calendar when we heard you were coming we
started we had facts about you and your show to go along with it as we'd pull
off the day we'd have a fact and we came across one uh while you were in
college you played uh biff in death of a salesman
this is at notre dame now did you in those days entertain notions of uh a more
theatrical career
i don't think so i never thought of myself as all the other that uh uh talented
as a performer and also i i felt
that it would be more responsible for me to take advantage of this education
that my parents paid for in my
uh in getting into a line of work that'd be a little more reliable yeah what
was your first job out of college
uh actually as a summer replacement announcer at a television station in cleveland
it was kyw which is
now in philadelphia was used to be in cleveland and at that time i went and
held my ear for the whole
summer and said kyw tv cleveland yeah that's that's invigorating work isn't it
you you sit there in a
booth for 59 minutes yeah and uh you had seven seconds uh it's eight o'clock
bull of a watch time b-u-l-o-b-a
and uh i can remember uh you know and if you blew it there you know it was
awful because there's no way
to recover you only had it's eight o'clock b-l-o-b-b it's eight o'clock and you're
off and there's egg all
over your face in uh in just seven seconds did you ever have the problem where
uh i this is how i started by
the way the same job uh and and i had trouble staying in the booth and so i'd
wander away and
would be talking with the engineers or somebody and i'd miss it and and of
course they uh they were
very subtle about letting management know that the announcer had wandered off
and could not be found
they had a pa system and they just said booth announcer please report to the
booth please report
to the booth well there you go right away he won't be here too long uh it's
nasty i don't think that much
of that is done too much anymore i know here in new york they have it but other
places it's sort of
uh you mean we have to wait for the whole hour i'm not sure i'm just grateful
that i uh i learned a
lot though i actually grew up with the today show as the as the fellow in a
booth in south bend indiana
waiting to give the break uh after j fred mugs and all of the stars of the
today show now phil the show
started as i recall in dayton that's right uh which is an amazing feat to think
that you can you can do a show
out of dayton and and gain national success i mean not not a lot of shows start
in dayton do they well
we had awful time really we people say yeah the soapbox derby in which you know
that's akron now don't
go to akron we had to beg people to do the show a lot of people do our show in
the early days just to
get rid of us uh because we really would pester uh and we also discovered that
uh because stars were
not on call for us we had to improvise and feature shows that uh that spoke to
issues about which the
audience cared and that actually served us very well it's what's really been
the backbone of our show
so then you moved to chicago now why are you coming to new york well i've for
several reasons one uh
it gets us off the airplane marlo and i have a commuter marriage which is not
to be recommended to
anyone we've both seen laguardia and o'hare enough for several lifetimes now
this means that uh
you maintain a residence in chicago she maintains a residence right yeah and i
get to now actually
leave work and uh go home just like a regular person and live here every week
uh all week without
getting on an airplane that's a big big change in my life beyond that uh there's
a certain amount of
creative uh energy that's you know it's like when you start your show there's
you're a little scared
and nervous and everybody works harder uh we found that when we moved to chicago
10 years ago we got scared
what if they don't like us and i think uh as hard as you try and we have we're
very proud of the fact
that we think we've stayed on top of it and stayed hungry uh this new move for
everybody in the office
renews the creative juices and i think that the show will reflect it and uh we
also get to deliver the
show sooner in other words we will use satellites here so that we don't have
right now we have some
markets uh that are five weeks late and you know it's hard to do topical we
have linberg landing in
one of us do you know what studio you're gonna be in here we're in uh i think 8g
yeah you're on the
sixth floor we're on the sixth floor now can we come up and bother you from
time to time by all
means i hope you do i'm just looking here and see i think your studio is bigger
than ours now wait a
minute here uh now i know paul wanted to know are you gonna have a band with
the show here uh
not unless uh we have a ratings problem and uh as you know uh there's a lot of
uh pressure on you
when well you wouldn't know you've never had a you've never been in a situation
where everybody
starts to produce your show when the ratings get soft and that certainly has
happened to us on more
than one occasion throughout the 17-year history of our show and one of the
first recommendations
they make is a band so if anything i assume everything's okay with you and david
oh yeah we're
fine but i was thinking we could just stay up right through the night and then
come in hit your show
that's good that's good morning and then go to sleep after that now you get uh
uh you'll find of
course here we get terrific audiences and you get great audiences in chicag