Name: Fan Request: The Juggling Comedian | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-05-24T15:00:53.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: The Juggling Comedian | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: The Juggling Comedian | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-24. Transcript available.

My next guest is an actor, a comedian, a magician, a juggler, and he also rides
to work with Clive Barnes.
He is a very talented human being. He'll be appearing through Sunday night at
Caroline's here in New York City.
Please welcome Michael Davis.
This is a...
Oh, property? Well, you know, I didn't notice that.
That's right. Property of Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.
Yes.
Because I have a degree from this institution.
I know that.
I was performing there.
For Homecoming?
For Homecoming?
Yeah.
It's a gig that you did a few years before I did it.
It's a beautiful auditorium, isn't it?
Yes.
As a matter of fact, the guy who manages the auditorium remembered you and told
me that when you came there to perform, he wrote your first joke for you.
Yeah, he gave me a line as I was going on stage. I can't remember it exactly,
but it was something about...
The line he told me was,
It's not often, Dave, when a student can come back and earn his entire tuition
in one night.
Yeah, that's right.
It was pretty well received, as a matter of fact.
Speaking of gigs, is it true now you're going to be appearing at the White
House?
This will be twice for you, isn't it?
This, I performed at Ford's Theater.
For the...
Command performance.
That's right.
But this is actually the White House now, huh?
This will be a party, I believe in the banquet hall or something of the actual
White House.
Yeah.
I think I'm going from a comedy club called Yuck Yucks, then straight to the
White House and then back to a college in Poughkeepsie, I think is my schedule.
I've been running around a lot.
As a matter of fact, I was late for the show here and I kind of skinned my
elbow when I was running into the building because I tripped over a well-known
theater critic who was passed out in the gutter.
I don't know if the audience at home is going to understand that when the show
goes on tonight.
No, no, I think everything will be intact.
So they tell me.
Now, when you perform at the White House, have they said, now, Michael, don't
do this, you can do this, don't do that, be careful with knives, be careful
with this.
No juggling of nuclear weapons and limited nuclear weapons.
No multiple heads and...
But seriously, do they give you guidelines about, please don't make jokes about...
Well, the last time I performed for the president, they were very nice.
They let me juggle my razor-sharp implements and I was literally just a few
feet away from the president.
I read about that.
Yeah.
Security agents all over the place.
But they let me go ahead and do it.
I was amazed.
I thought, here's the most powerful person in the world and if I miss...
Whenever I see you perform, you strike me as a person who really has ice water
in your veins.
Doing that in front of the First Family, does that alter your inner mechanism
at all?
Sure, it's got it, Dave.
Yeah, it would me, boy.
It got me very, very jazzed.
I was excited about it.
But that was the last thing I was excited about and that was a year ago.
Now, when you work in a club, you do a full show, do you get tired of juggling?
What do you mean when I do?
I do, and I'm performing this week at a club called Carolinas in New York City.
And I do an hour of stuff.
And a lot of it's juggling.
I've become what you call a generic celebrity.
People don't remember my name, per se, as Michael Davis.
They remember me as the juggler.
The juggler.
And, you know, I have a problem with name recognition.
I went to my agent and I said, we should do something about this.
He said, who are you?
Now, I'm going to prevail upon you one more time on the show to do some juggling.
Well, that's, I would love to.
Would you want to do this?
We've got a pause here, Michael.
Why don't you, you want to go ahead and set up?
And then when we come back after this commercial, Michael Davis will be juggling
for us.
Welcome back.
Michael Davis is here and you're going to juggle.
Now, this is unusual.
This is a, I've not seen this before.
No, this is an innovation that I came up with because I had a lot of different
juggling tricks
and I couldn't decide which one to do.
This is our wheel of tricks, Dave.
Somehow, I feel like I'm doing your show because I thought that this was a way
of picking out a trick
and that way, whatever trick that comes up on the wheel, that's the trick that
we'll do.
We have all the tricks over here.
Some are better tricks than others.
All right.
So this is your initiative to spin and get a nice trick.
Spinning the wheel of tricks.
Get ready.
I wish for your favorite trick.
Here we go.
Okay.
The wheel of tricks is still turning.
There we go.
All right.
What do we get?
Oh.
Free spin on the old wheel of tricks.
That's the easy one for me, Dave.
Okay.
Well, there.
Ah.
You won.
Oh, wait, Dave.
Wait.
No.
I don't know.
We seem to have a poltergeist or something that wants to.
Razor sharp implements.
This is not.
No, this has not been rigged in any way.
You really could have gotten anything at all.
You could have gotten ask again later.
Foot over the leg.
This is one of the simpler tricks that you could have gotten.
That you might have won.
We'll show you what you might have won if you'd landed on this.
Okay.
In fact, this is a trick that you...
So what you're saying, Michael, this wheel is just another cheap prop.
No.
It has not been rigged in any way.
All right.
But we'll get back to that.
Okay.
This is something that you can do along with me if you want.
This is called the foot over the leg trick.
Foot over the leg trick.
It's one of the simpler tricks in show business.
All right.
You grab your foot like this.
It's simple.
Grab my foot and your foot.
It's called the foot over the leg.
Uh-huh.
So in other words, you jump, take the foot over the leg, and land on the foot.
No.
No, you don't do that.
It's one of the...
I think anybody in show business should be able to do this trick.
But maybe...
Jeez, I...
You know, I didn't wear my foot over the leg jacket.
As you know, you'd be a fool to attempt it without the special jacket.
And it helps to have certain other things on at the same time.
All right.
What else do we have here?
What did we land on?
What was it for?
Razor-sharp implements.
Okay.
Razor-sharp implements.
All right.
If you'd like, you can go for something else.
Razor-sharp implements.
It's amazing if it works would be nice.
The rope trick.
Well, the rope trick is a simple trick.
This is another one that you might try.
This is the rope.
Yeah.
And the object is to throw a knot.
Whoop.
I'll try it one more time.
All right.
The wind.
Just throw a loop right in there.
Let me try that.
It's not a trick that you see often on television because it's not very
impressive.
Anything I should keep in mind with this?
It's a little flick of the wrist.
And if at first you don't succeed, try again.
And then just give up because there's no sense making a fool out of yourself.
Do it one more time.
Let me see that one more time.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Oh, yeah.
I see what you're doing.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay, now.
You almost had it.
Now we're going to go to the trick that you actually selected.
This is the razor sharp implements.
All right.
Razor sharp implements.
This is the first razor sharp implement.
A razor sharp knife.
I'm going to be juggling that with an axe.
Oh, excuse me.
I have to get the phone.
And a knife.
Three razor sharp implements.
The important thing in this trick is, of course, to concentrate on each.
And every object.
Before we go any further, a quick dramatic effect.
With the razor sharp.
Make sure that doesn't fly off again.
I hate that.
And now what I'd like to do is to kick the axe up in the air.
Throw the cleaver.
Throw the knife.
Run like hell.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Unbelievable.
Stopping is a problem, Dave.
Yeah.
If you wouldn't mind just grabbing one of these for me.
Now we'll stop.
This is the triple spin ending.
Thanks, Michael.
Very nice.
Good luck at the White House.
We'll be right back, folks.
Thank you.