Name: Dabney Coleman Enjoys Playing An Egotistical Chauvinist | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-05-17T21:07:51.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dabney Coleman Enjoys Playing An Egotistical Chauvinist | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-17. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dabney Coleman Enjoys Playing An Egotistical Chauvinist | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-17. Transcript available.

My next guest has been in such motion pictures as 9 to 5 on Golden Pond, Tootsie,
and is featured in the new film War Games.
He is also starring in a brand new NBC series entitled Buffalo Bill, which debuts
on this network tomorrow evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back to this program, Mr. Dabney Coleman.
Hi Dabney, how are you?
Good, nice to see you.
That's a great looking suit, by the way.
Thank you.
Very nice.
Wardrobe, yeah.
It just occurred to me as I introduced you, I don't know anybody else named Dabney.
I don't either.
Yeah.
Is that a, you're from Texas, right?
Yes.
Is there a story behind the name?
It's unusual.
It's an old friend of mine up there.
Hi.
Yeah, it's an unusual, it's a Virginia name, basically.
Everybody I know that has the name or have heard of it is a wasp.
But it's English derivation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's unusual.
Yeah.
By the way, how do you feel about your show tomorrow?
I've seen one of them and it looked pretty funny.
Looks like a real nice piece of work.
Buffalo Bill?
Yeah, yeah.
Is that tomorrow?
I believe it's tomorrow.
That's what they're telling me tomorrow.
At 9.30?
This I couldn't swear to.
I think it is, yeah.
I feel, I feel, I feel good about it.
Yeah?
Yeah, we shot 13 shows and they let us do it our way, which is a little bit
different.
And we got six insane people that wrote the show.
Now, not really insane, but...
Close.
Oh, close.
Meryl Marko is one of them.
Yes.
Probably the closest.
Now, you mentioned her because she at one time was the head writer on this
program.
On this show?
On this program, yeah.
Well, then you know her probably.
I do know her and that was the one I saw.
Do you get along with her at all?
We get along fine.
Yeah?
We get along.
Good, that's good.
It's fine.
Let's move on, Daphne.
Chauvinistic, egotistical, ambitious.
These are words always used to describe your characters in TV shows and movies.
Why is that, do you suppose?
I happen to be chauvinistic, egotistical, and no, I don't know why.
I've been doing, you know, a few of those since Mary Hartman.
I've been doing a couple that are not quite like that.
War Games, which is coming out Friday, is not of that nature.
Golden Pond was not.
But I think the one is the biggest and probably the things I'm most known for.
I've been of that character.
Is it fun to be that kind of guy?
I think so, don't you?
Well, I enjoy your work, but you make it seem so effortless.
And then the next logical question would be, aren't you really a little like
that fellow?
No.
No.
Okay.
No.
Now, all right.
Now, tell me about the guy you play in Buffalo Bill.
Well, he's like that.
He's a little like that.
Yeah.
And they told me you weren't going to say that.
Say what?
They told me you were going to tell me what I was playing on that show.
Oh, that I was going to tell you?
Yes.
Did I do something?
I thought we covered it.
Didn't we cover that?
Isn't that established that that's what I'll be doing tomorrow night?
Yeah.
At any rate.
Oh, did I screw it up?
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry.
What the hell did I do wrong?
I thought it was going so nicely, and then I...
Same old deal.
I screwed it up, huh?
I remember the two minutes spot I had last time I was on your show.
No, you had...
Something like this.
No, you had...
You had plenty of time last time.
It's your turn, I think.
Oh, it's your turn.
All right.
Now, we're going to take a look at some film from your new show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Are you doing it?
From the movie or from the...
Well, this is from Buffalo Bill, the TV show.
That's the show, right?
Yeah.
You want to tell folks what it is?
I don't know what the clip is.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Do you?
No.
Let's see, and then I'll tell you what it was about.
All right.
Let's just take a look at it.
This is from Buffalo Bill, which begins tomorrow night right here on NBC with
Mr. Dabney Coleman.
Yeah, yeah.
Joe, what the hell is going on here?
Who is that woman?
She's making me look like a jerk.
Oh, it'll go better once you start eating the spaghetti.
Joe, Joe, Joe, I'm serious.
I'm dying up there.
It looks okay from where I'm sitting.
Oh, sure.
From where you're sitting up behind the scenes, your career is not on the line
up there.
Look, it's an hour show.
They don't all win Emmys, and their career is not on the line.
Honey, honey, honey, honey, trust me.
My fans will not stand for this.
It's boring.
Now, look.
Next segment, you come in, you talk about the book.
Then you go back in the kitchen, you yank the spaghetti off the stove, you dump
in the sauce,
you ladle it out for the audience, yum, yum, yum, fade to black, audience goes
home, and
tomorrow's another day.
Now, what's the problem?
The problem is I'm very disappointed in you.
I expected a lot more support from my director.
Excuse me.
30 seconds, Mr. Biddinger.
Better hightail it back to the booth, Miss White.
Yeah.
Joe, Joe, I'm not wearing a stupid hat.
I'm okay, but your hair is smished.
Joe, Joe, I won't forget this.
I mean that.
Get Mr. Biddinger stubble.
Get out of the way, man.
Hey, hey, man, now, now, don't you be pushing me.
Come on, I don't need any more makeup.
The man told me to be covering your beard.
The man be wrong.
Then jump on the man, Jim.
Don't be jumping on me.
Yeah, go, go, go, go, go.
Ain't my idea to powder your face.
I know.
How would you like it if somebody told you to touch me up and I started smacking
you right?
Damn straight, you wouldn't like it.
Bill, in five, four, three, two.
Looks good.
Now, it comes back to me.
The one in the white hat was me.
That was you.
Yeah.
Now, you obviously play a talk show host.
A talk show host.
And this situation was one in which something that I'm sure never happens to
you.
I had a boring guest.
Kind of just laid there.
Yeah.
Like a dog.
Uh-huh.
You know what I mean?
Uh, I've...
Where are my Texas friends?
Is this character based on any one talk show host that you know of?
Or, uh...
Yes, it is.
Yeah.
And, uh, and who would that be?
Well, that's our only problem.
We're afraid too many people might discover who that is.
I see.
But, uh, no, it actually isn't.
It's an amalgamation of people that, uh, actually aren't talk show hosts at all.
Uh, football coach, a baseball announcer, and a communist friend of mine.
I don't know, David.
It's tough to answer those questions, you know.
Now, I guess I've been doing this, I guess, so long that now I can't, uh,
discern where I get things from.
It just always comes out great.
Now, uh, when you go around, uh, promoting various things, emotion pictures and
so forth,
you do a lot of these shows, local talk shows as well as ones like this, don't
you?
This is the most local show I've done so far.
Uh, now wait a minute, that sounds a little like an insult, doesn't it, America?
Um, but, uh, you enjoy talk shows, don't you?
Is it just something to watch?
Well, I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I enjoy most of them.
Yeah.
Okay.
Uh, do you want to talk for a second about War Games?
Sure.
All right.
It's coming out Friday.
It's about, um, it's about a kid who inadvertently almost starts World War III.
And it's a very dramatic, uh, piece that, uh, in shooting, I didn't know, would
not know had
that effect on, on, uh, on an audience after we put it together, they put it
together rather.
It's very, very, very interesting and exciting.
The tension builds very nicely throughout the whole thing.
I want to tell you, it's incredible, yeah.
Uh, now, uh, this is preposterous, right?
A kid playing around with a computer or a telephone somehow gets himself
involved with
the defense system of this country?
I, I hope so, David.
I really do.
Uh, but, you know, when we were shooting, we, people were saying, you know,
this is quite
possible.
Really?
That, um, I think someone was saying that someone had wired into NORAD, the, uh,
you know,
the head of, uh, the, our, our, uh, missile center and, uh, through the bell
telephone
system and, uh, damn near did exactly what happened in this, in this movie.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this is a little distressing.
Yeah.
Well, it is to me.
Yeah.
Well, they told me you were a sensitive person.
Uh, but, well, geez, I hope they, they get that, uh, wrinkle, uh, figured out.
A little wrinkle.
Yeah.
It's kind of a bug.
They're still working on it.
Yes, working on that one.
Uh, well, continued success.
You're, you're doing a terrific job and we'll look forward to your new program
tomorrow
night, uh, Buffalo Bill and, uh, War Games, which is out this week also.
Right.
Thanks for being here, sir.
Yeah.
Thank you for coming.
We'll be right back with, uh, Gary Mulder.