Name: Howard Stern Rages Against Jay Leno | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-05-03T15:00:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Howard Stern Rages Against Jay Leno | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Howard Stern Rages Against Jay Leno | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-03. Transcript available.

Howard Stern Rages Against Jay Leno | Letterman

Our first guest is a radio legend and a cultural icon and a good friend of ours.
He's the host of his very own popular Sirius XM radio program.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the one, the only Howard Stern.
Nice to see you dressed up. This is great.
I was shocked looking at you because, you know,
I thought you looked a little schlubby tonight, like you hadn't gotten a nap or
something.
Oh, well, yeah, that's always a possibility.
No, but seriously, I'll get my nap now.
You always...
I'm sorry.
Listen, I'm not making fun of you. Believe me, I know.
When you do morning radio, I'm exhausted. I walk around exhausted all day.
And I feel down, you know, and I obsess.
You know, coming on the David Letterman show is still very important to me.
Well, I find that flattering, but why? You're the king of all media.
Well, you know what it is? I still, I still, even being the king of all media,
will get nervous.
I will get, you know, first of all, when you're me, I figure, you know, you
look out at your audience,
50% of the audience is disgusted that I'm here.
No.
A lot of people, really, I'll take a poll in a minute.
Oh, that's not true.
Dave, when you think about it, I'm such a polarizing figure that really people,
you know, people come in from out of town.
They get tickets a year in advance.
They figured they're going to see Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt.
And then you go, Howard Stern's here tonight.
People are throwing up.
No, no, no.
I came from Kansas for this.
No.
You know, and then there's 50% of the audience that is excited by me.
Yes.
They like what I, there you go.
But you see, neurotically, neurotically, this is what goes through my head when
I do your show.
So I'd rather stay away.
I don't want to go through all of this angst.
Then I have a ritual.
You invite me on the show.
You're very nice to have me on.
I DVR your show.
I have like 10 or 15 of the shows.
You get a look at what's going on.
Look at what's going on.
I'm watching and I tune in.
I see Steve Martin.
That's why I thought Steve Martin was making fun of your outfit the other night.
He said you look like you're wearing a dress when you wear a double-breasted
suit.
I thought maybe this is why you went to that.
And I'm watching this guy and I'm saying Steve Martin must be the most
important talk show guest of all time.
He's on here.
Dave is talking with him.
And then he says, Dave, I'm going to come out and play banjo music.
And he's not even playing.
He's bringing two bums with him.
I never heard of these guys.
I go, Dave hates banjo music.
No, I love banjo music.
The whole show hates banjo music.
The whole of America hates banjo music.
No, everyone loves banjo music.
And so this guy, Steve Martin, must have something on Dave that he gets Dave to
devote an entire segment to banjo music.
Salute the banjos.
Robert Nett, your producer of that, why are we playing banjo music?
Hang on.
Now, have you ever spent any time with Steve Martin?
I've been to dinner with Steve Martin.
Well, there you go.
And he didn't whip out that banjo.
I would have thrown him right out of the restaurant.
I mean, what is with that banjo?
No one likes it.
Dave is still right.
One of the funniest guys in America, Steve Martin.
Yes.
I love him.
But he takes out that banjo.
I want to get away from the guy.
So what?
He plays the banjo.
We all like it.
And do you play any musical instruments?
Oh, I took piano for five years.
I hated it.
My piano teacher committed suicide.
True story.
That's how I got out of it.
My mother used to run away from the piano teacher.
The guy said, this kid has no talent.
He doesn't practice.
Get him off the piano.
My mother and father decided, I will do the piano no matter what.
So my mother would hide in the bedroom.
The guy would demand to see my mother.
She said, you tell him I'm not home.
And then I said, how am I going to get out of this nightmare?
And he got me out of it.
He hanged himself.
And that was the end.
Oh, my God.
That's a horrible story.
And you know what?
And my childhood got happier and happier after that.
How are your folks, by the way?
My folks are, listen, my folks are old.
Your mother's still alive?
92, yeah.
92.
Isn't that amazing?
My parents are up there, too.
My father is 90.
My mother is 85.
And now they don't want to do anything.
You know, years ago, I used to have them on the show.
Well, I remember.
Yeah, it was very exciting.
Exciting.
Well, that was the reason we started having my mother on the show.
Because you would always have your mother on the show.
And I thought, well, that's a tremendous thing to do.
It's a fun thing to do.
Yeah, so thank you for that.
I loved having my parents on my show.
But now they don't want to do anything.
I'll call them up.
I'll go, Mom, you want to come on the air?
Well, I don't know.
You want us to come on?
I go, well, yeah, I would love for you to come on.
But I don't want to inconvenience you.
I know you're older now.
Well, your father and I, look, we'll come on if you want us to.
But we don't really need to.
You don't need to.
And now they don't want, you know.
And really, a lot of my motivation for going into radio and trying to become
famous was to get my parents' attention.
And now here I am successful.
I bought this house in Florida.
Oh, that's great.
Big house in Florida.
I call my mother up.
I go, I bought my Xanadu.
And I want you to come with me.
I want you to come down to Florida and stay at the house.
We don't want to do that.
I go, what?
You don't want to see this house?
No, we don't want to see that house, you boy.
We want to stay right here.
Really?
We have our routine.
We do one thing a day.
I go, what do you mean you do one thing a day?
This is her thing.
I do one thing a day.
That's enough.
If I have to buy something, I go, I shop.
And that's it.
It's enough.
And that's how your father and I like our routine.
To go to Florida and see your house, we're not interested.
So even this pleasure that I could have gotten from being successful.
Now, none of my business, but I know from time to time you go into therapy,
counseling.
Time to time, I'm there all day and night.
What is the clinical perspective on what you just described?
Well, you know, it's funny.
I went back to America's Got Talent.
I'm doing it again for a third season.
Third season?
And, you know, thank you.
And I wasn't even sure I wanted to do it.
I value free time.
I do have hobbies and things I like to do.
But I realized that as much as I want free time,
there is this huge black hole inside of me that can never be filled.
I need love.
I need attention.
I need fame.
So the black hole won.
And I'm going back to America's Got Talent.
I'll sit there.
And I'll tell you, you know, I'm tired from doing morning radio.
So when they go and they tape these shows or they do them live, I'm exhausted.
And this guy, Howie Mandel, you know Howie?
I know Howie.
He's one of the other judges.
Yes.
This guy's got energy.
It's like something's wrong with him.
You know, I literally, yeah.
I would agree with that.
I lay in my, Dave, I lay in my dressing room, like unconscious, hoping I'll be
able to get
out there and judge this talent show.
This guy's running around the halls.
He's doing routines.
He's doing bits.
Okay, let me stop you right there.
What?
You realize this has nothing to do with what I asked you.
What did you ask?
Who listens to what you asked?
I said, the situation, because it rings true with me.
The first time my mother saw me perform live, she came backstage and I was very
nervous after
the show and after the show and we kept waiting and waiting and waiting.
And finally she says, David, we have to be going now.
And they left.
And that's all she said.
And that was it.
And so for like the next six months, I thought, what was that?
Yeah, like why did you not get something from your mother?
So what does your counselor, therapist, psychiatrist say to you about mom and
dad not wanting to
come visit Xanadu?
Well, you have mother issues, obviously.
Everyone knows that.
But, you know, I mean, it's clear.
But I, listen, I have mother issues too.
We both have them.
But what does it mean they don't want to come visit you in your dream house?
They can't stand us.
That's what it is.
We're basically disgusting or something.
I don't know.
No, I just think that they're into their own thing.
They're caught up in themselves and they're not necessarily that thrilled by
hanging out
with me like everybody else, like 50% of your audience wants to get out.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Because this is the story.
Somebody becomes very successful, buys a lovely home for their mom and dad, and
they're eternally
grateful.
And that completes the circle.
Your circle is far from finished.
It's still.
I'm still going through the circle.
Can I, can I bring up something?
Yeah.
All right.
I, you know, there's talk backstage about you all the time.
And the, you know, I get to hear it because I'm hanging out.
Backstage here.
Backstage here.
And everyone here, and including me, is curious.
And I, I know I always bring up Jay Leno every time I come on here, but this is
blowing
my mind.
Jay Leno recently said that now you two guys are exchanging phone calls with
one another,
that you're actually talking on the phone.
Is this true?
We have spoken on the phone, yes.
Well, I'm out of here.
I mean, I, I mean, I give up.
You know, Dave, I got to tell you something.
I feel like a guy, I never served in the military, but I feel like a Vietnam
veteran.
You know, I feel like I'm still in the jungles fighting your war.
Thank you.
And you've made up with Vietnam.
I mean, I mean, what is it?
This guy, I, you know, this will forever blow my mind.
Jay Leno will forever blow my mind.
This is a guy, he, he, he took the Tonight Show from you.
You were this close to getting it.
This was your dream.
You want to be Johnny Carson.
God love you.
You had such a dream and you, and Jay snatched it from you, snatched it from
you.
And I got so caught up in your drama.
I love you.
You know how I feel about you.
I appreciate you.
I feel you're a superstar.
All right, now let's, let's stop here again and examine.
No, no, no, no, no.
No, let's examine the issues.
You're on the phone.
Hello, Jay.
Oh, hi, Dave.
How are you?
My best friend in the whole world.
And I'm fighting.
Mind you, mind you, I work for NBC television now, and I'm not speaking to Jay
Leno.
They asked me to go on his show.
I go, no, he did Dave wrong.
I don't like to.
He's on the phone.
Oh, hi, gang.
Great.
I'm fighting the war.
I'm still in the jungle.
Are, are, are there people that at a certain time in your career you didn't see
eye to eye
with that now that you have a positive communication with?
Yes, I have, but not Jay Leno.
Boy, I, I tell you that.
Who, who are the, who are the people in the beginning that you, you had, you
were, were
reviled by them, but now you speak with them?
There are people that I have apologized to.
I call them off the air.
You want to know the truth?
Well, you've apologized to me.
I did, and I owed you an apology.
I mean, you and I were on our way to being best buddies years ago, and Dave and
I, what,
do you know this story?
This is a remarkable story.
Don't break for commercial when I say there's a remark, get, get out.
You can edit out that monologue.
Now look, I, I tell you, this is an amazing story.
Dave and I actually used to be friends.
Dave would call me at my house.
I don't know what he was on, but he would call me at my house.
Well, I thought we, I thought we were headed in that direction.
I honestly did, because we used to work in the same building.
Oftentimes, people from your staff would come up to my office in, over at NBC.
We knew of one another.
You were on the old show routinely.
I was out of my mind.
So I thought this looks like it might be going somewhere.
I was out of my mind.
I really, truly was.
I think I was crazy.
I think I did a lot of things on radio that I didn't need to do.
Just to get attention.
To get attention.
And, you kno