Name: The Best Of Martin Short | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-03-15T00:00:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best Of Martin Short | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-15. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best Of Martin Short | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-15. Transcript available.

hi everybody i'm dave this is my good friend paul paul how long have you and i
known one another
well you and i go back to 1982. so how many years is that eight yeah something
like that i was told
the word be no math yeah uh and then i what i've known about you from the very
beginning is one of
your really good best friends is marty short marty and i met in toronto in 1972
both canadians 10
years previous actually he and i came together because uh the new york show uh
godspell from 1972
that you worked on that and that's where you two met yeah because they had a
company uh from this hit
off-broadway show starting a company up in canada and both of us got hired and
we became working
together eight shows a week every night so a good friend of yours still a good
friend of yours and a
good friend of our show and he i don't know how many times he was on our show
but i'm telling you
for me it was like a holiday i could relax and as a viewer a person in the
audience or somebody at home
i could just enjoy marty just being near him and he he kind of vibrated with uh
a high level bright
humor that would just cascade over the building and it was delightful one of
the things that always comes
in my mind about marty on the show it was part of the uh it was the woodwork of
the uh whole effort
he would come in he would a grand opening oh thanks for remembering thanks for
remembering he
would sit down and then he would have some uh semi-insulting if not fully
insulting compliment
for me yeah and they i can't even begin well how useful you look are you what
are you using yeah
who is your guy you know what have you had done have you had a rib removed and
then exactly you look
great thank you very much i saw you wandering through the hall i thought piscopo
was here you're
working out what is it have you had a lift or are you wearing lips is it the
new chin no i just take
care of myself i watch it's a new chin yeah you are looking so much like johnny
depp i thought you were
skeet all rich have you had a rib removed what is it have you had another
bypass remember one time
you said to me at a party you said i find you artificial and i've hurt because
that's not true
you've had a tattoo removed haven't you i don't i don't the ones with the
unicorns mating that one
oh i don't know i still have that one i often feel there's a mistake for a man
like yourself to do
cosmetic surgery but i'm telling you and it's not until you get really close
you can see the surgeon's
scars because you can't see them from a distance don't have too much work done
no i won't but then
you get this thing you know this gets longer and it's just it's a false bad
look and i've been on your
show many times i've never seen the show funnier than tonight i'm serious oh my
god your skin is so
youthful thank you it's not firm but it's youthful and the word jaundice barely
comes to mind anymore
i look at you and all i think to myself whatever he's doing 30 percent more and
he's angela lansbury
well thank you knowing him as i do i can say that he was super prepared you
know what i loved
i'm sorry to interrupt when you'd be playing the piano and he would get up on
the piano and the gag was
that he had stepped on you crushing your hand on the keyboard you have to do
that i loved it matt
roberts helped me with that actually with my reaction to developing it because
i was strong
trying to build it up and do like berlin and matt came over and said i think
just one just the one
one yeah but i also remember the first time i was on the show and and and then
also the he would end the
segment with songs i didn't realize that there was this ongoing uh so and so is
a lady luck is a lady
show business is a lady thanksgiving is a lady halloween is a lady dave is a
lady on and on and on
that would be the theme of his musical started with when the first one may have
been broadway
is a lady when you hit broadway with the show we opened up at the ed sullivan
theater and it would
always have a little something a little lewd in it you've got to treat lady
broadway kindly
you've got to give her your respect
then she'll suck your face like no chick ever has you have to carve her pumpkin
gently with a knife
that's extra thick then she'll gladly trick your treat and light your wick
so in closing mr letterman here's a tip from an elf who knows
this frosty chick will warm you to your toes
just remember
so don't give this sister sass or she'll come and kick your ass
and you'll kiss your baby
the musicality of it was always hyperbolic it was like it was well we had you
know
i've got to say our friend jill liederman working on the show at that time
would choreograph
most of those things as you can tell paul and i both love the man yeah paul is
a good
friend he is a friend on the show and tremendous tremendous talent and so
rather than continue to
yak about it let's just take a look at him on the lake fantastic we're in bala
bala ontario
beautiful place 150 miles north of uh just like on golden pond it's just it's
just beautiful oh just
birds woodland oh yeah woodland dave did you say woodland i did it is it is by
the end of the week
everyone is just talking and looking for looters everywhere did you know that
uncle tenus is coming
all right all right thank you there is a subtler version of doing that you know
okay ready
you know uncle tenus is coming for two weeks two weeks
how upset would you be if i just poured the rest of this in your lap uh do i do
i have a choice
really yeah if you if you don't want me to do it i won't go ahead go ahead
when i do jerry's laugh i always uh feel that i have to have him eating a lozenge
for some reason
now he might take offense you know because when jerry talks seriously it's a
there's a feeling of
something because of there's a lot of uh giving in what we do and what if you
think that's it's easy
what he does then you're completely mistaken because you got to sit back there
and when he does uh the
laugh which is kind of like a uh a plum pudding bubbling you know
how's your baby girl she's adorable catherine yeah yeah she's very cute i'm
teaching her a few comedy
things now i've i've taught her that when she falls she must wait for the laugh
she can't just get up you
know and uh i've already taught her an impersonation because she has very
little language how old a girl
we have two two years old yeah so it's just a three-word impersonation i've
taught her gary cooper
can we hear a little of you doing your daughter doing gary cooper what's just
three words just
forget it he's dead it's not it's not you do uh have done in the past
impressions of catherine
hepburn right yes yeah now did did am i imagining this or did you actually meet
her once after having
done the impression somewhere no no i'd never done the impression this was a
few years ago i hadn't met
her i i was uh seeing a show called the royal family play in new york and i was
just sitting there by
myself at one ticket and suddenly i hear people moving down the aisle and it's
move over please get the
hell away from why that hat and uh and i look over and it's got so she sits
right here and i don't
say anything i just kind of look at the play like this and then the play
continues and it's a great
play royal family and at the end of the first act rosemary harris does this
dramatic diatribe
and kind of collapses and he motion curtain goes down and forgetting that it's
catherine hepburn
i turn just to this person to my left and i say isn't she classy and she says
because i'm
talking to her like a rib but what she is rosemary always has ability to just
simply take over cat
not unlike spencer who just seems to achieve the level that you would want to
so when she was
finished i said to her well miss hepburn you're no slouch and uh she just
looked at me and said
and then turned to the person's side could you could you change seats please
that was it we never talked now other big stars that you met over there jimmy jimmy
stuart oh
man so this you didn't know i could do jimmy stuart did you almost you're still
not sure almost
everybody can do a little jimmy stuart that's not yours harvey here and that's
all i can do
it's my 13th appearance and i realize that you and i have never hugged publicly
but never never wait a
minute never hugged period i know
all right well okay let's just go ahead so are you oh you okay sorry so let
this be the start of
something big can we all right sure the first time i did johnny carson show i
was uh kind of nervous
because i mean it was johnny yeah yeah it was 1988 too and uh the first guest
was betty davis and
i decided being a cocky nut master that i am that it would be that it would be
kind of funny to do
betty davis to betty davis well no that makes sense so betty had come out and
she killed she killed
she'd done the unicycle bed she'd done all her stuff it was 88 and uh she didn't
place look at all they
move you know and so i came out and betty was here and i came out and i looked
and sat down and i
turned and said and what a pleasure to meet you and she had no idea who i was
or how i sounded but
later on i did jerry lewis i was doing jerry lewis and i decided to you know i
was getting cocky and
i said hey so john it's exciting to be here hi betty
and that shocked me it even started you yeah and she just said like this so
finally and i was doing
some first nations and finally you you uh you hear from the side she you hear
do you do me
now i'd done her you see so i turned to her and i said well you're not that
easy to do and she said then
skip it frank sinatra around um uh trying to be really hip 1974. all right here
we go all right
i shot the sheriff however i did not shoot the deputy ding dong ding
i got herpes lots of herpes filthy herpes who could ask for anything more
all right but i work with an actress whose breath was beyond it was like it was
like a possum blew up her
breath now again i don't want to be too graphic or in any way rude but it was
like no the breath of a
cougar and and it was really really bad i i think she was ill or something and
oh god and i i'm not
exaggerating i swear to god this is true i would we'd have to do scenes like
this and i would she i'd
say well how do you think that makes me feel there was another way of
describing the woman's condition
you said it was it was it's she was sort of like uh you said it smelled like
come on what i can't remember
what about k ballard's no oh
i said it smelled not like uh no john goodman's couch is what i said
it was k ballard's couch well maybe i didn't want to say that well i'm sorry i've
been looking forward
do it all day all right
so
everyone there was a billionaire barry diller you know the ceo of fox and neil
simon and and
and carl reiner and johnny carson and steve said you know come to the and i
said no no i i can't you know
i'd be i he said no the most anyone has ever lost is six hundred dollars and
you could win six hundred
dollars well so why not and so within five minutes i was down nineteen hundred
dollars
and i was i didn't know what to do and they were kind of looking at me and so
then i decided that
whatever i would do i could figure if i just put the ante in and if i folded
every hand i could make it
through the night and i would get four aces fold and i and at one point i saw
johnny carson look at
neil signo doing that thing oh good we're right in the thick of our american
presidential race and
the canadians do you guys you do any interest in that no no no no we do i mean
in canada i was kind
of uh i was more of a political you know satirist with the music kind of i don't
remember that like
mark russell i was kind of the canadian mark i'd have the pork pie hat doing oh
the deficit oh the
deficit you know that was very good doing the separatists we made three amigos
then we made father
the bride one and two wow uh a prince of egypt and of course sophie's choice so
that's six films really
i don't i don't recall the two of you and sophie's yeah i'll look for it again
i don't know which one
to take that was my i didn't i didn't nice very nice do you remember our ventriloquist
bit i sure
do go ahead hey say hello to uncle dave was that you okay start again it's been
a while go ahead
we haven't done it for a long long time hey say hello to uncle dave hi uncle dave
how are you
well i'm fine marty well little marty
yes well yeah well marty how's your family they're all dead oh later lucy voice
take me through that
one more time well you know lucy started off hey atho hey girl ricky's gonna be
mad at me yeah by the
last series it was hey kim harry's mad at me
what about if you and jay leno right toured in a production of the odd couple
now you're talking you'd be saying uh you know for for uh for the love of god jay
why must you park
your antique fire engine in the driveway and he'd say i don't know i i like it
messy you like it clean
it they're through for both of us wow this is a license to print money this was
one of the most
awkward experiences i ever had in my life we always had a driver named carlos
who drove us to the airport
a driver pulls up and um and a very handsome six foot four african-american man
comes out in full
livery and as nancy says is is um carlos picking us up and i say no he's
sending someone else that's all i
said and um so now we are in the car and we're driving along and nancy says to
the driver oh bumpkus
you know we're going american airlines right
and he looks in the rear mirror and goes yes i do and then oh bumpkus
you know we have a greeter someone is greeting us he looks a little longer in
the mirror this time
and he goes uh yes i do and i'm thinking to myself what a name i gotta try this
name and i go oh bumpkus
bumpkus let me ask you this um are you gonna take the 405 or the marina and he
said and he looks at
me a little longer in the mirror and he says the 405 i'm gonna take the 405 and
i turn to nancy
and i say how do you know his name is bumpkus and she says because you told me
i said when did i tell you she said i asked you is carlos picking us up and you
said no bumpkises
i said i said i didn't say that i said he was sending someone else
bumpkus is thinking so then we pull up to the lax and we get out of the car
and i give him a 12 000 tip
and i say
i am so sorry what is your name and he said my name is larry
give me a c there we go a bouncy c
david letterman you're quite a guy i'd say you stand about oh so high
you got a new show and that's a good thing and you don't work blue and that's
also good
that that ddd whatever the hell else you want but you know what you don't have
all the answers pappy
no i know please please don't sing this to me
no no no
i'm happy to do a song oh that would be lovely if you'd like me to
i don't know whether this is better uh-huh or if it's just if i go coy like
that no i i like that
just give me a little camera room but you're fine there okay you're not you're
not the first man
who sat on this desk like that yeah man alone me who else i didn't know you
played the violin you
didn't know i played the violin he plays the violin paul oh for good apparently
he does no i i would
love you to read more about me um david and i years ago and i know you don't
talk about this
because we did an all-white version of the whiz which was and to hear him do
ease on down the road
because dave and i have been friends for a long time in fact we met years ago
in a stage production uh where he was playing the role of lofty uh in the
production of queer as
folk and i remember at the time thanks for remembering fly me through this room
and make my entrance with
i remember my goodness sir your fly is open ma'am i'm looking down your dress
he lived through dog attacks and jack hannah's cobra some other guys survived
the feud with oprah
through thick and through thin all out and whether it's win place or show
it's me for you we'll model through whatever we do together raymond burr and
marty hall they came to america
margot kidder she took a fall got prozac in america
michael fox he's not that tall
buttless in america pamela lee her breasts were small implants in america
so let's unite all of us and take our pants off altogether shall we go back to
to your polling place oh my
james gandolphine's james gandolphine's tony soprano on one of tv's greatest
shows he's a good fella
people now now take dick cheney our nation's vp he has a heart that tends to
race and shot his
buddy in the face both men are millionaires and they have lost some hair but
there's one other commonality
that they both share but they won't now do the lake show nobody could pay them
enough dough tiger
wood said dave's game's a no-go it stings quite a big fiend burn brad brad pit
who shuns the lake show
he hates
what kind of mid fans we are and tie the dog to the roof of our car
so raise a glass
two pappy's but past to that jade leno dave's heart has gone on
so
and your heart will go on and on
god bless your god bless you thank you for everything thank you for everything
the wonderful
bernie short everybody
you

The Best Of Martin Short | Letterman

hi everybody i'm dave this is my good friend paul paul how long have you and i
known one another
well you and i go back to 1982. so how many years is that eight yeah something
like that i was told
the word be no math yeah uh and then i what i've known about you from the very
beginning is one of
your really good best friends is marty short marty and i met in toronto in 1972
both canadians 10
years previous actually he and i came together because uh the new york show uh
godspell from 1972
that you worked on that and that's where you two met yeah because they had a
company uh from this hit
off-broadway show starting a company up in canada and both of us got hired and
we became working
together eight shows a week every night so a good friend of yours still a good
friend of yours and a
good friend of our show and he i don't know how many times he was on our show
but i'm telling you
for me it was like a holiday i could relax and as a viewer a person in the
audience or somebody at home
i could just enjoy marty just being near him and he he kind of vibrated with uh
a high level bright
humor that would just cascade over the building and it was delightful one of
the things that always comes
in my mind about marty on the show it was part of the uh it was the woodwork of
the uh whole effort
he would come in he would a grand opening oh thanks for remembering thanks for
remembering he
would sit down and then he would have some uh semi-insulting if not fully
insulting compliment
for me yeah and they i can't even begin well how useful you look are you what
are you using yeah
who is your guy you know what have you had done have you had a rib removed and
then exactly you look
great thank you very much i saw you wandering through the hall i thought piscopo
was here you're
working out what is it have you had a lift or are you wearing lips is it the
new chin no i just take
care of myself i watch it's a new chin yeah you are looking so much like johnny
depp i thought you were
skeet all rich have you had a rib removed what is it have you had another
bypass remember one time
you said to me at a party you said i find you artificial and i've hurt because
that's not true
you've had a tattoo removed haven't you i don't i don't the ones with the
unicorns mating that one
oh i don't know i still have that one i often feel there's a mistake for a man
like yourself to do
cosmetic surgery but i'm telling you and it's not until you get really close
you can see the surgeon's
scars because you can't see them from a distance don't have too much work done
no i won't but then
you get this thing you know this gets longer and it's just it's a false bad
look and i've been on your
show many times i've never seen the show funnier than tonight i'm serious oh my
god your skin is so
youthful thank you it's not firm but it's youthful and the word jaundice barely
comes to mind anymore
i look at you and all i think to myself whatever he's doing 30 percent more and
he's angela lansbury
well thank you knowing him as i do i can say that he was super prepared you
know what i loved
i'm sorry to interrupt when you'd be playing the piano and he would get up on
the piano and the gag was
that he had stepped on you crushing your hand on the keyboard you have to do
that i loved it matt
roberts helped me with that actually with my reaction to developing it because
i was strong
trying to build it up and do like berlin and matt came over and said i think
just one just the one
one yeah but i also remember the first time i was on the show and and and then
also the he would end the
segment with songs i didn't realize that there was this ongoing uh so and so is
a lady luck is a lady
show business is a lady thanksgiving is a lady halloween is a lady dave is a
lady on and on and on
that would be the theme of his musical started with when the first one may have
been broadway
is a lady when you hit broadway with the show we opened up at the ed sullivan
theater and it would
always have a little something a little lewd in it you've got to treat lady
broadway kindly
you've got to give her your respect
then she'll suck your face like no chick ever has you have to carve her pumpkin
gently with a knife
that's extra thick then she'll gladly trick your treat and light your wick
so in closing mr letterman here's a tip from an elf who knows
this frosty chick will warm you to your toes
just remember
so don't give this sister sass or she'll come and kick your ass
and you'll kiss your baby
the musicality of it was always hyperbolic it was like it was well we had you
know
i've got to say our friend jill liederman working on the show at that time
would choreograph
most of those things as you can tell paul and i both love the man yeah paul is
a good
friend he is a friend on the show and tremendous tremendous talent and so
rather than continue to
yak about it let's just take a look at him on the lake fantastic we're in bala
bala ontario
beautiful place 150 miles north of uh just like on golden pond it's just it's
just beautiful oh just
birds woodland oh yeah woodland dave did you say woodland i did it is it is by
the end of the week
everyone is just talking and looking for looters everywhere did you know that
uncle tenus is coming
all right all right thank you there is a subtler version of doing that you know
okay ready
you know uncle tenus is coming for two weeks two weeks
how upset would you be if i just poured the rest of this in your lap uh do i do
i have a choice
really yeah if you if you don't want me to do it i won't go ahead go ahead
when i do jerry's laugh i always uh feel that i have to have him eating a lozenge
for some reason
now he might take offense you know because when jerry talks seriously it's a
there's a feeling of
something because of there's a lot of uh giving in what we do and what if you
think that's it's easy
what he does then you're completely mistaken because you got to sit back there
and when he does uh the
laugh which is kind of like a uh a plum pudding bubbling you know
how's your baby girl she's adorable catherine yeah yeah she's very cute i'm
teaching her a few comedy
things now i've i've taught her that when she falls she must wait for the laugh
she can't just get up you
know and uh i've already taught her an impersonation because she has very
little language how old a girl
we have two two years old yeah so it's just a three-word impersonation i've
taught her gary cooper
can we hear a little of you doing your daughter doing gary cooper what's just
three words just
forget it he's dead it's not it's not you do uh have done in the past
impressions of catherine
hepburn right yes yeah now did did am i imagining this or did you actually meet
her once after having
done the impression somewhere no no i'd never done the impression this was a
few years ago i hadn't met
her i i was uh seeing a show called the royal family play in new york and i was
just sitting there by
myself at one ticket and suddenly i hear people moving down the aisle and it's
move over please get the
hell away from why that hat and uh and i look over and it's got so she sits
right here and i don't
say anything i just kind of look at the play like this and then the play
continues and it's a great
play royal family and at the end of the first act rosemary harris does this
dramatic diatribe
and kind of collapses and he motion curtain goes down and forgetting that it's
catherine hepburn
i turn just to this person to my left and i say isn't she classy and she says
because i'm
talking to her like a rib but what she is rosemary always has ability to just
simply take over cat
not unlike spencer who just seems to achieve the level that you would want to
so when she was
finished i said to her well miss hepburn you're no slouch and uh she just
looked at me and said
and then turned to the person's side could you could you change seats please
that was it we never talked now other big stars that you met over there jimmy jimmy
stuart oh
man so this you didn't know i could do jimmy stuart did you almost you're still
not sure almost
everybody can do a little jimmy stuart that's not yours harvey here and that's
all i can do
it's my 13th appearance and i realize that you and i have never hugged publicly
but never never wait a
minute never hugged period i know
all right well okay let's just go ahead so are you oh you okay sorry so let
this be the start of
something big can we all right sure the first time i did johnny carson show i
was uh kind of nervous
because i mean it was johnny yeah yeah it was 1988 too and uh the first guest
was betty davis and
i decided being a cocky nut master that i am that it would be that it would be
kind of funny to do
betty davis to betty davis well no that makes sense so betty had come out and
she killed she killed
she'd done the unicycle bed she'd done all her stuff it was 88 and uh she didn't
place look at all they
move you know and so i came out and betty was here and i came out and i looked
and sat down and i
turned and said and what a pleasure to meet you and she had no idea who i was
or how i sounded but
later on i did jerry lewis i was doing jerry lewis and i decided to you know i
was getting cocky and
i said hey so john it's exciting to be here hi betty
and that shocked me it even started you yeah and she just said like this so
finally and i was doing
some first nations and finally you you uh you hear from the side she you hear
do you do me
now i'd done her you see so i turned to her and i said well you're not that
easy to do and she said then
skip it frank sinatra around um uh trying to be really hip 1974. all right here
we go all right
i shot the sheriff however i did not shoot the deputy ding dong ding
i got herpes lots of herpes filthy herpes who could ask for anything more
all right but i work with an actress whose breath was beyond it was like it was
like a possum blew up her
breath now again i don't want to be too graphic or in any way rude but it was
like no the breath of a
cougar and and it was really really bad i i think she was ill or something and
oh god and i i'm not
exaggerating i swear to god this is true i would we'd have to do scenes like
this and i would she i'd
say well how do you think that makes me feel there was another way of
describing the woman's condition
you said it was it was it's she was sort of like uh you said it smelled like
come on what i can't remember
what about k ballard's no oh
i said it smelled not like uh no john goodman's couch is what i said
it was k ballard's couch well maybe i didn't want to say that well i'm sorry i've
been looking forward
do it all day all right
so
everyone there was a billionaire barry diller you know the ceo of fox and neil
simon and and
and carl reiner and johnny carson and steve said you know come to the and i
said no no i i can't you know
i'd be i he said no the most anyone has ever lost is six hundred dollars and
you could win six hundred
dollars well so why not and so within five minutes i was down nineteen hundred
dollars
and i was i didn't know what to do and they were kind of looking at me and so
then i decided that
whatever i would do i could figure if i just put the ante in and if i folded
every hand i could make it
through the night and i would get four aces fold and i and at one point i saw
johnny carson look at
neil signo doing that thing oh good we're right in the thick of our american
presidential race and
the canadians do you guys you do any interest in that no no no no we do i mean
in canada i was kind
of uh i was more of a political you know satirist with the music kind of i don't
remember that like
mark russell i was kind of the canadian mark i'd have the pork pie hat doing oh
the deficit oh the
deficit you know that was very good doing the separatists we made three amigos
then we made father
the bride one and two wow uh a prince of egypt and of course sophie's choice so
that's six films really
i don't i don't recall the two of you and sophie's yeah i'll look for it