Name: Our Friend Late Show Director Jerry Foley | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-03-13T23:05:46.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Our Friend Late Show Director Jerry Foley | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Our Friend Late Show Director Jerry Foley | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-13. Transcript available.

I was a technical director at NBC in the local news division.
I was working on a show called Live at Five.
I had entered show business with a very kind of blue collar,
humble mindset of, well, get your foot in the door.
The only door I could get through was on the technical side,
so I wanted to be a director the whole time,
but now I am toiling in this technical role,
hoping to get in a position where you could direct a television show.
So I had been doing that in the studio that was literally across the hall
from where the Letterman studio was.
And while we were getting ready to go on the air
with stories about political scandals and fires,
the Letterman people would bring in a camel,
and I was just a little kid with my nose pressed against the glass,
like, how could I be this close and not on the other side of the hall?
That's everything I want to do.
There's music acts there and there's beautiful people.
And out of the blue, the technical director on that show didn't want to do it
anymore.
I went for a walk with this technical director named Peter Basil, who's a great
guy.
He said, I'm thinking of stepping away.
Do you want me to put your name in there?
It's one of those moments where you're just trying to play it cool, like, oh,
sure.
But in here, it was just everything I wanted to be a part of, like, get me
across the hall.
And it worked out.
He did put my name in with Hal Gurney, the director.
I did that particular job function for five years.
I was technical director for five years.
And now the show's moving to CBS and who gets to go and who gets left behind.
It was not a given that we were all going to go work on the new show.
But I was fortunate enough to be asked to come along, which was a pivotal
moment in my career.
I had 13 years of seniority at NBC.
I was in the labor pool there.
And I was protected by a union job.
And I was going to give all that up to go work for another network where I'd be
starting
at the bottom of the seniority list with no guarantee of continued employment
if the show failed,
which, by the way, a lot of people don't really remember.
But there was no guarantee Dave was going to succeed.
It was a big, ballsy move to go from 12:30 to 11:30 to a network that didn't
have an 11:30 franchise.
I couldn't imagine, after waiting that long to be involved in the show, saying,
"No, I'm not going to follow it."
You know, it was in my veins.
There was no not going.
When the show started at the Ed Sullivan Theater and we premiered,
I can't imagine a more exciting time.
It was every little boy's dream if you want to work in television.
There were all the toys, all the people, big, big stars.
Tremendous anticipation from the public.
A sense from all of our coworkers that we're doing something significant and
meaningful.
And then the most absurd thing happened in the world.
Hal Gurney called me up to his office and said, "Would you like to direct the
show?"
And to this day, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
It was like lusting after that one girl and knowing that you really don't have
a shot
and you just kept your mouth shut, but privately that's all you could think
about.
And now that girl says to you, "Oh, well, you want to spend some time together."
I just couldn't get over it.
I was so surprised and so excited about the possibilities.
And that was a three-week contract.
Because there was concerns that this technician really might not be up to the
job.
Looking back on it, those were well-founded concerns.
It was a three-week tryout.
By some strange circumstance, it morphed into 20 years.
What I noticed right away about Dave was that he was working harder than
anybody else.
There was Dave the performer, but the guy who was producing and owning and
running the show
and writing the show was working at a level and he had a work ethic and a
dedication that really spoke to me.
It didn't feel like anybody involved there was half in, starting with Dave.
Everybody was all in and that spoke to me.
It's like I wanted to be completely immersed in something that was going to be
seen by a lot of people
and had a following and a good chance for success.
And Dave's lead inspired all of us who were there.
I was invested in all that stuff.
I had a personal stake in everything I was doing on a daily basis because it
was this writer's piece.
It was this producer's guest.
It was this bit that Dave likes to do and you know how that can go wrong and
you wanted to get it right.
So everything was deeply personal.
You develop these insane bonds of people.
You're seeing them more than anybody else in your life.
I loved all these people.
They were super smart and absurd and wicked senses of humor and they would
challenge you and most of the time in the best way possible.
You thought you had a good idea or you thought you had some snappy observation
about something and there'd always be somebody there to either top you or send
you off in another direction.
And to go into an environment every day with that kind of stimulation was intoxicating
because you really were alive.
Hopefully I elevated ideas to something better than maybe people anticipated.
And probably more importantly than anything I was part of a spirit of
collaboration and a spirit of satisfaction so that everybody could say well
that came out okay.
That was a good time.
That worked.
If I could nurture somebody's idea and support it then I feel like I made a
contribution.
This is within me.
This type of work is really all I ever wanted to do.
Starting back in high school.
It's never left me.
It's only increased my appetite.
I didn't care about what time it was.
I didn't care about how much money I was making.
I didn't care about what time lunch was.
I was so appreciative and excited about what I was involved in and what I was
doing.
That external influences had no place.
I was just tunnel vision about being in the environment and liking the people I
was with.
If you walk into a television studio on a bright day in July, it's a prison.
There's no windows.
The air is dusty and it's got sound deadening and you're like who would
volunteer to do this?
But if you were doing a bit of comedy that involved David Letterman and Nathan
Lane or Steve Martin or Eddie Vedder were going to come in there and give you
45 minutes of their time.
Well then that TV studio isn't a prison.
That's a playground.
That's like the best place to be on that July day and you don't care if you're
missing a game of golf or you could have gone to the Yankee game.
That's all I wanted to do is be in that room.
It was the realization of everything I set out to do leaving college.
And I was allowed to raise my son in one location and I was paid nicely and I
had creative autonomy.
I mean I got to make decisions and do things with not a lot of oversight and I
never stopped appreciating that.
And I'm immensely proud of what I was part of and I'm accepting that I'm going
to be connected with it forever.
Maybe part of your grief reaction is you try to distance yourself from it a
little bit like, ah, well that happened.
But lately I realized, no, that's just not going to wash away.
That's something that will be a part of me and I'm embracing that on another
level.
I worked on a big ass broadcast with a really dynamic group of people and a guy
who will be in the history books.
People will know that name for generations and I got to work there.
It was a blast.
It was the best possible set of circumstances you could hope for.
All right, turn these things off now.
I got it.
That's all I get.
Jesus.
I see you in every lovely summer day, in everything that's bright again.
I'll always think of you that way.
I'll find you in the morning sun.
And when the night is through.
And when the night is through.
I'll be looking at the moon.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
But I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
I'll be seeing you in the morning sun.
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