Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Writer Jeff Stilson | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-09-12T15:14:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Writer Jeff Stilson | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-09-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Writer Jeff Stilson | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-09-12. Transcript available.

My name is Jeff Stilson. I was a writer on Late Show with David Letterman from
1993 to 1995.
My first association with The Letterman Show was on Late Night with David
Letterman.
I was a stand-up comedian and I made multiple appearances on the show.
It was really the only goal I had as a stand-up comedian was to appear on
Letterman.
Our brains are different, men's and women's.
Women are left-brained, they're verbal. Men are right-brained, more analytical.
That's why we're incapable of providing women with the romantic dialogue they
so desire.
Women should have teleprompters mounted on their foreheads.
That way we could read whatever they wanted us to say.
And still almost make eye contact and appear sincere.
Without you, my life has no meaning.
I am like a bee without a flower.
Je t'aime.
I'm sorry I don't speak French.
What I most remember about my first appearance, how weird it was to be that
close to the guy that I idolized.
He was everything every comic wanted to be in the 1980s.
I'm glad that I don't have to date anymore.
It's such hard work, you know, you make that phone call, maybe send flowers, go
to dinner, catch a movie.
It would be so much easier if we could just swim upstream.
Make a loud clacking noise.
Make a loud clacking noise.
I'm sorry, make a what?
A loud clacking noise.
A loud clacking noise, I see.
That's it.
What exactly does that mean, make a loud clacking noise?
It just, I like the word clacking.
I see, okay.
From those appearances, I was able to submit material to be a writer and in
1993 I was hired.
I had never written on a show before.
I didn't know anything about the process.
I didn't realize how competitive it was and how difficult it was just to get a
joke on.
We would submit, you know, 20 to 40 jokes a day and, you know, you're happy if
you got one on.
I remember my first joke.
It was very exciting to see Dave do your material and make it way funnier than
it was.
But he was saying that if this North American free trade agreement, he said,
the problem with this thing is it could create a huge sucking sound in this
country,
jobs draining away.
So he thinks that's the problem.
Going to create this huge sucking sound in the United States.
And I'm thinking to myself, well, you know, here in New York City, that's not
really a problem.
Because all summer long, we've had this huge sucking sound coming out of Shea
Stadium.
So we don't.
Look at that.
So my first year as a writer, I'm the new guy, right?
I've only been on the show a couple of months.
Thanksgiving rolls around and we decide to do this piece where we get fans of
the show,
put them on a bus and we head down to Miami Beach.
And since I'm the new writer, I spent my Thanksgiving on a bus with a bunch of
late show fans.
And the night with a light from above, from mountains, to earth, to the ocean,
white with foam,
God bless America, my home, my home, my home, my home, my home, my home.
Occasionally, Dave would be asked to do a top ten, but my home, my home, my
home.
Occasionally, Dave would be asked to do a top ten for another event.
I think in 1994, Johnny Carson won Kennedy Center honor for his late night
career.
And Dave was one of the speakers.
He had the writers come up with the top ten.
And I remember just working my ass off on that top ten.
And I got three on.
Number eight, always gave 110% despite back-breaking three-day work week.
Number seven, the way he'd sometimes get confused and accidentally pay me alimony.
Number six, did groundbreaking cut off your sloss and jokes years before
anyone had ever heard of Lorena Bobbitt?
Because I was a stand-up comedian, the assumption was that I could be funny on
camera.
A couple of the other writers wrote a bit called "Fill the Page Who Just Doesn't
Get It."
Are you going to come over and watch Seinfeld tonight?
Uh, well, you know, I think I'm going to be working pretty late.
Thanks anyway.
Hey, that's no problem.
I'll tape it, and then we'll watch it when you get there.
You know, Phil, I think what I'll do is just go home and sleep in my own house
tonight,
if you don't mind.
Thanks again.
Oh, cool.
I'll meet you there.
We'll rent a movie.
Uh, you know, Phil, I don't, I don't want to, I don't, I don't have a VCR.
Thanks again.
Don't worry about it.
Well, just hang then.
Phil, you know, sometimes I think maybe you just don't get it.
One of the great things about being a writer on the show is you, you get to
watch the taping
of the show every night in your office. You never knew what Dave was going to
do. He was so
spontaneous and so funny. And every interview had the potential to be dynamite.
I remember he had
Pee Wee Herman on. He asked him about the success of his movie and Pee Wee went
on and on about how
great it was.
It's kind of what I call a quest film. You know, it's all about what happens to
me in order to get...
Does that hold up for 90 minutes? 90 minutes?
Well, you just read the reviews, didn't you?
Yeah, yeah, it holds up pretty good.
Now, you know, it's interesting, Pee Wee, have you thought about this now that
the film's a success?
That means that for the rest of your life, you'll have to dress like that.
Macaulay Culkin came on when he was a kid and he was talking about the Neverland
Ranch and how
great it was.
You know, next time I saw him was about, um, two years after that, I went to
his ranch and everything.
What kind of place is the ranch?
It's just a big place. You have video games there, you know, my whole family
comes in.
So it's a real ranch then is what you're saying.
Dave had guests, guests that no other show would have, and those are the guests
you look forward
to. You didn't look forward to the stars. You looked forward to K-Mar, the
discount magician.
Let's prove to David and everybody that he always works. Watch. Don't be, don't
be afraid.
I'm going to cut you right on the dotted line. Okay, now, whoops, that's my
last victim. It didn't
survive. Oh, my God. Okay, are we ready?
Oops. Okay.
One, two, three.
Did I got you? It got stuck. We got to do it again.
No, no, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
It got stuck. No, no, let's, let's, uh, let's, uh...
I'll never argue with this.
Did you hear the joke?
Did you hear the joke that says, "Don't do it again unless you fix the plate."
Do you remember what happened? Did you hear that? Watch. Ready?
Maybe we shouldn't push our luck, K-Mar. It's, everything's gone so well up to
this point.
Watch. Ready?
We have to do a commercial. Is it going to do it for us or not?
One, two, three.
All right. Up.
Oh, here we go.
There was always this tension when certain guests came on the show, like Cher
or Madonna.
They were wary of Dave because, um, Dave wasn't afraid of anybody. He wasn't
going to kiss anybody's ass.
Wait, wait, wait. Before we cut to a commercial, I just want to know, um, is
that a rug?
You're talking about my hair?
All right. All right. What is that? A swim cap? What are you wearing?
Come on. Let's go. Here we go.
I remember the next night, we wrote a bunch of Madonna jokes and the feud
started all over again.
And I, I had one of those jokes.
A lovely superstar Madonna was our guest last night on the show and we couldn't
get her to leave.
And, and so now I, I, I know what Warren Beatty must have felt like.
One of the, the great honors on the Letterman show was to go out, uh, in the
field with Dave when
he shot a remote piece and no one was better at remotes than Dave. I got to go
out, uh, the day he
shot, uh, a remote with Richard Simmons. They went door to door in New Jersey.
What I learned about
Richard was, he was this incredible performer. He would bring an energy. He
knew how to play off
of Dave and Dave knew how to play off of him. They were like a great comedy duo.
My friend Richard here
wants some pants.
I'm not putting on those dickies. Just try on a pair. Try on a pair. Look, if
you try on a pair of
these, I'll get you the new Barbra Streisand CD. Here, David. Oh God, help us
all.
David, help.
Drop those, drop those. You can make me the happiest man alive if you tell me
you have the
new Barbra Streisand CD. Yes, I do.
Oh, thank God. They got it. They got it. What do you think?
Oh no. We want to be treated like regular people, don't we, Dave?
That ain't gonna happen in your lifetime. Another reason I wanted to work on
Letterman,
Hal Gurney was the director. Hal Gurney was the greatest late night television
director of all
time. He could get, he could get a laugh with his timing of a shot. I became
really aware of this
during the 1987 writer's strike. Dave had a segment on the show called Hal Gurney's
Network Time Killers.
Well, tonight we have, let me get this right now. Chinod E. Cheats Off and his
white rat Rhea
in something they call Rattango. Okay.
Another great Hal Gurney piece was when Albert Brooks was on the show and Dave
would talk to
Hal during the show and one show he addresses Hal, but Hal doesn't answer back.
It's Albert Brooks.
Why exactly are we showing this? And by the way, Hal, you sound a little
strange.
I sound different because I am sick. Now, please, David, trust me, do not come
back here.
Please, we are sweating back here. Hal, you know, you can't fool me. I'm
getting the
distinct impression that something is very, very wrong in the control room, Hal.
David, this is not what it looks like. Yeah.
Let me explain to you something. I made this movie Defending Your Life. Right.
And it is just so important to me that when my publicist said that you don't
show clips anymore,
I just had to get a clip on. Yeah. You would understand that.
We, we show clips all the time. No, you don't.
We are showing a couple tonight. We showed a couple last night. We do it all
the time.
No. You could have come on like a guest.
She said you. Instead of this heinous act of terrorism.
I didn't do this part. Is that true?
I'm not denying I came in here, but they were like this when I got here.
Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Now, my publicist said you haven't shown a clip for a year.
No, no, that's wrong. We show them all the time. You could have shown a clip,
Albert.
So I have the worst publicist in New York City. I'm just pissed.
No, don't. Don't be hard on yourself for no mistakes. All right.
I got to finish up the show here. Listen, don't take this out on the movie.
This was my mistake.
No problem. We all make mistakes. Did you see any of the clip out there?
Yeah, yeah. It played great in here. Yeah, it sounded like it was getting a lot
of laughs.
It's, Hal, was it great? Okay. All right.
One of the fun things on the show was occasionally Dave would take a camera and
crew
and talk to staff members about what they did on their holidays.
Did you get anything cool for Christmas? No, we didn't really do anything. We
just
made a special outfit for the dog.
You and the wife got to get some help.
Okay. So one of the more satisfying things that I've done recently is I was
working on the
Mark Twain prize when Julia Louis-Dreyfus was being honored. I pitched this
idea where
the show has to go and get the award from Letterman, who won it the year before.
Yeah. It's the Mark Twain prize. We spoke a week ago.
Your one-year reign is over. We're going to need the award.
Why?
So we can give it to this year's recipient, who it's Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Yeah. She's good. I really like her.
She's very good. She's very funny.
She's very good. Can we have the award, please?
There you go. I just had it buffed. Enjoy. Bye-bye.
Mr. Letterman. Mr. Letterman.
This is the Cable Ace Award. Oh, ship you.
I'm this close to kicking you in the nuts.
Mr. Letterman. This is not it.
This happens every year.
Do anything special for New Year's Eve?
We just made a special outfit for our dog.
I've seen that outfit somewhere before that looks very, very familiar to me.
Should all the quake be forgot.
Hey, there's only two minutes left in 94.