Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Head Carpenter Harold Larkin | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-06-13T15:07:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Head Carpenter Harold Larkin | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Head Carpenter Harold Larkin | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-13. Transcript available.

Hi, I'm Harold Larkin, and I was a head carpenter at the Ed Sullivan Theater
for the Late Show
with David Letterman from late 95 until the show finally came down.
When I was 19, I was working at NBC, and I worked on different shows.
The Today Show, Saturday Night Live, and a lot of Late Night with David Letterman.
And there was a gag from the night before where somebody yanked a tablecloth
out from
under a table filled with stuff.
And the next day, as Dave has wanted to do, he wanted to do the gag over again,
but make it funnier.
Prop Man asked me and another fellow, Steve Adler, who happened to be working
in props that day,
if we would carry the table out during the show.
I still remember that really well because it made me sick to my stomach before
I did it.
And I'll be happy to do what I can to recreate that moment.
Could we have the table and the place settings and the tablecloth out here?
Well, look, apparently the Vienna Boys Choir has taken a powder.
I'll be darned.
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you so much.
All right, here is pretty much the way Dudley did it.
And they also did this in a motion picture, tablecloth, place setting.
Thank you very much.
It's all in the wrists.
I was working in the outside prop department at CBS for the Late Show, and I
heard that the head carpenter was going to retire.
This was a Friday.
About an hour later, I went in the elevator and met Bob Fowler, who was the
studio supervisor for the show.
And he asked me if I wanted the head carpenter's job.
And I was shocked for a minute.
And I probably mumbled some words and finally said, sure, absolutely.
When do I start?
And he said, it's probably best if you start tonight because you'll be the head
carpenter starting Monday morning.
I came in on Monday.
They start talking about doing this high dive gag where there's going to be a
person that jumps off the top of the Ed Sullivan Theater into a big pool.
New York City at that point was in a drought, so we couldn't just open a hydrant
and fill the pool.
So the water trucks go upstate New York to fill up in a lake that was filled
with muck and mire and sand and whatever.
Nike became a sponsor for this gag, and there was a giant Nike swoosh in the
bottom of this pool.
We filled the pool up.
You couldn't see it.
I'll let you in on a little secret.
Nike, you know, the athletic sportswear company, is paying for the whole thing.
They built the tank.
By the way, we've had New York City shut down for the last week while they
built that tank.
There's the tank.
They couldn't just drag one up from SeaWorld.
We had to have our own tank built.
Nike has paid for the whole thing.
Very, very generous.
We went to them.
We had the idea.
The woman jumping off the building.
They said, great, whatever we can do, we'll pay.
And it was, you know, it was kind of a pricey item.
That tank, you go to Builder's Emporium, start pricing those tanks.
There, it's a pricey item.
So, so the Nike shoe company, they said, well, okay, in return, all we would
like for the
money we're laying out is if you could just, the bottom of the tank, paint our
little, you
know, that little, yep, that little thing, yep, the hell is, yep, yep, we said,
sure, we
can do that.
We can handle that.
And so we did.
We painted it on the bottom of the tank.
And well, ladies and gentlemen, being that it's New York City water.
You, I'm telling you.
I can't see a thing.
It's down there.
Technically.
They painted it on the bottom.
Somewhere at the bottom of the tank is one of those, yeah.
Of course, also being that it's New York City, there's a possibility that it
was stolen.
But that's a whole other story, ladies and gentlemen.
This is what we had to paint on the bottom of the pool to get Nike to pick up
the bill
here.
That's empty.
That's empty.
Here now is what the thing looks like full of water.
There, huh?
Where did, where the hell it go?
$100,000, we didn't get to see the dam.
Ah, too bad.
Here's a little of the water right there.
Oh, I tell you what, we'll pick up the whole thing, Dave.
Just put that little Nike deal on the bottom.
Okay.
Get that for you right there.
One summer we decided that there was going to be a giant stunt.
We rented a crane that held a platform and we had a couple of ramps and this
thing was,
it was all fake.
None of it was ever meant to work or be real.
As with most jokes, it was really for the people that worked there.
We thought it was funny.
Now, we see that you're on a motorcycle there and we're going to show people
the obstacle
course.
Let's take a look at that now.
Okay.
First of all, you're going to put the motorcycle on this thing there.
It goes up in the air and then you go off onto the ramp.
You see the ramp?
There's the ramp right there.
From the ramp, the motorcycle goes over these buses.
How many buses are there there, Johnny?
Two buses.
Okay.
And there's one bus and then you come off of that, down a ramp, up a ramp, over
another
ramp, through the hoop of fire, and then down here over the tiger's cage.
Wow.
Look at that.
That's beautiful, isn't it?
That's a little tiger.
My God.
I saw that thing pulling a carriage in Central Park.
What?
Then you'd have something.
Finally up that last ramp and over those cabs and onto the safety matting.
Now, the thing to remember, Johnny, you are, am I correct?
You are not going to be doing this stunt?
That's right, Dave.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, wait, wait, wait, wait.
He will not be doing the stunt.
Well, who will?
No one.
No one's going to do it.
No one will be doing that stunt.
Why do we have it all set up out there?
Talk to others beside myself.
Talk to others.
You don't know?
I have no idea.
I have nothing to do with it.
But look at the tiger.
Look at that tiger.
We flew many, many people on the show.
We had one rigger come in to fly Richard Simmons.
So we were in Richard's room and, you know, Richard's usually wearing patchouli
oil or something.
So he's a little greasy and we've got to get the harness on under his costume
and get it all going.
And he's constantly making jokes.
The man's never off.
It was always interesting when you had to rig Richard to fly.
Folks, here he is, national treasure, America's valentine, Richard Simmons.
We flew Bill Murray once and the rigger and I are there.
We rigged him up and the safety talk consists of, don't turn.
You don't want to turn and have the cables cross over each other.
And he looked at me right there and said, oh, so don't cross the cables.
That would be bad.
I said, right, that would be bad.
I stepped away and the designer looked at me and said, do you realize Bill
Murray just quoted Ghostbusters to you?
And I said, no, what?
And he said, yeah, Bill Murray just said, don't cross the lines.
That would be bad.
I had Bill Murray quote Ghostbusters to me.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Bill Murray.
Bill.
Probably the biggest band setup we ever had was Paul McCartney on the marquee.
We had to put supports underneath the marquee to hold the excess weight.
We get all the way up to the point of rehearsal where the city is now telling
us we better cover up McCartney.
We don't want to cause a riot in the middle of the afternoon.
So we grab whatever we have in the theater for drapes.
And then McCartney proceeds to rehearse behind drapes up on the marquee.
We do the concert.
Everything goes great.
My wife came into the city to stand out on the street and watch McCartney
because she's a huge Beatles fan.
And when McCartney came out and I was introduced to him, I shook his hand, said,
very nice to meet you.
And this is my wife.
And she got to meet Paul McCartney and shake hands with him.
It was a long day, but it was McCartney.
So it was good.
During my years at the late show,
I appeared on camera numerous times.
They seemed to think it was funny to have me bleed.
I would be eating something and then blood would come spurting out.
And the whole idea was for me not to break.
At some point, Dave would interrupt me and I was then going to read the line
and get out of the gag.
The problem was you never knew how long it was going to take Dave to get to you.
And some days he just wanted to let you sit out there and sweat a little bit.
Let's start with Jeff.
All right.
Oh, man, that's crunchy.
Yeah.
It's a crunchy turned up to 11.
Wow.
Now I'll try Peter Pan.
All right.
Moving on to Peter Pan now.
Holy crap.
Talk about taking crunchy to a whole new level.
It's crunch-tastic.
It's crunch-tastic.
Now I'll try Skippy.
Okay, Skippy.
Wow.
It's crunch-tastic is what he said.
Now.
Yeah, Skippy's the crunchiest.
That's the crunchiest.
There was a fire door on the side of the audience that led into an alleyway.
And we would set up a chroma key out in the alleyway.
Dave would always talk over and say, hey, Harold, what's going on outside?
And I'd open the door, and we'd either see people running around, like from
Godzilla or any number of things.
One time, the writers, and I never found out which ones, thought it would be
funny if I opened the door and there was a black hole on the other side.
And the black hole would tear my pants off.
Dave, that planet's enormous.
Yeah.
There are no words to describe its beauty and majesty.
It makes you realize how vast and mysterious our universe truly is.
Oh, no.
There's something very wrong.
What's going on?
Hang on.
Well, Dave, something's happening.
Be careful, for God's sakes.
Move.
Move.
What was that?
You all right?
There was another time.
The gag was what happens in the theater after everyone leaves.
And my part of the gag was going to be I sit in every single seat in the
audience naked.
And I feel real bad for the audience members that were sitting in those seats
that night.
Harold, what happens when you close up the theater every night?
Let's take a look.
I remember.
Oh.
Oh.
All right.
Sorry.
You sit in every one of the seats?
Yes, Dave.
Every chair.
Harold Larkin, ladies and gentlemen.
Nice job.
Thank you.
We had a security guard, Dominic Petrano.
Great guy.
And they wanted us to play hard-nosed security guards.
The joke was a kid sets up a lemonade stand outside the theater.
And Dave, for whatever reason, didn't want the kids to sell a lemonade.
Dear Dave, I was just wondering if you ever thought about having a Kool-Aid
stand outside
your theater.
I don't know.
I don't think it would be such a good idea.
I'm sorry.
No.
I don't think we want a Kool-Aid stand outside the theater.
Mr. Letterman.
Huh?
I'm sorry?
Mr. Letterman?
Yes, Harold.
What is it?
No Kool-Aid stand?
I think not.
Thank you.
No Kool-Aid stand.
All right.
We'll be right back.
All right.
Well, now, wait a minute.
David Letterman sends his regards.
Thank you, General Boss.
And then it became a standard for Dominic and I to do ridiculous things.
I don't want to order the Girl Scout cookies.
Why not?
Do you have an allergy, a food allergy?
No, but last year, there was just a little bit of trouble.
Like what?
Well, it all started.
Oh, wait a minute.
He's going to do it.
He's got a thing now, too.
Paul, there's a couple Girl Scouts here to collect the money for your cookies.
Would you tell them to come back another time?
I still don't have any cash on me.
I don't think they want to wait.
No!
Enjoyed your thin mints, did you?
You should have paid while you had the chance.
Jay Thomas' story is unbelievable.
He would come on the show and tell what was called by Dave the greatest talk
show story ever told.
That it was a story about Jay when he was a younger man, I guess a DJ.
The story is just unreal how Jay gets into an accident and the Lone Rangers,
Clayton Moore, saves the day.
We catch the old bastard and we pull up in front of him and we both jump out,
Mike with his long hair and his stacked heels, me with my white man's afro, and
he goes, what are you doing?
And I said, what am I doing?
I said, what am I doing?
You ran into my car.
He says, I did not.
Oh, yes, you did.
You broke my headlight.
He says, oh, really?
What are you going to do?
Well, I'm going to call the cops.
And the guy says, well, who do you think they're going to believe?
Me or you two hippie freaks and the Lone Ranger gets out from behind?
They'll believe me citizen.
And the guy, I swear to God, the guy goes like this.
I didn't know it was you.
That story was part of the best show that we did every year.
And of course, the meatball on the top of the tree, which became another yearly
event that people kind of look forward to.
The Darlene Love appearance on the show was honestly the highlight of the year
for me.
I would go out in the audience during rehearsal and watch.
And then I started going out during the show to watch this number because with
the audience there, it was electric.
And you kind of look around after a year or two of this happening and you look
around and you see more staff and more crew.
People that have no reason to be anywhere near the stage at that point are in
the back of the house watching Darlene Love.
And she was so sweet and the band was so great.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just it was a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
It was just a highlight of our year.
This is a brand new year 2000 penny.
Let's see if it brings someone luck.
Guess not.
Back to you, Dave.

Staff Favorite Moments: Head Carpenter Harold Larkin | Letterman

Hi, I'm Harold Larkin, and I was a head carpenter at the Ed Sullivan Theater
for the Late Show
with David Letterman from late 95 until the show finally came down.
When I was 19, I was working at NBC, and I worked on different shows.
The Today Show, Saturday Night Live, and a lot of Late Night with David Letterman.
And there was a gag from the night before where somebody yanked a tablecloth
out from
under a table filled with stuff.
And the next day, as Dave has wanted to do, he wanted to do the gag over again,
but make it funnier.
Prop Man asked me and another fellow, Steve Adler, who happened to be working
in props that day,
if we would carry the table out during the show.
I still remember that really well because it made me sick to my stomach before
I did it.
And I'll be happy to do what I can to recreate that moment.
Could we have the table and the place settings and the tablecloth out here?
Well, look, apparently the Vienna Boys Choir has taken a powder.
I'll be darned.
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you so much.
All right, here is pretty much the way Dudley did it.
And they also did this in a motion picture, tablecloth, place setting.
Thank you very much.
It's all in the wrists.
I was working in the outside prop department at CBS for the Late Show, and I
heard that the head carpenter was going to retire.
This was a Friday.
About an hour later, I went in the elevator and met Bob Fowler, who was the
studio supervisor for the show.
And he asked me if I wanted the head carpenter's job.
And I was shocked for a minute.
And I probably mumbled some words and finally said, sure, absolutely.
When do I start?
And he said, it's probably best if you start tonight because you'll be the head
carpenter starting Monday morning.
I came in on Monday.
They start talking about doing this high dive gag where there's going to be a
person that jumps off the top of the Ed Sullivan Theater into a big pool.
New York City at that point was in a drought, so we couldn't just open a hydrant
and fill the pool.
So the water trucks go upstate New York to fill up in a lake that was filled
with muck and mire and sand and whatever.
Nike became a sponsor for this gag, and there was a giant Nike swoosh in the
bottom of this pool.
We filled the pool up.
You couldn't see it.
I'll let you in on a little secret.
Nike, you know, the athletic sportswear company, is paying for the whole thing.
They built the tank.
By the way, we've had New York City shut down for the last week while they
built that tank.
There's the tank.
They couldn't just drag one up from SeaWorld.
We had to have our own tank built.
Nike has paid for the whole thing.
Very, very generous.
We went to them.
We had the idea.
The woman jumping off the building.
They said, great, whatever we can do, we'll pay.
And it was, you know, it was kind of a pricey item.
That tank, you go to Builder's Emporium, start pricing those tanks.
There, it's a pricey item.
So, so the Nike shoe company, they said, well, okay, in return, all we would
like for the
money we're laying out is if you could just, the bottom of the tank, paint our
little, you
know, that little, yep, that little thing, yep, the hell is, yep, yep, we said,
sure, we
can do that.
We can handle that.
And so we did.
We painted it on the bottom of the tank.
And well, ladies and gentlemen, being that it's New York City water.
You, I'm telling you.
I can't see a thing.
It's down there.
Technically.
They painted it on the bottom.
Somewhere at the bottom of the tank is one of those, yeah.
Of course, also being that it's New York City, there's a possibility that it
was stolen.
But that's a whole other story, ladies and gentlemen.
This is what we had to paint on the bottom of the pool to get Nike to pick up
the bill
here.
That's empty.
That's empty.
Here now is what the thing looks like full of water.
There, huh?
Where did, where the hell it go?
$100,000, we didn't get to see the dam.
Ah, too bad.
Here's a little of the water right there.
Oh, I tell you what, we'll pick up the whole thing, Dave.
Just put that little Nike deal on the bottom.
Okay.
Get that for you right there.
One summer we decided that there was going to be a giant stunt.
We rented a crane that held a platform and we had a couple of ramps and this
thing was,
it was all fake.
None of it was ever meant to work or be real.
As with most jokes, it was really for the people that worked there.
We thought it was funny.
Now, we see that you're on a motorcycle there and we're going to show people
the obstacle
course.
Let's take a look at that now.
Okay.
First of all, you're going to put the motorcycle on this thing there.
It goes up in the air and then you go off onto the ramp.
You see the ramp?
There's the ramp right there.
From the ramp, the motorcycle goes over these buses.
How many buses are there there, Johnny?
Two buses.
Okay.
And there's one bus and then you come off of that, down a ramp, up a ramp, over
another
ramp, through the hoop of fire, and then down here over the tiger's cage.
Wow.
Look at that.
That's beautiful, isn't it?
That's a little tiger.
My God.
I saw that thing pulling a carriage in Central Park.
What?
Then you'd have something.
Finally up that last ramp and over those cabs and onto the safety matting.
Now, the thing to remember, Johnny, you are, am I correct?
You are not going to be doing this stunt?
That's right, Dave.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, wait, wait, wait, wait.
He will not be doing the stunt.
Well, who will?
No one.
No one's going to do it.
No one will be doing that stunt.
Why do we have it all set up out there?
Talk to others beside myself.
Talk to others.
You don't know?
I have no idea.
I have nothing to do with it.
But look at the tiger.
Look at that tiger.
We flew many, many people on the show.
We had one rigger come in to fly Richard Simmons.
So we were in Richard's room and, you know, Richard's usually wearing patchouli
oil or something.
So he's a little greasy and we've got to get the harness on under his costume
and get it all going.
And he's constantly making jokes.
The man's never off.
It was always interesting when you had to rig Richard to fly.
Folks, here he is, national treasure, America's valentine, Richard Simmons.
We flew Bill Murray once and the rigger and I are there.
We rigged him up and the safety talk consists of, don't turn.
You don't want to turn and have the cables cross over each other.
And he looked at me right there and said, oh, so don't cross the cables.
That would be bad.
I said, right, that would be bad.
I stepped away and the designer looked at me and said, do you realize Bill
Murray just quoted Ghostbusters to you?
And I said, no, what?
And he said, yeah, Bill Murray just said, don't cross the lines.
That would be bad.
I had Bill Murray quote Ghostbusters to me.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Bill Murray.
Bill.
Probably the biggest band setup we ever had was Paul McCartney on the marquee.
We had to put supports underneath the marquee to hold the excess weight.
We get all the way up to the point of rehearsal where the city is now telling
us we better cover up McCartney.
We don't want to cause a riot in the middle of the afternoon.
So we grab whatever we have in the theater for drapes.
And then McCartney proceeds to rehearse behind drapes up on the marquee.
We do the concert.
Everything goes great.
My wife came into the city to stand out on the street and watch McCartney
because she's a huge Beatles fan.
And when McCartney came out and I was introduced to him, I shook his hand, said,
very nice to meet you.
And this is my wife.
And she got to meet Paul McCartney and shake hands with him.
It was a long day, but it was McCartney.
So it was good.
During my years at the late show,
I appeared on camera numerous times.
They seemed to think it was funny to have me bleed.
I would be eating something and then blood would come spurting out.
And the whole idea was for me not to break.
At some point, Dave would interrupt me and I was then going to read the line
and get out of the gag.
The problem was you never knew how long it was going to take Dave to get to you.
And some days he just wanted to let you sit out there and sweat a little bit.
Let's start with Jeff.
All right.
Oh, man, that's crunchy.
Yeah.
It's a crunchy turned up to 11.
Wow.
Now I'll try Peter Pan.
All right.
Moving on to Peter Pan now.
Holy crap.
Talk about taking crunchy to a whole new level.
It's crunch-tastic.
It's crunch-tastic.
Now I'll try Skippy.
Okay, Skippy.
Wow.
It's crunch-tastic is what he said.
Now.
Yeah, Skippy's the crunchiest.
That's the crunchiest.
There was a fire door on the side of the audience that led into an alleyway.
And we would set up a chroma key out in the alleyway.
Dave would always talk over and say, hey, Harold, what's going on outside?
And I'd open the door, and we'd either see people running around, like from
Godzilla or any number of things.
One time, the writers, and I never found out which ones, thought it would be
funny if I opened the door and there was a black hole on the other side.
And the black hole would tear my pants off.
Dave, that planet's enormous.
Yeah.
There are no words to describe its beauty and majesty.
It makes you realize how vast and mysterious our universe truly is.
Oh, no.
There's something very wrong.
What's going on?
Hang on.
Well, Dave, something's happening.
Be careful, for God's sakes.
Move.
Move.
What was that?
You all right?
There was another time.
The gag was what happens in the theater after everyone leaves.
And my part of the gag was going to be I sit in every single seat in the
audience naked.
And I feel real bad for the audience members that were sitting in those seats
that night.
Harold, what happens when you close up the theater every night?
Let's take a look.
I remember.
Oh.
Oh.
All right.
Sorry.
You sit in every one of the seats?
Yes, Dave.
Every chair.
Harold Larkin, ladies and gentlemen.
Nice job.
Thank you.
We had a security guard, Dominic Petrano.
Great guy.
And they wanted us to play hard-nosed security guards.
The joke was a kid sets up a lemonade stand outside the theater.
And Dave, for whatever reason, didn't want the kids to sell a lemonade.
Dear Dave, I was just wondering if you ever thought about having a Kool-Aid
stand outside
your theater.
I don't know.
I don't think it would be such a good idea.
I'm sorry.
No.
I don't think we want a Kool-Aid stand outside the theater.
Mr. Letterman.
Huh?
I'm sorry?
Mr. Letterman?
Yes, Harold.
What is it?
No Kool-Aid stand?
I think not.
Thank you.
No Kool-Aid stand.
All right.
We'll be right back.
All right.
Well, now, wait a minute.
David Letterman sends his regards.
Thank you, General Boss.
And then it became a standard for Dominic and I to do ridiculous things.
I don't want to order the Girl Scout cookies.
Why not?
Do you have an allergy, a food allergy?
No, but last year, there was just a little bit of trouble.
Like what?
Well, it all started.
Oh, wait a minute.
He's going to do it.
He's got a thing now, too.
Paul, there's a couple Girl Scouts here to collect the money for your cookies.
Would you tell them to come back another time?
I still don't have any cash on me.
I don't think they want to wait.
No!
Enjoyed your thin mints, did you?
You should have paid while you had the chance.
Jay Thomas' story is unbelievable.
He would come on the show and tell what was called by Dave the greatest talk
show story ever told.
That it was a story about Jay when he was a younger man, I guess a DJ.
The story is just unreal how Jay gets into an accident and the Lone Rangers,
Clayton Moore, saves the day.
We catch the old bastard and we pull up in front of him and we both jump out,
Mike with his long hair and his stacked heels, me with my white man's afro, and
he goes, what are you doing?
And I said, what am I doing?
I said, what am I doing?
You ran into my car.
He says, I did not.
Oh, yes, you did.
You broke my headlight.
He says, oh, really?
What are you going to do?
Well, I'm going to call the cop