Name: The Monkees' Peter Tork Talks About Touring With Jimi Hendrix | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-06-12T22:02:39.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Monkees' Peter Tork Talks About Touring With Jimi Hendrix | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Monkees' Peter Tork Talks About Touring With Jimi Hendrix | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-12. Transcript available.

The Monkees' Peter Tork Talks About Touring With Jimi Hendrix | Letterman

- Study these faces, because very shortly,
one of these lucky ladies is going to win
a dream date with former monkey, Peter Tork.
- You must be very excited about tonight.
- I'm thrilled about tonight.
I don't even want to give it away, I'm so thrilled.
- All right, well, let me, as you know,
tonight, ladies and gentlemen,
someone in our studio audience will win a date
with former monkey, Peter Tork.
Now, here's how this works.
Sure, go ahead and applaud if you like.
15 years ago, every girl in the world wanted a date
with one of the monkeys, but there just weren't enough
of those lovable mop tops to go around.
Today, there is a new generation of girls,
and they still want dates with the monkeys,
and who can blame them?
So, Late Night is proud to have the opportunity
to let one lucky girl in our studio audience win a date
with former monkey, Peter Tork.
Ladies and gentlemen, here.
Now, bear with me, girls.
I just have to explain the rules first.
It's something the legal department is making me do.
Before the show, we pre-selected five finalists
for the win-a-date contest.
Their names are sealed in envelopes and will be chosen
by drawing.
So, now, if we may, let's take one more look
at our finalists, who all must be on needles and pins
right now.
I know I am.
All of those folks are the--
Where-- oh, there they are.
Oh, there they are, they--
OK, now, we're going to bring out Mr. Tork right now,
and he's going to select his dream date for the evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, here he is going.
Very excited about all of this.
I'm excited, too, David.
All right, now, may we have the drum, please?
The lovely Marie O'Donnell, ladies and gentlemen.
That's all right, I'll get them half-sold later.
Do we, do we--
Thank you very much, Marie.
Now, do we beat the drum, David?
We, uh, we're going-- I'm going to spin this.
Is that correct?
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
Is that correct?
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
We're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
We're going to spin this.
We're going to spin this.
We're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
We're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right, we're going to spin this.
All right.
All right, let's go a little more, shall we?
Just a little more.
Okay, Peter.
Let me open that for you.
Select the lucky winner of the dream date with Peter Tork,
if you will.
Go ahead.
I know my hand is guided by a power greater than myself.
And here it is.
See, that's funny.
There's no name on the envelope.
No, we'll open it up.
Oh, open it up.
There it is.
It's very exciting here on the David Letterman Show, I must say.
Want me to read that for you?
You want it?
Please.
Yes, all right.
Get ready, ladies.
Esther Pollack.
Come on down!
Get over here.
Congratulations, Esther.
This is Peter Tork.
And it probably goes without saying that you must have been a big Monkees fan,
huh?
Yes.
Let's see.
For everybody else who was not chosen, do not be despondent.
We have Monkees albums for everyone else who was not chosen.
All right.
$1.47 in the clearance bins.
All right.
Now, Esther, well, they've grown up, haven't they?
Steady, David.
Bill Wendel, where is our happy couple going to spend their dream date?
Dave, Peter, and his date will be whisked off to Rockefeller Center's snazzy
green room in the heart of New York City, New York, where they'll watch a taping
of America's fastest growing late night show, Late Night with David Letterman.
Very exciting.
Yeah, Esther and Peter, come on over here.
I know you have a lot to talk about.
We're going over to the dream date of a lifetime.
Thank you, Bill.
Here in the, Esther, this is the green room.
Where are you from?
Florida and St. Louis.
Florida and St. Louis.
At the same time?
All right.
I think Esther's done some time.
Now, I've just come on in here.
This is our actual green room.
Have a seat there, Esther, if you will.
And, Peter, over.
Let me introduce you to your chaperone for the evening.
This is Larry Bud Melman.
And, Peter, do you have a flower for Larry Bud?
Oh, Peter, there you go, Esther.
It's going to be my pleasure, too.
Anything you want.
Waiter, could you step in here?
See to it that these folks get the best of everything, and go ahead and put it
on my tab.
And nothing is too good for you folks tonight.
Congratulations, Esther.
We'll be checking back with you during the course of the evening.
Peter, nice to see you.
We'll be talking with you a little bit later.
Fried chicken is a good night.
Whatever you want.
No limit.
Have a nice time.
And there will be photos and a souvenir album after all of this is over.
My heart is thumping a mile a minute.
We're going to pause now, but we'll be right back with Joe Piscopo.
Yes, there's the happy couple, Esther Pollack and former monkey Peter Tork.
Of course, I guess once you're a monkey, always a monkey.
The former monkey Peter Tork is enjoying his dream date with Esther Pollack,
and we'll be
checking in with those folks again.
Joe, before we talk about, oh, there they are right now.
They seem to be spellbound.
I think they're becoming more than good friends.
My next guest, whom you've actually already met this evening, was a member of a
musical
group that has sold over 36 million records.
Their television series was also a huge success all over the world.
Many, many countries around the world.
It is still seen in most of them, though the band broke up in 1969.
Hard to believe, truly a phenomenon.
Welcome again, Peter Tork.
Peter Tork, how are you?
Hi, David.
Have a lot.
Have a seat, sir.
Thank you.
How do I do?
First of all, how is the big date going?
How are you and Esther getting along?
Famously, it couldn't be better.
I'm just so glad that, I know, I told you it was going to be some extra,
something was
going to guide my hand, and it's true.
It's been one of the, been a high point in my day.
What kind of things are you doing back there?
Well, we have, we've been graciously serving.
Well, there's Esther now.
She's just watching you talk right now.
Hi, Esther.
How are you?
I hope it's, I hope it's all right.
We, you can see that we're having, we were having pizza and chicken.
Oh, yeah.
There's no, no fair too good for us.
I'm really glad that the.
At the height of the success of your television program, I'm sorry, I didn't
mean to catch
you off.
That's quite all right, please.
I didn't have anything to say, I'm sure.
Did you ever, did you ever have a win a date contest for real that one of those
fan magazines
would sponsor?
Yeah, but I lost.
You didn't get to go out with the.
I didn't get the, I didn't get to win the girl, no.
For people who, it's hard to believe people watching don't know about the
television show,
the monkeys and the group and so forth.
How did that begin?
How did the group come together?
How did the show start?
Yeah, well, the, the thing about the group, it's interesting.
It's sort of, when you say the monkeys, you think of a couple of things.
One was a TV show.
One was four actors who played characters with their own names.
Like right there, it says Peter Torquist.
That was the name of the character I played.
Right.
He was really stupid.
But it's all right.
I'm real intelligent, folks.
That's, that's the chaperone there.
Yes, our chaperone.
He's taking good care of Esther.
Yeah, I wasn't worried that maybe you'd make a move on her while you were gone,
but.
Well, Esther is an enormously attractive woman.
There she is.
There she is, yeah.
Yes.
Esther asked me to put in a good word for her.
She said, you noticed that the Losers got albums, but Esther wanted me to make
sure
that she got one for Esther.
Esther will have an album.
You were talking about how you were four actors on your show.
Well, the cast of the show was put together by, by audition.
And I tried out for the part and I got it.
Uh-huh.
Yep.
Now, had you musical experience to that point?
Yes, I had.
I'd been a singer in the Greenwich Village stages for two and a half years,
singing my little
ditties with my banjo and guitar.
Nesmith, Mike Nesmith, my ex-partner.
And if you're watching this, Mike, eat your heart out.
He, uh, he'd been a folk singer and, uh, Mickey and Davey, who were selected,
uh, for their
acting experience, were also musicians, although they weren't, uh, instrumentalists.
You know, we, we, they learned how to play their instruments.
And, uh, when we went on the road, uh, we actually did play our own-
Yeah, now tell me about that.
The show came first and then the, the record started to come, right?
As it were, yeah.
Well, the whole concept, as far as I know, the whole, they don't tell me
everything, folks,
I'll tell you, uh, the whole thing was thought of as a package and, uh, they
selected the
guys and they hired Don Kirshner to make the music, um, and, uh, which he did
and, uh, very
successfully, too.
The records, uh, have, uh, at one point, the Monkees, as a recording project,
outsold
the Beatles.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I find myself, it's real interesting, I find myself taking only very little
credit
for all of that, because one of the things about the project, it serves to
distinguish
between the project and the actors and the, and the crew.
Mm-hmm.
When you said the Monkees on stage, you meant the four actors or musicians or
whatever
we were at the time, but the Monkees, as a whole thing, was a television show
production.
It's, like, you're not the David Letterman show, you're David Letterman
starring in the,
and it's like that kind of a thing.
Now, when, when you, uh, started to become more than a TV show, you became a
musical group.
You had to go out.
That's right.
That's right.
And how, how, what happened when you had to perform the music that had not been
recorded
by you guys to begin with, or, or had it?
We, well, uh, the first two albums were put out pretty much without our help as
instrumentalists.
Mm-hmm.
And we went out on the road, and we did those two, we did most of the songs
from those.
Uh, I'm an experienced musician, I've been, I've been playing, uh, piano and
guitar and
French horn practically continuously since I've been nine years old, and boy am
I winded.
So, it, was it, uh...
Oh, God.
Well...
Was it more difficult than we would imagine it to be, or not quite so difficult?
I don't know.
How difficult do you imagine it to be, David?
I, well, to me, it seems it would be impossible if I had to now suddenly become
a musician
to play music that people had heard me play on a TV show that I never played.
Well, I don't, uh, I don't know, David, did you ever play any music at all?
No, no.
You ever took piano or sang or anything like that?
No, no.
That would be very tough for you.
Yeah, that would be almost tough.
Yeah.
Uh...
On the other hand, but what I, the point I'm trying to make is these guys did
have musical
experience.
Yeah.
Mickey was a group, a lead singer, he was a group all by himself.
Stop.
He was a lead singer for a group called The Missing Links.
Ironic, huh?
Uh, and, uh, David Jones was a singer on Broadway.
And so neither of these guys was, like, musically ber