Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Stage Manager Eddie Valk | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-03-28T15:09:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Stage Manager Eddie Valk | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-28. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Stage Manager Eddie Valk | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-28. Transcript available.

Hi, my name is Eddie Valk, and I worked at The Late Show from 2000 until 2015.
I started off as an intern in the production department.
I did cue cards, and then I was a stage manager.
Towards the end of the show, when I was a stage manager out on the floor with
Dave,
Don Rickles was a guest.
And for some reason, I must have distracted Don, and he made a comment to me.
And I didn't know how awesome it was to be razzed by him at the time,
but it's a special moment now to say that, you know, Don Rickles gave me a
little bit of crap.
We always had a good time, but I had a thing with him.
It was just an instant. I'm talking to you in case you move up to over here.
Anyway, what the hell is your job? You go bad when you're standing there? What
happened?
Kid's standing there, put a stick on his ass, and you've got a lollipop.
It's Eddie. Don't worry, Eddie, you're fine.
One of the first times I was on the show, Spider-Man had just been re-released.
The Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, it was a huge deal.
And we did a whole week of Spider-Man bits.
Can a guy dressed as Spider-Man hail a taxi?
So I went on to the street, dressed as Spider-Man, and I had to try to hail a
taxi cab down.
So I'm jumping around on the floor, doing all these moves,
and in the commercial break, one of the stage managers says,
we need you to be more Spider-Man and less monkey.
And then the next day, it was, can a guy not dressed as Spider-Man hail a taxi?
So I was out on the street on Broadway doing all these crazy monkey slash
Spider-Man moves.
Tony Hawk was on at the time too, so for another segment, Dave was like,
why don't you go be Spider-Man on Tony Hawk's Ram?
Okay.
All right, that's enough right there.
That's a moment right there.
All right.
All right, what do you think, Paul?
Is that anything?
That's nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I was, can a guy dressed as Nightcrawler hail a cab.
I was dressed in a horse costume, and that one was special because it
progressed to Dave
feeding me lines through an IFB, and it was just one of the coolest memories
that I have
because this is Dave Letterman feeding you lines to say to people on the
streets of Broadway.
You ever spend any time talking to a horse?
You ever spend any time talking to a horse?
Not much.
Not much?
Okay, hit the road.
All right, hit the road.
This is the nasty guy in a horse suit.
I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't stand there.
Sorry, ma'am, you're not allowed to stand there.
You're not allowed.
It's the law.
It's the law.
Mayor Bloomberg.
Mayor Bloomberg.
Mayor Bloomberg.
Get out.
Get out, or I'm going to have to write you up.
Get out, or else I'm going to have to write you up.
Thank you.
All right, thanks.
Thanks a lot.
One of the remotes that we did was top 10 things you don't want to hear from a
guy dressed as
blank.
There would be a van, and there was a hidden camera inside of the van, and the
writer in
the van giving me the lines to say to the people.
Number four.
Hey, did you call me Kermit, you son of a bitch?
Hey.
That's right.
I called him Kermit.
Number three.
My green skin doesn't look half as bad as your hairpiece.
Thank you very much.
It's the Hulk.
Number two.
Frankenstein had a fling with my mom in the mid-70s.
Uh-huh.
And the number one thing you don't want to hear from a guy dressed as the Hulk.
Here we go.
Buddy, do me a favor.
You see the Jolly Green Giant?
Tell him if he goes near my wife again, I'm going to shove a can of corn niblets
up his
ass.
Early on, I would often be in skits.
And the thing about being in a skit was it was so nerve-wracking, but at the
same time
so unbelievably cool to be in a sketch.
And so I got to be in a cold open once with Dave.
Dave kind of went off and ad-libbed a line.
And I totally flubbed it and just laughed hysterically in his face and ruined
it.
You know, Paris Hilton's on the show tonight.
Uh-huh.
How do I look?
Like a guy with no shot.
You say that one more time, I'll kill you.
One of the other early on things I did was we were in Rupert's and we were
supposed to
be eating some kind of new taco shell that was either recalled for E. coli or
some kind
of bacteria.
Are you ready to go?
Yeah, I'm ready to go.
All right, any time.
Unwrap it and see what happens.
Here's Ed from Rockaway.
We're going to be eating the Taco Bell Chalupa, unwrapping it.
It looks delicious.
Wonderful ingredients.
All right, good.
Tasty?
Yeah, good.
Feel all right?
Everything good?
Yeah, I feel fine.
It's actually not that bad.
Eat as much as you like.
Ed, be my guest.
Knock yourself out.
All right.
Looks pretty good, doesn't it, Rupert?
Yeah, it's not bad.
Looks great.
Yeah.
Wait a minute.
What's the matter?
Oh, it burns!
Ed?
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, my God.
Are you all right?
Oh, my God.
Oh, it burns!
Oh, my God.
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, my God.
Oh, it burns!
Must have been...
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, you know, Ed, there are no losers on would you like to try a Taco Bell Chalupa.
What do we have for him, girls?
Bring it around.
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Oh, it burns!
Little Belly Platter, Ross, and the Prisoner and Egg Cooker.
We would have on the show the Piedmont Bird Callers.
It was the day after the Piedmont Bird Callers.
They decided to do Monkey Callers.
This was a scripted bit where we were Monkey Callers.
I was the setup guy.
And was I right?
There seemed like an endless variety of monkeys, really?
Yeah, there's a ton of monkeys.
I mean, there's millions to choose from, but you just kind of pick with what
works.
And what's more fun than a ton of monkeys?
Am I right?
Oh, he's got a thing.
He's using a thing in his mouth there.
Putting a thing in.
Yeah.
See, I didn't know that.
Do you need the thing to do that?
It helps a little bit with the noise.
It seems like you could probably almost have done that without the thing.
It's just an interesting little thing that just gives it a little more tweak to
this.
Well, maybe that's where you're second runner-up.
Probably.
Nice job, though.
And then Fetter came out.
And Fetter started doing his Monkey Call, and then all hell broke loose.
Get him out of here.
Get him out of here.
Are you all right?
Put some pressure.
Put some pressure on that.
Yeah, keep some pressure on that.
I'll tell you.
We won't be doing that again.
You can go.
Rod Blagojevich was on, and he was on because he was in trouble for trying to
sell a Senate seat.
And he came out, and very quickly on, he expressed to Dave how excited he was
to be on the show.
And then Dave had my favorite line of all time.
It was so quick.
It was so fast and so true.
And I just, it's a memory I always have.
I could just hear Dave saying that, and it makes me laugh every time.
Why exactly are you here?
Honest to God.
Well, you know, I've been wanting to be on your show in the worst way for the
longest time.
Well, you're on in the worst way.
Believe me.
That's right.
I don't get around that.
I one time got a phone call from the director, Jerry Foley.
It was like a Wednesday morning.
He's like, you know what's so beautiful this time of year?
Alaska.
I was like, huh?
And so myself and his segment producer went to Alaska to Sarah Palin's hometown
of Wasilla
to do a top 10 with 10 residents of Wasilla, Alaska.
Sometimes Sarah calls John McCain grandpa.
Yeah, see there, right there, a surprising fact.
Number nine, grasshopper aviation pilot Dave Glenn.
She stole that sexy librarian look from me.
I knew it.
I knew it.
Number six, private music teacher Anna Hartman.
Favorite meal, moose nuggets and beaver jerky.
So another remote that I went out for, this guy built a Volkswagen and then he
put rocket
engines on either the sides or the back.
And how fast can you go when you turn that baby on?
It's hard to say because I just pinned the Speedo at 140 miles an hour, laugh
hysterically
and then hope the cops don't nail me.
Yeah.
All right, maybe we could circle around back and take a look at the jet engine
that Ron put
in that car.
Okay.
There we go.
So you have an air screen at the inlet.
It draws from the cabin.
So I have to have both windows down in the sunroof open or it'll suck me dry.
Then I have mine in high school.
One of the little known benefits of having a jet engine in your car.
Oh, that was dramatic.
Oh, now he's, oh my God.
I just pray to God the big shots in Detroit are watching tonight because
nothing will put
the American automobile manufacturers back on their feet faster than coming out
with a line
of jet powered cars.
Am I right?
Yeah, I'm telling you.
To hell with those hybrid cars.
So another one of the remotes I got to do a couple of times, this gentleman
would grow
these giant pumpkins and one time we blew it up on 53rd Street and then the
idea was let's
take it to the beach on Coney Island.
There's so many things that you think it's not like your normal everyday office
job where it's like okay I'm going to punch some numbers and I'm going to get
out at five o'clock it's like you're going to wake up and they're going to say
you're going to go to Coney Island and blow up a pumpkin today.
Is everybody ready?
Yes.
They're ready to go.
No, no, no.
I wasn't.
No, I wasn't.
I know you folks are ready.
I was thinking more in terms of the people in the blast zone.
How much stuff are we going to use?
How much stuff?
Well, we got a lot of stuff in there, Dave.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We got a lot of stuff in there.
We got a lot of stuff in there, Dave.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We got a lot of stuff in there, Dave.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Please don't get too technical now because anytime you're ready, take it away.
Here goes the big pumpkin.
Here we go.
Three, two, one.
The show back from 9/11.
So obviously 9/11 was a difficult time and a difficult time in the
entertainment business,
but it was especially difficult for me because at the time my dad was an active
firefighter.
New York City Fire Department working on the pile and part of the relief
efforts.
And so when we were back to work, you know, everybody was nice enough and kind
enough to
say, oh, you know, has your dad okay?
Making sure he's okay.
And it was really special to feel like welcome to the Late Show family.
But when we did the show that day, no one knew what Dave was going to say.
I was just like marveled at how he spoke from the heart and how he was so
touched and thankful
to the rescue workers.
And for him to navigate that so beautifully and so eloquently was very, very
special.
And it's something I'll remember always.
The 20 years that we've been here in New York City, we've worked closely with
the police officers
and the firefighters.
The 20 years that we've been here in New York City, we've been here in New York
City.
And fortunately, most of us don't really have to think too much about what
these men and women
do on a daily basis.
And the phrase New York's finest and New York's bravest, you know, did it mean
anything to
us personally firsthand?
Well, maybe, hopefully, but probably not.
But boy, it means something now, doesn't it?
They put themselves in harm's way to protect people like us.
And the men and women from the firefighters and the police department who are
lost are going
to be missed by this city for a very, very long time.
And my hope for myself and everybody else, not only in New York, but everywhere,
is that
we never, ever take these people for granted.
Absolutely never take them for granted.
Uh, excuse me, Mr. Letterman?
Oh, hi.
Hey, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.
Oh, thank you very much.
Yeah.
But you know, my birthday's in April.
Oh, I thought it was today, you know, 666, the devil's birthday.
Yeah.
Well, have a good show.
Well, have a good show.