Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Associate Director Randi Grossack | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-02-21T16:09:30.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Associate Director Randi Grossack | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Associate Director Randi Grossack | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-02-21. Transcript available.

Hi, my name is Randi Grosak as associate director on Late Show with David
Letterman. I started
after the show came to CBS when Peefanovich retired and was on it till the end.
Shortly
after I started was when Madonna was on the show. As we know, Madonna just used
the F-word and was
cursing at everybody. And I was up in the edit room getting the show ready for
air and had to
bleep out all of her fucks. Spent the rest of the night in a panic thinking
that maybe I missed one,
maybe it wasn't bleeped enough. Things that were written comedy that needed to
be blurred,
we would pre-blur and just roll a copy to the audience where the person was
naked and then drop
in the blurred version. Dave loves the Madonna bicycling through Central Park
naked joke. So we
would have this blonde riding a bicycle that you needed to blur. As years went
by, the blur got
bigger because you could show less of what you could previously show. We had a
naked guy and a
teeter-totter that aired all the time. I don't remember why, but he needed to
be blurred. One
of the remotes I got to shoot was with Andy Kindler. Great guy, funny comedian,
great to work with, grew up in Queens. So we instantly had this bond. And we
went to Las Vegas to shoot with Hugh Hefner. They were opening a Playboy. It's
very awkward and weird and creepy. And then Hugh comes in and it gets even more
creepy. You don't want to be standing anywhere near him.
Do you think any playmate would find me attractive? And with my look here?
I think quite frankly that... Could you not laugh? Are we going to party
tonight? You and me?
Yeah. Probably not. To all the guys I went to high school with, you can kiss my
ass. Check it out.
I'd like to propose a toast to the eventual complete disarmament of the nuclear
program in North Korea.
Woo!
To women who wouldn't give me the time of day unless the camera was rolling.
Yeah!
There was a time John McCain was supposed to be on the show. He canceled on us
last minute. They were scrambling to replace him. They got Keith Obermann to
come in.
One of the things I did as associate director, I would always keep an eye on
what was going on with the news. So I always had different feeds coming into
the CBS building.
When McCain bailed on us, I had the CBS news line dialed in. And so we were
able to watch what was going on.
The show starts. Keith Obermann's on. He and Dave are talking. I look up. I see
John McCain walk onto the set and he's getting makeup.
And I mention it because I'm on a headset with Barbara Gaines. Barbara tells
Dave. Dave says, "Are you kidding?"
When John McCain -- and he was nice enough to call me on the phone and said he
was racing back to Washington.
Yeah.
And our people here were told, "So serious, he's getting on a plane immediately
and racing back to Washington."
And now we've just been told -- here, take a look. Do we have it on the thing?
This is going live. There he is right there.
He doesn't seem to be racing to the airport, does he?
This -- this just gets uglier and uglier. I'm feeling bad for the man to have
participated in -- in this.
I mean, you can -- first of all, the road to the White House runs right through
me.
That always has. Always has. Always will.
I wonder if he'll mention me. Hey, John, I got a question.
You need a ride to the airport? We used to do these pieces called Biff
Henderson's America.
We were going to a small town north of San Francisco. It's September 10th. We
fly to San Francisco.
We picked up the Winnebago. We drove about an hour and a half north to the
small town we were going to shoot in.
Went for dinner. Woke up the next morning on 9/11 to watch the horror that was
coming out of New York.
We don't know what to do. We talk to New York and they say, "Just come home."
And everyone desperately wants to get back to New York. And we decide we'll
never get a flight.
We could be stuck here for two weeks. We don't know what'll happen.
So we decide that we want to drive back. And we were on the road for like 18
hours a day.
Biff and I are in the back seat. I had the giant map. We took Route 80 the
whole way back.
Back of the car was disgusting. It's food wrappers and wine bottles and Red
Bull and hair standing up on
the top of their heads. Took us four nights, but we made it back in time for
Dave's first show.
God bless you for sticking in here and showing up tonight because a lot of
people would have
thought, "Well, maybe it's not appropriate." And I know you rised any occasion
and I was very happy
and very proud of you for being here. What do you mean not appropriate?
A lot of people would have just thought, "Well, maybe I'll just stay at home."
I wasn't certain that
it was appropriate to be back on the air either. No, well, we talked about that
just briefly today,
and I think it is time for you to come back. I think the American people want
to see you again.
Oh, sure. We're not going to do the same kind of a show, but they got to see
you, Dave. Got to see you.
Do you think Kathy Lee will come back?
There is somebody who could end this in a hurry. I know.
In 1998, I went to Nagano for the Olympics with Dave's mom and Biff and Carolyn.
The beauty of
Nagano is we were the other side of the clock, so we would spend the whole day
shooting. I would feed
in the footage that we shot all day, go back to the hotel room for about two
hours, sleep,
wake up for the check-in the next, in the middle of the night.
Hi, David.
Now, I'm here with our good friend Bruce Willis. Say hello to Bruce Willis.
Hi, Bruce.
Hi, Mom.
Kind of a high-spirited exchange.
All right, Mom, whatever you need to do, take it away. All I know is it's a
skiing monkey.
Come on down, Momoko.
We knew right away that George W. was going to be a goldmine for comedy. First
thing I did every morning
was get a list of where George W. Bush would be speaking that day or whatever
event he would be doing. And I made it my mission in life to record everything
he was doing.
We would record every speech, every event, take the tapes, and send them to Tom
Ruprecht.
He developed great moments in presidential speeches.
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
There was a speech that George W. was making from his office, and we
immediately saw George W. start the speech, and he went on for 15, 20 seconds,
and then looked up and realized he wasn't on air and stopped speaking.
That was one of the best clips I've ever found in my life.
The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions, and in recent weeks Americans
have seen those emotions on display, on the streets of major cities.
When we taped the shows, we would isolate cameras every night. We would record
every camera that was being shot so that we would have the ability to use them
while we were editing.
George W. Bush was a guest on the show. We stopped for commercial. Dave was
talking to Maria Pope. George W. Bush picked up her shawl and cleaned his
glasses with them.
Every commercial break is a production meeting. You've witnessed a production
meeting and then last night we're going to show you now what you didn't see it
had occurred during a commercial, and keep your eye on George W. Bush. He's
sitting in this chair, you'll see our producer Maria Pope come here, Corky, I
think you came up to the desk.
Tony, you're not supposed to come up to the desk. And if I see you on that videotape
anywhere near the desk, there's going to be real trouble. But there's a cadre
of people and a lot of activity, but keep your eye on the candidate, the
governor, seated right here. I'll be the duck-like looking guy in the middle.
This happened last night on our show during a commercial. You didn't see it at
home. Here, all right, roll it now. Watch the governor. All right, look at this.
What is he doing? What is he doing? What was? Examining the fabric? What was
that? What was he doing? Cleaning up his glasses. Cleaned his glasses? Come on
over here, honey. I need a chamois. Is that really what he did?
When I first started with the show, Hal Gurney was the director. Hal retired,
Jerry Foley took over, and they both directed everything that went on. But
there was one day when Foley had a family situation and couldn't be there to
direct the show, and I was asked to sit down and direct, which was the scariest,
most exciting thing I've ever done.
And it's just when that music starts playing and you roll the opening animation,
you have to be tuned to Dave and figuring out everything he's doing. The guest
lineup for that day was Robin Williams, who you never knew what you were going
to get with Robin Williams, and he comes in and he's running around the stage
and suddenly I'm cutting everything everywhere and just keeping my fingers
crossed that, you know, you don't miss anything that's going to happen.
And then Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks sang Landslide, which is one of my
favorite songs, and it was beautiful. And the way the cameramen work, they made
it so easy for someone who had never done this before.
And then after the show was over, Dave came into the control room and shook my
hand and thanked me for sitting down and doing the show.
Well, I've been afraid of changing 'cause I, I built my life around you. But
time makes you bolder. Children get older and I'm getting older, too.
We had the musical guests on every night and Courtney Love was a guest on the
show. And she came out and she was enjoying herself a little bit. She
desperately wanted a cigarette and she kept yelling for a cigarette and yelling
for a cigarette. She finally got one and they light a cigarette. Next thing you
see, she's ripping her shirt off and rehearsing topless.
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling from glen to glen and down the
mountainside. Oh, Drew, you've had it. But I'll be there until...
Thank you very much. Very sweet of you. We're going to lose our liquor license.
In 1994, the show was going to L.A. to do a week's worth of shows. We did a
tour of L.A.
Dave was licking motor oil from a car and we spent the day with Zsa Zsa. That
was insane and crazy.
Then her husband was standing there the whole time and every time the car
stopped, the makeup and hair people would be all over Zsa Zsa. They would swarm
onto her.
her. Zsa Zsa would like a Filet-O-Fish sandwich. What kind of wine do you have?
Zsa Zsa, what do you think of that? Look at her pounding down those fries. Zsa
Zsa loves her fries. Now what about gravy? Can we get gravy? On one of the
trips to LA we did a shoot with Florence Henderson and then somehow we wound up
on the roof
of a restaurant in downtown LA and you blink your eyes and all of a sudden Tom
Selleck comes walking into the shot. Just absolutely gorgeous and tall and Tom
Sellecky and it was an amazing moment. That's Florence Henderson. This is
amazing. It's Florence Henderson buying music. There's a celebrity right over
there. I knew it. Hi Tom. Dave Letterman. Nice to see you. No, don't get up.
Don't get up. You enjoying your meal? Yeah, it's great. What are you having? I'm
having pizza. Wow, that looks great.
How are you? Nice to see you. And running right through the middle of this area
is the Avenue of the Stars. What the hell is that? Jeez. Are you all right? Oh,
hi Tom. How are you? How'd I do? Oh, you were great. Wasn't he? He was good,
wasn't he? Oh, wait a second. I'm sorry. I forgot your flowers.
We shot in London for a week. That was amazing. We ran into this guy in a local
bar somewhere in London named Clancy and he had had his fill that day and maybe
a little more so. Clancy enjoyed a good drink. Suddenly we're walking around
the streets with plates of food and China and Clancy and Dave. I don't know how
it all happened, but it worked.
They just had a pork chop for breakfast. You had a pork chop for breakfast.
Yeah. What are you guys doing today?
Getting drunk. On the beer, on the beer, on the beer. Can you make me a pork
chop? Just grill one up. Clancy? Hey, there you are. Hey, look. Look what we
have for you. I've been looking all over for you. A pork chop? Another pork
chop.
No. What do you say? Damn, it's tasty. All right.
How is that Valerio? Yeah.
Oh, that's terrific.
We are the champion.
We are the champion.
We are the champion.
We are the champion.
We are the champion.
We are the champion.
We are the champion.
We are the champion.
To you.
Dave announced his retirement and Barbara Gaines called me and we immediately
started to discuss what we thought might be in a final montage.
We would build all these clip reels. We would look at them and try to figure
out how they would best work together. And then Dave had said that he thought
it should be stills. And we knew the music we wanted because we were going to
do Everlong with the Foo Fighters. And as we started working on it, we could
see how it was working. And it really started to come together. We knew that
that pause where Farrah Fawcett did her wow needed to hit at a certain spot.
At rehearsal, when the Foo Fighters came on stage and they played along to it,
it was like goosebumps because you knew that it worked exactly the way that we
envisioned it. And then seeing Barbara Gaines and Dave Grohl, the minute the
rehearsal was over, how it still worked perfectly was just such a highlight for
me.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
One of my favorite things that happened at the show was I would get to have
lunch every so often with Hal Gurney and Pete Fadovich. If you've never had
lunch with Pete, it's an amazing thing. Same jokes, same stories, same dirty
jokes. I went to a party. There's going to be some sucking and fucking. It's
going to be there, Pete. Just me and you.
I'm going to be right back.
I'm going to be right back.
I'm going to be right back.

Staff Favorite Moments: Associate Director Randi Grossack | Letterman

Hi, my name is Randi Grosak as associate director on Late Show with David
Letterman. I started
after the show came to CBS when Peefanovich retired and was on it till the end.
Shortly
after I started was when Madonna was on the show. As we know, Madonna just used
the F-word and was
cursing at everybody. And I was up in the edit room getting the show ready for
air and had to
bleep out all of her fucks. Spent the rest of the night in a panic thinking
that maybe I missed one,
maybe it wasn't bleeped enough. Things that were written comedy that needed to
be blurred,
we would pre-blur and just roll a copy to the audience where the person was
naked and then drop
in the blurred version. Dave loves the Madonna bicycling through Central Park
naked joke. So we
would have this blonde riding a bicycle that you needed to blur. As years went
by, the blur got
bigger because you could show less of what you could previously show. We had a
naked guy and a
teeter-totter that aired all the time. I don't remember why, but he needed to
be blurred. One
of the remotes I got to shoot was with Andy Kindler. Great guy, funny comedian,
great to work with, grew up in Queens. So we instantly had this bond. And we
went to Las Vegas to shoot with Hugh Hefner. They were opening a Playboy. It's
very awkward and weird and creepy. And then Hugh comes in and it gets even more
creepy. You don't want to be standing anywhere near him.
Do you think any playmate would find me attractive? And with my look here?
I think quite frankly that... Could you not laugh? Are we going to party
tonight? You and me?
Yeah. Probably not. To all the guys I went to high school with, you can kiss my
ass. Check it out.
I'd like to propose a toast to the eventual complete disarmament of the nuclear
program in North Korea.
Woo!
To women who wouldn't give me the time of day unless the camera was rolling.
Yeah!
There was a time John McCain was supposed to be on the show. He canceled on us
last minute. They were scrambling to replace him. They got Keith Obermann to
come in.
One of the things I did as associate director, I would always keep an eye on
what was going on with the news. So I always had different feeds coming into
the CBS building.
When McCain bailed on us, I had the CBS news line dialed in. And so we were
able to watch what was going on.
The show starts. Keith Obermann's on. He and Dave are talking. I look up. I see
John McCain walk onto the set and he's getting makeup.
And I mention it because I'm on a headset with Barbara Gaines. Barbara tells
Dave. Dave says, "Are you kidding?"
When John McCain -- and he was nice enough to call me on the phone and said he
was racing back to Washington.
Yeah.
And our people here were told, "So serious, he's getting on a plane immediately
and racing back to Washington."
And now we've just been told -- here, take a look. Do we have it on the thing?
This is going live. There he is right there.
He doesn't seem to be racing to the airport, does he?
This -- this just gets uglier and uglier. I'm feeling bad for the man to have
participated in -- in this.
I mean, you can -- first of all, the road to the White House runs right through
me.
That always has. Always has. Always will.
I wonder if he'll mention me. Hey, John, I got a question.
You need a ride to the airport? We used to do these pieces called Biff
Henderson's America.
We were going to a small town north of San Francisco. It's September 10th. We
fly to San Francisco.
We picked up the Winnebago. We drove about an hour and a half north to the
small town we were going to shoot in.
Went for dinner. Woke up the next morning on 9/11 to watch the horror that was
coming out of New York.
We don't know what to do. We talk to New York and they say, "Just come home."
And everyone desperately wants to get back to New York. And we decide we'll
never get a flight.
We could be stuck here for two weeks. We don't know what'll happen.
So we decide that we want to drive back. And we were on the road for like 18
hours a day.
Biff and I are in the back seat. I had the giant map. We took Route 80 the
whole way back.
Back of the car was disgusting. It's food wrappers and wine bottles and Red
Bull and hair standing up on
the top of their heads. Took us four nights, but we made it back in time for
Dave's first show.
God bless you for sticking in here and showing up tonight because a lot of
people would have
thought, "Well, maybe it's not appropriate." And I know you rised any occasion
and I was very happy
and very proud of you for being here. What do you mean not appropriate?
A lot of people would have just thought, "Well, maybe I'll just stay at home."
I wasn't certain that
it was appropriate to be back on the air either. No, well, we talked about that
just briefly today,
and I think it is time for you to come back. I think the American people want
to see you again.
Oh, sure. We're not going to do the same kind of a show, but they got to see
you, Dave. Got to see you.
Do you think Kathy Lee will come back?
There is somebody who could end this in a hurry. I know.
In 1998, I went to Nagano for the Olympics with Dave's mom and Biff and Carolyn.
The beauty of
Nagano is we were the other side of the clock, so we would spend the whole day
shooting. I would feed
in the footage that we shot all day, go back to the hotel room for about two
hours, sleep,
wake up for the check-in the next, in the middle of the night.
Hi, David.
Now, I'm here with our good friend Bruce Willis. Say hello to Bruce Willis.
Hi, Bruce.
Hi, Mom.
Kind of a high-spirited exchange.
All right, Mom, whatever you need to do, take it away. All I know is it's a
skiing monkey.
Come on down, Momoko.
We knew right away that George W. was going to be a goldmine for comedy. First
thing I did every morning
was get a list of where George W. Bush would be speaking that day or whatever
event he would be doing. And I made it my mission in life to record everything
he was doing.
We would record every speech, every event, take the tapes, and send them to Tom
Ruprecht.
He developed great moments in presidential speeches.
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
There was a speech that George W. was making from his office, and we
immediately saw George W. start the speech, and he went on for 15, 20 seconds,
and then looked up and realized he wasn't on air and stopped speaking.
That was one of the best clips I've ever found in my life.
The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions, and in recent weeks Americans
have seen those emotions on display, on the streets of major cities.
When we taped the shows, we would isolate cameras every night. We would record
every camera that was being shot so that we would have the ability to use them
while we were editing.
George W. Bush was a guest on the show. We stopped for commercial. Dave was
talking to Maria Pope. George W. Bush picked up her shawl and cleaned his
glasses with them.
Every commercial break is a production meeting. You've witnessed a production
meeting and then last night we're going to show you now what you didn't see it
had occurred during a commercial, and keep your eye on George W. Bush. He's
sitting in this chair, you'll see our producer Maria Pope come here, Corky, I
think you came up to the desk.
Tony, you're not supposed to come up to the desk. And if I see you on that videotape
anywhere near the desk, there's going to be real trouble. But there's a cadre
of people and a lot of activity, but keep your eye on the candidate, the
governor, seated right here. I'll be the duck-like looking guy in the middle.
This happened last night on our show during a commercial. You didn't see it at
home. Here, all right, roll it now. Watch the governor. All right, look at this.
What is he doing? What is he doing? What was? Examining the fabric? What was
that? What was he doing? Cleaning up his glasses. Cleaned his glasses? Come on
over here, honey. I need a chamois. Is that really what he did?
When I first started with the show, Hal Gurney was the director. Hal retired,
Jerry Foley took over, and they both directed everything that went on. But
there was one day when Foley had a family situation and couldn't be there to
direct the show, and I was asked to sit down and direct, which was the scariest,
most exciting thing I've ever done.
And it's just when that music starts playing and you roll the opening animation,
you have to be tuned to Dave and figuring out everything he's doing. The guest
lineup for that day was Robin Williams, who you never knew what you were going
to get with Robin Williams, and he comes in and he's running around the stage
and suddenly I'm cutting everything everywhere and just keeping my fingers
crossed that, you know, you don't miss anything that's going to happen.
And then Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks sang Landslide, which is one of my
favorite songs, and it was beautiful. And the way the cameramen work, they made
it so easy for someone who had never done this before.
And then after the show was over, Dave came into the control room and shook my
hand and thanked me for sitting down and doing the show.
Well, I've been afraid of changing 'cause I, I built my life around you. But
time makes you bolder. Children get older and I'm getting older, too.
We had the musical guests on every night and Courtney Love was a guest on the
show. And she came out and she was enjoying herself a little bit. She
desperately wanted a cigarette and she kept yelling for a cigarette and yelling
for a cigarette. She finally got one and they light a cigarette. Next thing you
see, she's ripping her shirt off and rehearsing topless.
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling from glen to glen and down the
mountainside. Oh, Drew, you've had it. But I'll be there until...
Thank you very much. Very sweet of you. We're going to lose our liquor license.
In 1994, the show was going to L.A. to do a week's worth of shows. We did a
tour of L.A.
Dave was licking motor oil from a car and we spent the day with Zsa Zsa. That
was insane and crazy.
Then her husband was standing there the whole time and every time the car
stopped, the makeup and hair people would be all over Zsa Zsa. They would swarm
onto her.
her. Zsa Zsa would like a Filet-O-Fish sandwich. What kind of wine do you have?
Zsa Zsa, what do you think of that? Look at her pounding down those fries. Zsa
Zsa loves her fries. Now what about gravy? Can we get gravy? On one of the
trips to LA we did a shoot with Florence Henderson and then somehow we wound up
on the roof
of a restaurant in downtown LA and you blink your eyes and all of a sudden Tom
Selleck comes walking into the shot. Just absolutely gorgeous and tall and Tom
Sellecky and it was an amazing moment. That's Florence Henderson. This is
amazing. It's Florence Henderson buying music. There's a celebrity right over
there. I knew it. Hi Tom. Dave Letterman. Nice to see you. No, don't get up.
Don't get up. You enjoying your meal? Yeah, it's great. What are you having? I'm
having pizza. Wow, that looks great.
How are you? Nice to see you. And running right through the middle of this area
is the Avenue of the Stars. What the hell is that? Jeez. Are you all right? Oh,
hi Tom. How are you? How'd I do? Oh, you were great. Wasn't he? He was good,
wasn't he? Oh, wait a second. I'm sorry. I forgot your flowers.
We shot in London for a week. That was amazing. We ran into this guy in a local
bar somewhere in London named Clancy and he had had his fill that day and maybe
a little more so. Clancy enjoyed a good drink. Suddenly we're walking around
the streets with plates of food and China and Clancy and Dave. I don't know how
it all happened, but it worked.
They just had a pork chop for breakfast. You had a pork chop for breakfast.
Yeah. What are you guys doing today?
Getting drunk. On the beer, on the beer, on the beer. Can you make me a pork
chop? Just grill one up. Clancy? Hey, there you are. Hey, look. Look what we
have for you. I've be