Name: Tom Hanks Is Going Through A Big Elvis Presley Phase | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-01-23T23:00:16.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tom Hanks Is Going Through A Big Elvis Presley Phase | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-01-23. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tom Hanks Is Going Through A Big Elvis Presley Phase | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-01-23. Transcript available.

Our first guest tonight, a talented gentleman who has starred in such motion
pictures as Splash,
The Money Pit, Nothing in Common, and his latest, co-starring Dan Aykroyd, is
Dragnet.
With all his success, his bio claims that he is still gregarious and approachable.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Tom Hanks.
The crowd goes crazy.
Nice to see you here.
Very nice to be back, sir.
Gregarious and approachable.
Is that true?
Listen, that's how I've been described by, oh, so many people, gregarious.
Approachable, and I'm still trying to figure out just what the heck gregarious
means.
Outgoing?
Is that gregarious?
I think outgoing.
Is that what it is?
You like people and so forth?
Yeah, I guess so.
Not many stars could be described as gregarious.
It's a select few.
I think me.
You?
Elvis.
He was a people person.
The kang of rock and rock.
You like Elvis?
As a matter of fact, I've been going through a major Elvis phase.
It started, I was reading some articles, you know, a 60s weekend.
I had one of those great rock and roll radio stations, and I was trying to
figure out another
format and haven't been able to.
And I went off, and I rented, I was in a video jag, and I rented, really, the
best films of
Elvis Presley, the finest motion pictures Elvis Presley made.
Really, Jailhouse Rock.
Jailhouse Rock, yeah.
And Clambake, really, the two finest of the Elvis films.
And I just, I noticed, this may be a rhetorical question, maybe you'll have the
answer.
Did Elvis forget how to dance the more movies he made?
I don't know.
Have you seen this?
In Jailhouse Rock, he did his own choreography, he's sliding all over the place,
he's coming
down poles, dancing, balancing on chairs.
I'm going to stand up for Clambake.
Uh-huh.
Clambake.
Clambake.
Everybody doing it, Clambake.
It had deteriorated.
It was like, it was like, it was like a, it was like a, like a recessive dance
gene was
in a Presley family or something.
Uh, now you're, you're like one of the busiest men making films today.
Yeah, Dragnet, of course, is open.
Has it opened?
No, it opens next week.
Opens next week.
I don't know, something.
Be a big hit, this thing, a runaway blockbuster.
I hope so, sir.
And, and you've also recently done a film about stand-up comics, right?
Yes, with Sally Field, yes, actually.
And you actually performed as a comedian, right?
I went around to various clubs in Los Angeles.
Where'd you go?
And also here in New York.
I went to the improv.
Uh-huh.
I went to the improv in the Valley.
Uh-huh.
I went to the improv in the Simi Valley.
He's, Bud Friedman's got about nine million improvs all over the place.
He's pumping them out there, getting them in.
But yeah, I went off and did some.
And you know, hecklers, there's only one way to handle them.
How's that?
Oh, yeah, well, you try harder, Kyle.
You know, it's...
That's right.
You can't, you can't...
It takes a while.
Yeah, you can't teach that.
You're born with that.
No, no, you really, well, and you can learn with it.
It's much better than, oh, shut up, stupid, you know.
Or, look at the cow you're with, you know.
That's, uh, that's...
Now, you're, uh, you're a very witty fellow yourself.
Have you ever done...
Well, I'm gregarious as hell.
I'll give you that.
And I find you approachable.
Well, there you go.
But have you ever done stand-up comedy?
No, I never had.
And so it was a necessary part of research.
What were your observations?
It's tough, isn't it?
It's very hard.
Yeah.
You stay up extremely late.
Like, you do a show, oh, well, you do a show hopefully at 10.30.
But more often than not, you get these really lousy slots.
Yeah.
I mean, piece of junk slots.
But, 11.30, 1.25, but, I'm a 10 o'clock guy.
So I automatically, automatically just began complaining.
And so all the comics said, hey, you're really getting this down.
You've really got to complain more than drink tickets and neato stuff like that.
Were you just mortified the first time you got out in front of an audience?
And stank to high heaven.
Yes.
I couldn't believe what was happening.
Yeah.
Something would be desperately wrong if you weren't really scared.
And, two, if you turned out to be great the first time.
Oh, and neither of those things.
Well, one of those things happened.
I was really scared.
It was absolutely horrifying.
It was at Igby's, a club in West.
I also did it here in New York at the Catch a Rising Star and the comic strip.
Fine institutions of higher comedy.
Did you ever get to the point where you were really comfortable with it and you
enjoyed it?
And you thought, well, this might be a really nice way to augment my career
here?
It's a sad life, Dave, in no way, shape, or form did I ever want to do it again.
It's very fun, but it's just hard work.
I mean, as I'm guessing, you know.
Yeah, I went through that.
Yeah, yeah, you did.
You're an institution, Dave.
I am.
And you should be institutionalized.
Thank you.
But seriously, Anton, stay up with us here.
You see that?
Yeah.
You see that?
See?
I'll tell you what.
Now, do you want to share some of the stuff you did from your actor?
No, I just did some.
Oh, that was it?
Oh.
Thank you.
All right.
Then we'll do a commercial and we'll be back here with the gregarious and
approachable fall.
Now, that's the song.
That's, uh, what is that?
Word Up.
Word Up.
And you said you weren't going to do that anymore because why?
Well, because it's become a commercial for Cherry Coke.
Yeah.
It's no longer Word Up, but I couldn't resist.
All right.
Well, it still sounds good.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So, Tom, you're recently in Israel again on a film?
I was working in Israel, yes.
This was about a year ago.
And I felt like a real jerk.
I lost my passport in Israel, which is a real stupid thing to do in any country
in the world,
not just Israel.
Don't leave anywhere without your passport.
You really shouldn't do it.
Funny enough, I got one in three days.
I got a new one right in three days.
Is that right?
It's impossible to do in the United States, but I got a new one in three days.
How did you lose it to begin with?
Well, my folks were over.
We went to the famous ruins of Caesarea.
Anybody know Israel?
The ruins of Caesarea, a very famous place in Ecuador.
A beautiful place, a great land, and the car was left open and...
Well, somebody stole it, you think?
I didn't want to say that because I would not want anybody to think that Israel's
not a
very safe and nice place to go.
Well, probably stolen by an American tourist.
I'm guessing...
That's right.
Well, let's hope so because it was stolen by somebody else who would put it to
ill you.
I have visions of, you know, some guy with a towel on his head and an AK-47
under his
jacket slapping my passport down at JFK.
Hello, I'm Tom Hanks.
I want to see Statue of Liberty.
It's a very scary thing.
Could have happened.
So, but overall, you had a good time there.
Oh, it was great.
As a matter of fact, it's a very small country, so you can get around.
You can drive around very easily.
I once rented a car, and I drove across something called the Wilderness of Zine.
Z-I-N, the Wilderness of Zine, driving from Jerusalem to the planet Mongo.
It was just, you just kind of make a look.
No.
It was like that.
It's a beautiful country.
It's a very nice place.
And you know, on Friday, they knock off about one o'clock, Dave.
Yeah.
One o'clock, they're, you know, sipping cappuccinos at the Deezengolf.
Yeah.
And here in America, of course, we have to work on Fridays, don't we, Dave?
We're still hard at work, yeah.
Yeah, I'm telling you.
Shabbat shalom, Dave.
Shabbat shalom.
Did you, uh, uh, driving is the same over there?
You drive on the same side of the street?
Yes, you do.
And you drive usually very small cars.
I got this little dayatsu.
I don't know what kind of car it is.
Is it made in Korea?
A dayatsu?
I have no idea.
I'm not familiar with a dayatsu.
This thing is about the size of these two chairs wrapped in metal.
This is about what it is.
It has tires on it the size of those push lawnmowers, you know?
Not the motor kind.
The lawnmower.
Yeah, about that big.
And we clocked that thing up to 140 kilometers an hour, which I think is about
35 in American
mind.
I'm not really sure.
Did you, uh, uh, have any trouble with the, uh, uh, rules and regulations?
Anything different?
Uh, I got stopped at one point because I was, I was driving without a driver's
license,
which is not a smart thing to do.
Now, no passport, no driver's license.
Well, what can I say?
You're in the country illegally.
I was trying to explain to this, this, this police officer why I'm driving
without a license.
I said, you can't do that.
You have to, where do you think you are?
You have to drive with a driver's license.
You can't drive without a driver's license.
And, uh, my, my girlfriend was there, lovely Rita Wilson.
We were having a great time.
And, uh, she had her driver's license and she said, well, I have my driver's
license.
He says, I'm not talking to you.
You're not driving.
He is driving.
He does not have a driver's license.
I try to show him my American Express card that I got in 3A.
Does this do anything?
No, this is not a driver's license.
This is American Express credit card.
Why are you driving?
You are not supposed to drive.
You don't have a license.
Why are you driving?
And I said, well, because I'm the man.
I'm the man and I like to drive.
I'm the man.
I feel stupid.
And then he says, the Israeli police officer says, okay, you can drive.
No, you really should.
You should let.
That's, that's, that's word for word verbatim exactly what happened.
That's great.
Uh, now you're, you're America's favorite film star, aren't you?
You know, you are.
Let's talk about, uh, let's talk about Dragnet.
This to me seems like a great idea for a movie.
Yeah, you and Dan Aykroyd.
Well, that must have been a lot of fun, huh?
Joe Fry, Dragnet, Dan is Joe Fry.
It was a blast.
Yeah, it was, it's a lot of fun.
Big budget film to say?
Huge budget and a massive amount of money went to get the music.
The three main pieces of music you have to have when doing Dragnet is the, the
theme,
dum-da-dum-dum, the Dragnet sting, as it's called.
The walking down the hallway music, which is, um, dun-da-dum, dun-da-dum-da-dum,
dun-da-dum.
And you also need the upbeat closing credits music, which, da-da-da-dum, dun-da-dum-da-dum,
which, curiously enough, if you play backwards, is the theme to Adam 12.
We had no idea.
They just took the music, turned it around like that.
I'm not familiar with the third one.
I don't know what that is.
Oh, it's over the closing credits.
I know the first two.
Of the, of the Dragnet 67, the colored Dragnet's, that's the closing credits.
Then, do we have a clip here?
We have no clip?
Yep, yep.
Well, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a new, it's a new policy.
I don't want to put out too many.
Well, you have, you have no license, no passport, and no clip.
No clip.
What a goofball.
Uh, geez, Tom, uh, thanks for being here.
It's great to have you with us.
Always a pleasure to be on your show, even on Friday, Dave.
Shabbat shalom.
Shabbat shalom.
Sorry to drag you out on Friday.
Nice to see you.
Tom, we'll be right back.
Thank you.