Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Mary Connelly | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-12-13T16:15:06.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Mary Connelly | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Mary Connelly | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-13. Transcript available.

I'm Mary Connolly. I worked at Late Night with David Letterman starting in 1985
and transferred
over to Late Show until 1997. So I was a segment producer on the show, which
meant that I helped
figure out what the guests would do on the show. Sandra Bullock was booked for
her film Speed,
which Dave always referred to as Bus. Because we were this big show on Broadway,
we kind of got to
do whatever we wanted to do. And we had the idea that Sandra Bullock should
make her entrance
driving a New York City bus down Broadway. Someone had to rehearse it. And I
said, I'll rehearse it.
So I got to drive a New York City bus down Broadway. As a kid from New York
City, that was insane.
Do me a favor, please welcome Sandra Bullock.
Thank you.
How are you?
Dave liked putting the staff on the spot, on camera, as often as possible.
And so there was a segment called Who Asked For It, where staffers were put in
the audience.
They were given a scripted question to ask, except that's not the part of the
segment Dave liked.
He would say, hi, what's your name? And you couldn't say that you were the
staffer.
You had to make up a story of who you were.
I would be my friend Sue Kennedy, and my friend Sue Kennedy sold ad space for
Smithsonian Magazine.
And Dave asked enough questions until he actually asked me how much a half-page
ad was in Smithsonian Magazine.
I had prepared a lot of answers. I hadn't prepared that answer.
Yes, ma'am. How are you?
Good. How are you?
Good. What is your name?
My name's Sue Kennedy.
Oh, Sue. Nice to see you. Where are you from, Sue?
I'm from Washington, D.C.
Oh, you know, it's the nation's capital.
Yeah.
Yeah. Do you work for the government?
No, I don't.
Yeah. What do you do for a living down there?
I work for Smithsonian Magazine.
Oh, man. That must be fascinating work.
It is.
What department?
I work in the ad department.
Oh, the ad department. So, you sell space in the Smithsonian Magazine.
I do.
What does, like, a square inch go for in that publication?
Oh, well, it's hard to say. Do you want the front of the magazine, the back of
the magazine?
I think the back of the magazine, and maybe color.
Oh, color. Well, that could run you into some bucks.
I see.
All right. What can I do for you, Sue?
I was wondering, who's on the show tonight?
Oh, the show. Oh, good point. Let me see.
Oh, yeah. Jeff Altman is here. Very funny, Jeff Altman.
Hall and Oates, right here in the studio.
And Eleanor Guggenheimer.
Is that it? Anybody else?
Nope. That's it.
Okay. Thank you.
Sue Kennedy from the Smithsonian Magazine in Washington, D.C.
Thanks, Sue.
Sorry. Sorry. You're not on tonight.
Thanks for trying, Sue.
Oh, my pleasure.
People always want to know who the best guests were.
And invariably, the best guests were the amazing storytellers.
The people who could tell stories that you just had no idea what was going to
happen next.
And maybe the best at that was Richard Harris,
who you may all know as Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies.
He and Peter O'Toole, they both had tremendous drinking problems.
And their stories always involved acting, drinking, and women.
Now, did you ever work? Could you work while you were drunk?
Could you ever perform?
Badly.
Yeah.
I worked with O'Toole, and he was the same.
Yeah.
I worked with O'Toole down in Bristol once, and we were doing a play in Bristol.
And we had 15 minutes when we weren't on stage, and somebody else was doing the
acting.
And O'Toole and I knew a little pub just opposite the stage door.
15 minutes. You don't want to waste that valuable drinking time.
No. God, no.
15 minutes.
Are you kidding?
Let's go, Peter.
Boom. Out the door.
And we were throwing back, and now we're drinking pints of Guinness that time.
Drinking back pints of Guinness, and suddenly the stage manager came rushing,
and he says, for Jesus' sake, you're off.
You're off.
What?
You're off.
They're waiting for you to come on.
There's silence on stage.
The other actress can't improvise.
Get on.
So we dash across the stage, and we dash across, and we duck sidestep cars, and
we dash up
into the stage, and I make an entrance per script about a minute, about seconds
before O'Toole.
So I'm just getting on, and I hit the stage, and I tripped over a large wire,
and I fell
on the floor of the stage, and I slid right down the stage, and my head hung
over the footlights
onto the lap of an old 60- or 70-year-old Bristolian woman, who looks at me,
and she said out loud
in the silence of the theater, good God, Harris is drunk.
And I said, madam, if you think I'm drunk, wait till O'Toole makes his entrance.
So working with David Letterman on his two shows, I learned so much about
comedy.
I learned so much that I didn't know going in.
Dave had a way of crystallizing pieces of information that are lodged in my
brain,
and will never, never, ever leave my brain.
So we did a segment where Dave would decide that the staff was going to go to
the dentist,
and we would all walk off stage together.
I was at one end of the stage having to travel to the other end of the stage.
I thought I was moving at a pretty good rate.
Dave shouted out, slower doesn't make it funnier.
So to say that I use that phrase so often in still producing television shows
because it is as true today
as it was then is one of my favorite things ever.
Working for NBC mostly, the staff was considered part-time employees.
NBC didn't need to pay us health benefits.
And so Dave wanted to find a way to get the staff health benefits.
So he would use the staff on the show so that we would have to join AFTRA, the
local acting union.
So if we had enough appearances on the show, we would get health insurance.
And I also think Dave loved torturing the staff by putting them on the air.
So he always used to say, "I want you to know what I have to experience."
We had an executive over our show named Sissy Biggers, and Sissy Biggers got
pregnant.
And it seemed to all of us like Sissy Biggers was pregnant forever.
And so Steve O'Donnell, our head writer, created a character for me named
Connie Plesko.
And I was the perpetually pregnant production assistant.
Dave would ask me to do increasingly dangerous tasks as I was visibly like nine
months pregnant.
And singer Patti Smythe, with the boys in the band again.
So that'll be tomorrow.
And then on tonight's program, you have to come, John.
What happened to the lights, exactly?
Hal?
We have a lighting problem on here.
Can we take care of this?
Have Cheryl or somebody?
Can somebody get that?
Jeff, can you just get up there and get that for us?
I can get it, Dave.
What?
I can get it.
What?
Oh, look, Paul.
It's our production assistant, Connie Plesko.
Connie.
No, wait a minute.
Connie.
Connie, be careful.
Connie, when is the baby due?
Any time now, Dave.
Yeah.
Do you need some help with that, Connie?
No, I'm all right.
We got it.
Okay.
Well, just for heaven's sakes, be very careful.
Thank you very much for volunteering.
Yeah.
So are you getting ready for Christmas, Connie?
Oh, yeah.
Doing a lot of baking.
Baking.
Oh, that's good.
Cookies and things like that?
No, lasagna.
Lasagna.
It's crazy about lasagna.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's good.
Well, listen.
Thank you very much for taking care of that light.
There you go.
Perfect.
For heaven's sakes.
Go to bed early.
Not tonight, Dave.
A busload of us are going out to the Nassau Coliseum.
Uh-huh.
The Islanders are playing St. Louis.
Oh, yeah.
That's good.
So you really must enjoy hockey, then.
Oh, I do.
I usually have three or four dogs at the works and scream myself for us.
All right, Connie.
Well, have a nice night.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Oh, Connie.
Oh.
Nice work, Connie.
Thank you very much.
We also did a show from the Milford Plaza Hotel.
I believe Dave, seeing this hotel room in the Milford Plaza Hotel, may have
said,
"If I was going to kill myself, this room wouldn't talk me out of it."
This is where the guests are going to be for the show.
Someone playing jokes on us.
Oh, thank you very much.
This is where they are.
Hunter Thompson, of course, Carly Simon, and Dr. Borges.
You know, this used to be a closet.
I'll be right with you guys.
This is nice for anybody who is renting the Helen Hayes Suite by the hour.
Let me show you the control room.
Hi, Tommy.
How are you doing?
You've stayed up here, haven't you, in the Helen Hayes Suite?
Oh, yes.
Every other day.
Does this ring a bell, Tommy?
Vice Squad.
All right.
Come on.
This is the control room.
Boy, we've just jam-packed it in here.
How many violations are we up to in here now?
Fourteen.
Yeah, okay.
I predict probably at least one accidental death in this room tonight.
As a segment producer, I would interview the guests before they came on the
show, and then
I would brief Dave on the guests.
That just sort of got monotonous.
So, while we would brief, Dave and I started playing a game where we would
throw footballs
through his office, into the adjoining office, into a garbage can.
And so, Dave then decided he wanted to put it on the air.
And the first time, I choked in a way that was just as humiliating as humiliating
could
be.
Maybe more humiliating than the mullet I had.
Okay.
That's all right.
Relax, Mary.
You're still fine.
That's okay.
Not for sure.
Okay.
She's rattled.
Now, this is all for charity, by the way.
Okay, there's one.
All right, here we go.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Here we go.
Okay.
All right.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Okay.
All right.
Here we go.
Okay.
All right, Mary.
Let's start another string here.
And if you don't, then we'll check in with you in a couple of minutes.
All right.
Here we go.
By the way, your hair looks lovely from this angle.
Oh, thank you very much.
Let me run up there and comb me out.
Do you mind?
No, not at all.
Okay.
I like to up the stakes where we got Phil Simms, a very, very talented
quarterback.
Maybe not as talented at this particular skill as Dave and I were.
Go right ahead, Mary.
Relax.
Okay.
There's the first one.
She's wide to the left.
Your turn.
Now, Phil.
Earlier, Phil said he could hit 10 for 10.
Do you remember when Phil said that?
Okay.
There's Mary.
We're still at $5 here, right?
No, we're at 10.
We're at 10.
You're at 10?
Now you're at 15.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
Yes!
Wow.
The pressure is on, Mr.
Oh, bloody.
Look.
See?
Mary has jumped into the lead.
Yes.
Nice going.
You start now for five.
Okay.
Now what is it, Mary?
You go back to five?
We go to five.
Five.
Okay.
Mary has $15.
Phil, Super Bowl, quarterback, Simms has.
No doubt.
All right.
Is Phil perspiring?
I'm not sure.
All right.
Very relaxed.
If you stay here long enough, I'll win.
All right, Phil.
Fine.
Don't make me come up there, all right?
I go for 10 now.
All right.
Now what is it for here, Mary?
I think it's for 10 now and I go.
Okay.
Here we go.
Oh!
No.
Oh!
All right.
Now we go to 15, right?
15 in my shot.
Okay.
Yes!
Okay.
So, oh, look at this.
Mary's out in front 30 to 10.
And Phil goes.
I'm in trouble.
Okay.
How much time do we have here, Morty?
One more minute.
All right.
One minute.
Okay.
Fast.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
All right.
Here we go.
Settle down.
How much is it for?
15.
Give me a good ball.
All right.
Yeah, I think that's the problem all along, Phil.
You're right.
Oh.
Yeah!
Oh, man!
Woo!
One of the greatest bookings we had.
A reunion of Sonny and Cher.
And it was spectacular.
And then we thought they should sing I Got You Babe.
Only they don't know the lyrics.
I got you, babe.
Oh, that was my part.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
So from that moment on, we had to have cue cards for every lyrics, for every
song.
And when Bruce Springsteen sang "Glory Days" on the final episode of "Late
Night,"
people just sort of picked things off the set, and I took the cue cards for "Glory
Days."
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
Again, late at night, we might not have a guest.
And I had Kathie Lee Gifford's home phone number.
And she answered the phone out of breath.
I identified myself.
And she goes, "Mary, are you okay?"
I said, "I am okay."
And she goes, "Well, you just interrupted Frank and I having sex."
Why would she answer the phone?
We'll see you next time.

Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Mary Connelly | Letterman

I'm Mary Connolly. I worked at Late Night with David Letterman starting in 1985
and transferred
over to Late Show until 1997. So I was a segment producer on the show, which
meant that I helped
figure out what the guests would do on the show. Sandra Bullock was booked for
her film Speed,
which Dave always referred to as Bus. Because we were this big show on Broadway,
we kind of got to
do whatever we wanted to do. And we had the idea that Sandra Bullock should
make her entrance
driving a New York City bus down Broadway. Someone had to rehearse it. And I
said, I'll rehearse it.
So I got to drive a New York City bus down Broadway. As a kid from New York
City, that was insane.
Do me a favor, please welcome Sandra Bullock.
Thank you.
How are you?
Dave liked putting the staff on the spot, on camera, as often as possible.
And so there was a segment called Who Asked For It, where staffers were put in
the audience.
They were given a scripted question to ask, except that's not the part of the
segment Dave liked.
He would say, hi, what's your name? And you couldn't say that you were the
staffer.
You had to make up a story of who you were.
I would be my friend Sue Kennedy, and my friend Sue Kennedy sold ad space for
Smithsonian Magazine.
And Dave asked enough questions until he actually asked me how much a half-page
ad was in Smithsonian Magazine.
I had prepared a lot of answers. I hadn't prepared that answer.
Yes, ma'am. How are you?
Good. How are you?
Good. What is your name?
My name's Sue Kennedy.
Oh, Sue. Nice to see you. Where are you from, Sue?
I'm from Washington, D.C.
Oh, you know, it's the nation's capital.
Yeah.
Yeah. Do you work for the government?
No, I don't.
Yeah. What do you do for a living down there?
I work for Smithsonian Magazine.
Oh, man. That must be fascinating work.
It is.
What department?
I work in the ad department.
Oh, the ad department. So, you sell space in the Smithsonian Magazine.
I do.
What does, like, a square inch go for in that publication?
Oh, well, it's hard to say. Do you want the front of the magazine, the back of
the magazine?
I think the back of the magazine, and maybe color.
Oh, color. Well, that could run you into some bucks.
I see.
All right. What can I do for you, Sue?
I was wondering, who's on the show tonight?
Oh, the show. Oh, good point. Let me see.
Oh, yeah. Jeff Altman is here. Very funny, Jeff Altman.
Hall and Oates, right here in the studio.
And Eleanor Guggenheimer.
Is that it? Anybody else?
Nope. That's it.
Okay. Thank you.
Sue Kennedy from the Smithsonian Magazine in Washington, D.C.
Thanks, Sue.
Sorry. Sorry. You're not on tonight.
Thanks for trying, Sue.
Oh, my pleasure.
People always want to know who the best guests were.
And invariably, the best guests were the amazing storytellers.
The people who could tell stories that you just had no idea what was going to
happen next.
And maybe the best at that was Richard Harris,
who you may all know as Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies.
He and Peter O'Toole, they both had tremendous drinking problems.
And their stories always involved acting, drinking, and women.
Now, did you ever work? Could you work while you were drunk?
Could you ever perform?
Badly.
Yeah.
I worked with O'Toole, and he was the same.
Yeah.
I worked with O'Toole down in Bristol once, and we were doing a play in Bristol.
And we had 15 minutes when we weren't on stage, and somebody else was doing the
acting.
And O'Toole and I knew a little pub just opposite the stage door.
15 minutes. You don't want to waste that valuable drinking time.
No. God, no.
15 minutes.
Are you kidding?
Let's go, Peter.
Boom. Out the door.
And we were throwing back, and now we're drinking pints of Guinness that time.
Drinking back pints of Guinness, and suddenly the stage manager came rushing,
and he says, for Jesus' sake, you're off.
You're off.
What?
You're off.
They're waiting for you to come on.
There's silence on stage.
The other actress can't improvise.
Get on.
So we dash across the stage, and we dash across, and we duck sidestep cars, and
we dash up
into the stage, and I make an entrance per script about a minute, about seconds
before O'Toole.
So I'm just getting on, and I hit the stage, and I tripped over a large wire,
and I fell
on the floor of the stage, and I slid right down the stage, and my head hung
over the footlights
onto the lap of an old 60- or 70-year-old Bristolian woman, who looks at me,
and she said out loud
in the silence of the theater, good God, Harris is drunk.
And I said, madam, if you think I'm drunk, wait till O'Toole makes his entrance.
So working with David Letterman on his two shows, I learned so much about
comedy.
I learned so much that I didn't know going in.
Dave had a way of crystallizing pieces of information that are lodged in my
brain,
and will never, never, ever leave my brain.
So we did a segment where Dave would decide that the staff was going to go to
the dentist,
and we would all walk off stage together.
I was at one end of the stage having to travel to the other end of the stage.
I thought I was moving at a pretty good rate.
Dave shouted out, slower doesn't make it funnier.
So to say that I use that phrase so often in still producing television shows
because it is as true today
as it was then is one of my favorite things ever.
Working for NBC mostly, the staff was considered part-time employees.
NBC didn't need to pay us health benefits.
And so Dave wanted to find a way to get the staff health benefits.
So he would use the staff on the show so that we would have to join AFTRA, the
local acting union.
So if we had enough appearances on the show, we would get health insurance.
And I also think Dave loved torturing the staff by putting them on the air.
So he always used to say, "I want you to know what I have to experience."
We had an executive over our show named Sissy Biggers, and Sissy Biggers got
pregnant.
And it seemed to all of us like Sissy Biggers was pregnant forever.
And so Steve O'Donnell, our head writer, created a character for me named
Connie Plesko.
And I was the perpetually pregnant production assistant.
Dave would ask me to do increasingly dangerous tasks as I was visibly like nine
months pregnant.
And singer Patti Smythe, with the boys in the band again.
So that'll be tomorrow.
And then on tonight's program, you have to come, John.
What happened to the lights, exactly?
Hal?
We have a lighting problem on here.
Can we take care of this?
Have Cheryl or somebody?
Can somebody get that?
Jeff, can you just get up there and get that for us?
I can get it, Dave.
What?
I can get it.
What?
Oh, look, Paul.
It's our production assistant, Connie Plesko.
Connie.
No, wait a minute.
Connie.
Connie, be careful.
Connie, when is the baby due?
Any time now, Dave.
Yeah.
Do you need some help with that, Connie?
No, I'm all right.
We got it.
Okay.
Well, just for heaven's sakes, be very careful.
Thank you very much for volunteering.
Yeah.
So are you getting ready for Christmas, Connie?
Oh, yeah.
Doing a lot of baking.
Baking.
Oh, that's good.
Cookies and things like that?
No, lasagna.
Lasagna.
It's crazy about lasagna.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's good.
Well, listen.
Thank you very much for taking care of that light.
There you go.
Perfect.
For heaven's sakes.
Go to bed early.
Not tonight, Dave.
A busload of us are going out to the Nassau Coliseum.
Uh-huh.
The Islanders are playing St. Louis.
Oh, yeah.
That's good.
So you really must enjoy hockey, then.
Oh, I do.
I usually have three or four dogs at the works and scream myself for us.
All right, Connie.
Well, have a nice night.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Oh, Connie.
Oh.
Nice work, Connie.
Thank you very much.
We also did a show from the Milford Plaza Hotel.
I believe Dave, seeing this hotel room in the Milford Plaza Hotel, may have
said,
"If I was going to kill myself, this room wouldn't talk me out of it."
This is where the guests are going to be for the show.
Someone playing jokes on us.
Oh, thank you very much.
This is where they are.
Hunter Thompson, of course, Carly Simon, and Dr. Borges.
You know, this used to be a closet.
I'll be right with you guys.
This is nice for anybody who is renting the Helen Hayes Suite by the hour.
Let me show you the control room.
Hi, Tommy.
How are you doing?
You've stayed up here, haven't you, in the Helen Hayes Suite?
Oh, yes.
Every other day.
Does this ring a bell, Tommy?
Vice Squad.
All right.
Come on.
This is the control room.
Boy, we've just jam-packed it in here.
How many violations are we up to in here now?
Fourteen.
Yeah, okay.
I predict probably at least one accidental death in this room tonight.
As a segment producer, I would interview the guests before they came on the
show, and then
I would brief Dave on the guests.
That just sort of got monotonous.
So, while we would brief, Dave and I started playing a game where we would
throw footballs
through his office, into the adjoining office, into a garbage can.
And so, Dave then decided he wanted to put it on the air.
And the first time, I choked in a way that was just as humiliating as humiliating
could
be.
Maybe more humiliating than the mullet I had.
Okay.
That's all right.
Relax, Mary.
You're still fine.
That's okay.
Not for sure.
Okay.
She's rattled.
Now, this is all for charity, by the way.
Okay, there's one.
All right, here we go.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Here we go.
Okay.
All right.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Okay.
All right.
Here we go.
Okay.
All right, Mary.
Let's start another string here.
And if you don't, then we'll check in with you in a couple of minutes.
All right.
Here we go.
By the way, your hair looks lovely from this angle.
Oh, thank you very much.
Let me run up there and comb me out.
Do you mind?
No, not at all.
Okay.
I like to up the stakes where we got Phil Simms, a very, very talented
quarterback.
Maybe not as talented at this particular skill as Dave and I were.
Go right ahead, Mary.
Relax.
Okay.
There's the first one.
She's wide to the left.
Your turn.
Now, Phil.
Earlier, Phil said he could hit 10 for 10.
Do you remember when Phil said that?
Okay.
There's Mary.
We're still at $5 here, right?
No, we're at 10.
We're at 10.
You're at 10?
Now you're at 15.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
Yes!
Wow.
The pressure is on, Mr.
Oh, bloody.
Look.
See?
Mary has jumped into the lead.
Yes.
Nice going.
You start now for five.
Okay.
Now what is it, Mary?
You go back to five?
We go to five.
Five.
Okay.
Mary has $15.
Phil, Super Bowl, quarterback, Simms has.
No doubt.
All right.
Is Phil perspiring?
I'm not sure.
All right.
Very relaxed.
If you stay here long enough, I'll win.
All right, Phil.
Fine.
Don't make me come up there, all right?
I go for 10 now.
All right.
Now what is it for here, Mary?
I think it's for 10 now and I go.
Okay.
Here we go.
Oh!
No.
Oh!
All right.
Now we go to 15, right?
15 in my shot.
Okay.
Yes!
Okay.
So, oh, look at this.
Mary's out in front 30 to 10.
And Phil goes.
I'm in trouble.
Okay.
How much time do we have here, Morty?
One more minute.
All right.
One minute.
Okay.
Fast.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
All right.
Here we go.
Settle down.
How much is it for?
15.
Give me a good ball.
All right.
Yeah, I think that's the problem all along, Phil.
You're right.
Oh.
Yeah!
Oh, man!
Woo!
One of the greatest bookings we had.
A reunion of Sonny and Cher.
And it was spectacular.
And then we thought they should sing I Got You Babe.
Only they don't know the lyrics.
I got you, babe.
Oh, that was my part.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
I got you to hold my hand.
So from that moment on, we had to have cue cards for every lyrics, for every
song.
And when Bruce Springsteen sang "Glory Days" on the final episode of "Late
Night,"
people just sort of picked things off the set, and I took the cue cards for "Glory
Days."
I got you to hold