Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Caissie St. Onge | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-06-14T15:01:19.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Caissie St. Onge | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-14. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Caissie St. Onge | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-14. Transcript available.

Hi, I'm Kasey St. Ant. I worked at The Late Show with David Letterman from 1993,
the start of the
CBS show, to 1996. And here are some of my favorite moments from my time there.
There was a time when
Harrison Ford was coming on the show to promote his new movie, Sabrina, which,
spoiler alert, it's
about Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear. They're in competition for the affections
of a young woman.
And so one of the writers had written a cold open to go at the beginning of the
show, where
Dave and Harrison Ford were trying to figure out if they were in competition
for a young
woman, who would she pick? And so I was cast as the young woman.
Oh, Harrison, I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate you being on the
show. I'm
very, very excited to have you with us. Thank you so much.
Pleasure to be here, Dave.
Now, you know, you know, the movie, Sabrina, the plot is about two men, in this
case happen
to be brothers, who are interested in the same woman. Right. Yeah. And I'm just
thinking to
myself, it kind of a funny thing occurred to me. I wonder what would happen if
you and
I were kind of in that role competing for the same woman. I wonder what would
happen. You
know what I'm saying?
Well, why don't we find out? All right, great. Why don't we ask them?
Oh, that's your one of my assistants. Casey. Hi. Casey. How are you?
Good. Yeah. Come on, you ask her. All right. Well, what do you think between
Harrison and
myself? Well, Dave is my boss. Right. But I'd have to say Harrison. Absolutely.
No doubt
I'm not. Yeah, but that's not fair because she knows me. There was an episode
of the show
Lyle Lovett, Warren Beatty, and Gary Shandling were the guests. There was a
huge standby line
for the show that day. And so the writers had the idea that maybe it would be
fun to have
some people who were there on the standby line go up to Dave's office and watch
the show from
there. And so I got to be in that bit because I was greeting the kids from
Buffalo that were
sent up from the standby line. So then the idea built because every time
someone was a guest on
the show when they were done, Dave also sent them up to his office. Mostly what
I remember is Warren
Beatty kept picking up grapes from this tray of snacks that we had. And he kept
asking me, like,
how do I look doing this? Like eating grapes off the grape bunch? And I was
like, you look like
Warren Beatty eating grapes. Like that's, that's the thing that I would watch.
This is Casey. Casey, this is, this is, uh, Nick and, uh, uh, Kathy. They're
from Buffalo.
All right. So speak very slowly. Okay.
Thank you. All right. Take them in. Come on. Take them in. Suddenly this thing
is bogged down
unmercifully. Just take them in. They'll be watching the show. Thank you very
much, Lonnie.
Thank you. That's Lonnie, our receptionist. Look at that office, ladies and
gentlemen.
Whoa. Ooh. Unbelievable. Yeah. Look at, wow. Crackers. Ooh. Ooh. Are you kids
comfy?
Yes. Is the, uh, is the show on the set? Let's see. Oh, there. Oh, look. Here I
am.
Hi, Dave.
They did that, didn't they? They waved right back to the screen.
And then the show was over, but then Gary and Warren hung out in Dave's office.
And then Gary was like,
you know, it'd be so funny if we hid in Dave's closet and surprised him when he
came back. And I
was like, would that be funny? I feel like that would scare me if it was my
office. I probably wouldn't
love it. And I was very young and I was like, please, Gary Shandling, you're
leading the charge
on this. I'm begging you, please don't hide. He just kept being like, no, no,
no. It'll be funny.
Trust me. Trust me. I just went back and I was like, you know what I'm going to
do? I'm just going
to act like I don't even care. And when I was like, okay, like if you want to,
I mean, what,
you know, whatever. And then as soon as I stopped being worked up about it, it
was no longer fun.
And then I realized Gary Shandling was just doing a bit to me. He was just
trying to wind me up about
how he was going to hide in Dave's closet. And then he was like, no, no, no, we'll
go. Okay.
So this is one of my favorite stories. Another one of my jobs was to make sure
that there was hot
coffee for Dave. Cause this is, maybe you don't know, he was really drinking
coffee all throughout
the show. So I was bringing some air pots of coffee. I banged one of the pots
and it was glass
inside. So it shattered into a million pieces and hot coffee went everywhere,
everywhere.
And I said, Oh my God, I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid. And I didn't know that
Charles Grodin
was behind me. And he said, Hey, you know what? There are going to be a lot of
people in this
business that are going to call you stupid. Don't be one of them. Then he
helped me sort of pick,
pick up the coffee pot and throw it away. And, uh, you know, and just went on
his way to go beyond the
show, uh, leaving me a better person. I don't get to see the show, but whenever
I come on the show,
I do, I do like to watch it, uh, the night before that I come on.
Uh, so I hadn't, I hadn't really seen the show for about really about four
months. And I wanted to,
so I taped it cause I I'm sleeping. But I did watch it this morning and I feel
a little,
uh, awkward here because you, you've gone in a, in a different direction since
I was, uh,
since I was last on and, and, and this, and they booked me on this show really
about five,
six weeks ago. And I, at the time I just assumed it was like coming on with,
you know, we've been
appearing to, you know, I've been like for 10, 11 years or something. I did not
know that the show
had changed its direction. And I'm going to try the best I can, uh, to, to fit
in with the new,
uh, direction that, uh, that we've gone in. So, uh, you know,
they're, they're, they're absolutely, uh, they're just absolutely out of the
laundry there. You don't
have to, they're fine. You don't, you don't have to, they're just, you know,
okay, let's see what,
uh, I don't know. It's, uh, uh, oh boy, look at that microphone. Boy, oh boy.
Now that's exciting.
That's an exciting, I, I'm not, I'm awkward at this. I'm not that good at this.
Boy, that's really
an exciting macro. Chuck, get a hold of yourself. Chuck, I'll get off that.
Knock it off. I'll get
off that. All right, let me try. I have, I have, I have, I do have an anecdote,
uh, about, about
someone who, uh, who relieved himself in the park. Stop it. I don't know if
that's anything, uh, for you at all. I don't know. Stop it.
All my life. I've been a giant fan of Prince. Prince was coming on the late
show and he had just changed his
name to the symbol. And I was like trying, and I did this a lot, trying to play
it cool. Like I wasn't a big
fan of his. And my main fear is that like, if Dave caught on that I was a fan
of someone that he would
like maybe embarrass me in front of them. So Prince had agreed to do a cold
open and I was like,
I'm going to try to play it cool, but I'm also going to try to make sure that I'm
there while
they're shooting that cold open. I was just out of my mind to be in the same
room with Prince and
Dave spit water toward the camera. And then I was like, I should get out of
here because like it's
tight. And also probably because I wanted to go outside of the green room. So I
could also see
Prince walk by Prince, a person who I had probably imagined a million times
what I would say to him
if I ever got a chance to say anything to him, walks out of the green room and
then just points
at the bottom of my pants and says, you got wet. And I just stared at the floor
and said, I'm okay.
So that was my one chance to talk to him. And I said, I'm okay.
Artists formerly known as Prince, I'd like you to meet the artist currently
known as
pinhead.
One of my jobs when I worked at the late show was to help Dave with his
correspondence. He's
a super old fashioned guy, loves to send a letter, a thank you letter. There
was a time when the talent
department came to Dave and said, you know, we're reaching out to people that
we think will be
nominated for Oscars. We just feel like it would be really nice if you did some
of your really nice
letters asking people who haven't agreed yet if, if they would please come on
the show to talk about
their Oscar nominated films. When it got to Nicholas Cage's letter, I said to
Dave, okay, we have to do
this Nicholas Cage letter. What do you want to say? And he was so like, Dave
was so just wanted me out of
his office at that point that he was like, just tell him thanks for deciding
not to be a
and coming on the show. And I'm not going to say the word. It was a different
time. It started with
a B and you know, and he was joking. Clearly Dave was joking. It was between me
and him.
So I wrote a letter to Nicholas Cage that I felt was in the spirit of what Dave
wanted to say,
but just, you know, different, different wording. Keep in mind, this is a long
time ago. This is,
keep in mind, this is also one of my deepest regrets. I brought in a stack of
letters to Dave
and he would always read them and sign some of them and some that he wasn't
cool with. He would be like,
oh, okay, you need to change this, this, this, and this, and like cross it out
with a red pen,
send me back to redo the letter. I sent out all the letters that he signed. So
a couple days later,
he was like, oh, hey, shoot, we forgot to write that letter to Nicholas Cage.
And I was like,
no, I think we did write a letter to Nicholas Cage. And he was like, what? And
I was so proud of
myself that it had like gotten out. And I was like, so on top of it. And I had
written like,
dear Nicholas, glad you decided to stop being such a woman and come on my show.
And Dave was like, oh no. He was like, you, you cannot have sent this to
Nicholas Cage. This is
offensive. I love that he was, had to tell me a young woman that it was
offensive. And I was like,
oh God. And he was like, listen, you, you got to get that letter back. Like I
don't want Nicholas
Cage to see it. It's kind of offensive. And I was just like, this is it. Like
tomorrow's going to be
my last day here. So I remember I came in early and I was just sort of like tidying
up my area all the
better to pack it up. When I went in and told Dave, like, listen, I was not
able to get that letter
back, uh, that offensive letter that I mailed to Nicholas Cage. And so then the
mailroom called up
and they were like, hey, we have a big delivery for the boss. And I was like,
oh, okay. Just coming
out of the elevator was the biggest arrangement of roses I'd ever seen in my
life. And, uh, I took the
card and opened it. And it was from Nicholas Cage saying, I'm also glad I
decided to stop being such
a woman and come on your show. And I was like, maybe I won't get fired. Maybe.
And so put the flowers out
for Dave to see. Ha ha. So funny. And he was like, well, all right, you're
lucky. It's so many years later
and I'm still mortified that I made that grievous error. And Dave, I'm sorry.
And Nicholas Cage, if you're
watching, I am sorry. I mean, I guess technically that's the first bit I ever
wrote for television,
but not intentionally. So not great. First of all, I mentioned at the top of
our program that,
uh, I just, I really admire you. I think you're great in everything you do. And
you know what it
is? And I've said this to other people that I like in film. I think your
personality always comes
through and that's what's so appealing about you on screen. Well, and I feel
the same way about you.
No, no, no, really. I've always admired your, your interviews. They're
hilarious. You're the best in the
business. And frankly, that's why I was terrified to come on for 12 years. I
mean, you're the, you're
terrified. You're the Tyrannosaurus Rex of TV. I mean, it's Dave's world. Yeah.
And we're all living in it.
And you're just being silly. But, um, what do you have there? Well, it wasn't
until, it wasn't until you
sent me this letter. Sent you a letter trying to get you to come on the show, I
think.
Well, yeah. Dear Nicholas, we're looking forward to your appearance. Stop being
such a woman.
Take care, your friend, Dave. What is, what do you mean by this? Let's see. It
could be a forgery.
Yeah. I'm sure that I didn't write that. I mean, but listen, I love women. In
fact,
I'd like to be a grandmother, like Juanita. Juanita, right over there.

Staff Favorite Moments: Caissie St. Onge | Letterman

Hi, I'm Kasey St. Ant. I worked at The Late Show with David Letterman from 1993,
the start of the
CBS show, to 1996. And here are some of my favorite moments from my time there.
There was a time when
Harrison Ford was coming on the show to promote his new movie, Sabrina, which,
spoiler alert, it's
about Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear. They're in competition for the affections
of a young woman.
And so one of the writers had written a cold open to go at the beginning of the
show, where
Dave and Harrison Ford were trying to figure out if they were in competition
for a young
woman, who would she pick? And so I was cast as the young woman.
Oh, Harrison, I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate you being on the
show. I'm
very, very excited to have you with us. Thank you so much.
Pleasure to be here, Dave.
Now, you know, you know, the movie, Sabrina, the plot is about two men, in this
case happen
to be brothers, who are interested in the same woman. Right. Yeah. And I'm just
thinking to
myself, it kind of a funny thing occurred to me. I wonder what would happen if
you and
I were kind of in that role competing for the same woman. I wonder what would
happen. You
know what I'm saying?
Well, why don't we find out? All right, great. Why don't we ask them?
Oh, that's your one of my assistants. Casey. Hi. Casey. How are you?
Good. Yeah. Come on, you ask her. All right. Well, what do you think between
Harrison and
myself? Well, Dave is my boss. Right. But I'd have to say Harrison. Absolutely.
No doubt
I'm not. Yeah, but that's not fair because she knows me. There was an episode
of the show
Lyle Lovett, Warren Beatty, and Gary Shandling were the guests. There was a
huge standby line
for the show that day. And so the writers had the idea that maybe it would be
fun to have
some people who were there on the standby line go up to Dave's office and watch
the show from
there. And so I got to be in that bit because I was greeting the kids from
Buffalo that were
sent up from the standby line. So then the idea built because every time
someone was a guest on
the show when they were done, Dave also sent them up to his office. Mostly what
I remember is Warren
Beatty kept picking up grapes from this tray of snacks that we had. And he kept
asking me, like,
how do I look doing this? Like eating grapes off the grape bunch? And I was
like, you look like
Warren Beatty eating grapes. Like that's, that's the thing that I would watch.
This is Casey. Casey, this is, this is, uh, Nick and, uh, uh, Kathy. They're
from Buffalo.
All right. So speak very slowly. Okay.
Thank you. All right. Take them in. Come on. Take them in. Suddenly this thing
is bogged down
unmercifully. Just take them in. They'll be watching the show. Thank you very
much, Lonnie.
Thank you. That's Lonnie, our receptionist. Look at that office, ladies and
gentlemen.
Whoa. Ooh. Unbelievable. Yeah. Look at, wow. Crackers. Ooh. Ooh. Are you kids
comfy?
Yes. Is the, uh, is the show on the set? Let's see. Oh, there. Oh, look. Here I
am.
Hi, Dave.
They did that, didn't they? They waved right back to the screen.
And then the show was over, but then Gary and Warren hung out in Dave's office.
And then Gary was like,
you know, it'd be so funny if we hid in Dave's closet and surprised him when he
came back. And I
was like, would that be funny? I feel like that would scare me if it was my
office. I probably wouldn't
love it. And I was very young and I was like, please, Gary Shandling, you're
leading the charge
on this. I'm begging you, please don't hide. He just kept being like, no, no,
no. It'll be funny.
Trust me. Trust me. I just went back and I was like, you know what I'm going to
do? I'm just going
to act like I don't even care. And when I was like, okay, like if you want to,
I mean, what,
you know, whatever. And then as soon as I stopped being worked up about it, it
was no longer fun.
And then I realized Gary Shandling was just doing a bit to me. He was just
trying to wind me up about
how he was going to hide in Dave's closet. And then he was like, no, no, no, we'll
go. Okay.
So this is one of my favorite stories. Another one of my jobs was to make sure
that there was hot
coffee for Dave. Cause this is, maybe you don't know, he was really drinking
coffee all throughout
the show. So I was bringing some air pots of coffee. I banged one of the pots
and it was glass
inside. So it shattered into a million pieces and hot coffee went everywhere,
everywhere.
And I said, Oh my God, I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid. And I didn't know that
Charles Grodin
was behind me. And he said, Hey, you know what? There are going to be a lot of
people in this
business that are going to call you stupid. Don't be one of them. Then he
helped me sort of pick,
pick up the coffee pot and throw it away. And, uh, you know, and just went on
his way to go beyond the
show, uh, leaving me a better person. I don't get to see the show, but whenever
I come on the show,
I do, I do like to watch it, uh, the night before that I come on.
Uh, so I hadn't, I hadn't really seen the show for about really about four
months. And I wanted to,
so I taped it cause I I'm sleeping. But I did watch it this morning and I feel
a little,
uh, awkward here because you, you've gone in a, in a different direction since
I was, uh,
since I was last on and, and, and this, and they booked me on this show really
about five,
six weeks ago. And I, at the time I just assumed it was like coming on with,
you know, we've been
appearing to, you know, I've been like for 10, 11 years or something. I did not
know that the show
had changed its direction. And I'm going to try the best I can, uh, to, to fit
in with the new,
uh, direction that, uh, that we've gone in. So, uh, you know,
they're, they're, they're absolutely, uh, they're just absolutely out of the
laundry there. You don't
have to, they're fine. You don't, you don't have to, they're just, you know,
okay, let's see what,
uh, I don't know. It's, uh, uh, oh boy, look at that microphone. Boy, oh boy.
Now that's exciting.
That's an exciting, I, I'm not, I'm awkward at this. I'm not that good at this.
Boy, that's really
an exciting macro. Chuck, get a hold of yourself. Chuck, I'll get off that.
Knock it off. I'll get
off that. All right, let me try. I have, I have, I have, I do have an anecdote,
uh, about, about
someone who, uh, who relieved himself in the park. Stop it. I don't know if
that's anything, uh, for you at all. I don't know. Stop it.
All my life. I've been a giant fan of Prince. Prince was coming on the late
show and he had just changed his
name to the symbol. And I was like trying, and I did this a lot, trying to play
it cool. Like I wasn't a big
fan of his. And my main fear is that like, if Dave caught on that I was a fan
of someone that he would
like maybe embarrass me in front of them. So Prince had agreed to do a cold
open and I was like,
I'm going to try to play it cool, but I'm also going to try to make sure that I'm
there while
they're shooting that cold open. I was just out of my mind to be in the same
room with Prince and
Dave spit water toward the camera. And then I was like, I should get out of
here because like it's
tight. And also probably because I wanted to go outside of the green room. So I
could also see
Prince walk by Prince, a person who I had probably imagined a million times
what I would say to him
if I ever got a chance to say anything to him, walks out of the green room and
then just points
at the bottom of my pants and says, you got wet. And I just stared at the floor
and said, I'm okay.
So that was my one chance to talk to him. And I said, I'm okay.
Artists formerly known as Prince, I'd like you to meet the artist currently
known as
pinhead.
One of my jobs when I worked at the late show was to help Dave with his
correspondence. He's
a super old fashioned guy, loves to send a letter, a thank you letter. There
was a time when the talent
department came to Dave and said, you know, we're reaching out to people that
we think will be
nominated for Oscars. We just feel like it would be really nice if you did some
of your really nice
letters asking people who haven't agreed yet if, if they would please come on
the show to talk about
their Oscar nominated films. When it got to Nicholas Cage's letter, I said to
Dave, okay, we have to do
this Nicholas Cage letter. What do you want to say? And he was so like, Dave
was so just wanted me out of
his office at that point that he was like, just tell him thanks for deciding
not to be a
and coming on the show. And I'm not going to say the word. It was a different
time. It started with
a B and you know, and he was joking. Clearly Dave was joking. It was between me
and him.
So I wrote a letter to Nicholas Cage that I felt was in the spirit of what Dave
wanted to say,
but just, you know, different, different wording. Keep in mind, this is a long
time ago. This is,
keep in mind, this is also one of my deepest regrets. I brought in a stack of
letters to Dave
and he would always read them and sign some of them and some that he wasn't
cool with. He would be like,
oh, okay, you need to change this, this, this, and this, and like cross it out
with a red pen,
send me back to redo the letter. I sent out all the letters that he signed. So
a couple days later,
he was like, oh, hey, shoot, we forgot to write that letter to Nicholas Cage.
And I was like,
no, I think we did write a letter to Nicholas Cage. And he was like, what? And
I was so proud of
myself that it had like gotten out. And I was like, so on top of it. And I had
written like,
dear Nicholas, glad you decided to stop being such a woman and come on my show.
And Dave was like, oh no. He was like, you, you cannot have sent this to
Nicholas Cage. This is
offensive. I love that he was, had to tell me a young woman that it was
offensive. And I was like,
oh God. And he was like, listen, you, you got to get that letter back. Like I
don't want Nicholas
Cage to see it. It's kind of offensive. And I was just like, this is it. Like
tomorrow's going to be
my last day here. So I remember I came in early and I was just sort of like tidying
up my area all the
better to pack it up. When I went in and told Dave, like, listen, I was not
able to get that letter
back, uh, that offensive letter that I mailed to Nicholas Cage. And so then the
mailroom called up
and they were like, hey, we have a big delivery for the boss. And I was like,
oh, okay. Just coming
out of the elevator was the biggest arrangement of roses I'd ever seen in my
life. And, uh, I took the
card and opened it. And it was from Nicholas Cage saying, I'm also glad I
decided to stop being such
a woman and come on your show. And I was like, maybe I won't get fired. Maybe.
And so put the flowers out
for Dave to see. Ha ha. So funny. And he was like, well, all right, you're
lucky. It's so many years later
and I'm still mortified that I made that grievous error. And Dave, I'm sorry.
And Nicholas Cage, if you're
watching, I am sorry. I mean, I guess technically that's the first bit I ever
wrote for television,
but not intentionally. So not great. First of all, I mentioned at the top of
our program that,
uh, I just, I really admire you. I think you're great in everything you do. And
you know what it
is? And I've said this to other people that I like in film. I think your
personality always comes
through and that's what's so appealing about you on screen. Well, and I feel
the same way about you.
No, no, no, really. I've always admired your, your interviews. They're
hilarious. You're the best in the
business. And frankly, that's why I was terrified to come on for 12 years. I
mean, you're the, you're
terrified. You're the Tyrannosaurus Rex of TV. I mean, it's Dave's world. Yeah.
And we're all living in it.
And you're just being silly. But, um, what do you have there? Well, it wasn't
until, it wasn't until you
sent me this letter. Sent you a letter trying to get you to come on the show, I
think.
Well, yeah. Dear Nicho