Name: Mr. T Isn't A Fan Of Dave's Corny Jokes | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T16:05:47.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mr. T Isn't A Fan Of Dave's Corny Jokes | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mr. T Isn't A Fan Of Dave's Corny Jokes | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

My first guest makes his acting debut in "Rocky 3,"
and if you've seen the film,
you know that he isn't an easy guy to forget.
If you haven't, you'll soon see why.
Please welcome Mr. T.
You make an impressive entrance.
But before we get started,
you were so frightening in that motion picture,
and have you acted before,
or was that just you we were watching there?
- Well, the character calls to be hungry,
and I've been hungry all my life, so it wasn't a problem.
That's why I wear these combat boots,
because it's symbolic of my struggle.
I'm born in the ghetto and raised on welfare,
so that's what sort of the character was about.
A lot of people mistake him for being mean and hateful.
He don't hate, he's just hungry.
He's been pushed aside so long.
Here he's the number one challenger,
and still he don't get a shot at the title,
so that makes a guy mad.
- Yeah.
- So that's where I've been.
I've been lost a lot of jobs and things like that.
- What kind of jobs were you?
Like, secretarial work, I'm guessing, is out.
That's how you don't--
I'm just--
I'm just a joke.
I'm just--
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Now you have--
- See, that's why I'm squeezing this ball,
you know, because so I won't get too mad.
I was mad last week I was supposed to come on,
and I'm a very impatient guy.
You know, a lot of things I could be doing,
so I'll come here, I said,
so in case he get to telling them corny jokes,
I'm gonna squeeze this ball.
If I squeeze the ball too many times,
if you see me squeeze the ball over 10 times,
that mean cut jokes out of squares
about six times already.
- Oh, shit.
Six.
We're up to six.
We have six over here.
Now you're just--
let's explain what happened last week.
You were scheduled to be on the show,
and we ran out of time.
I know what it was, it was the elevator races.
- Right, it really made me mad.
- Really, were you actually angry about that?
- Oh, I'm very mad.
So I'm a man, I believe in,
see if I just tattooed my arm, TCB,
I believe in taking care of business.
I came here to do the show.
Mr. T do not like to wait for nothing.
- Yeah. - For nobody.
- Uh-huh.
Well, let me just apologize for any inconvenience,
and we're glad that--
you didn't squeeze it again, did you?
- It's okay.
Eight times, you got two more times.
- Eight times.
- It's okay, it's okay because he's paying me for it,
so it's all right, so--
- That's right, yeah.
- What else I'm getting paid for?
See, I need the money to help buy my mother a house,
and help build a community center for the kids in Chicago,
for the less fortunate people in Chicago.
That's what I'm about.
So all the money I get on these shows,
and I save the money and give to the people
who really need it.
A lot of people are out of work and don't have jobs,
so they can use the money.
- I want to talk about your name, first of all.
Is that your real name?
- Well, if Pope John Paul II was to come here,
would you ask him what his real name was?
- Well--
- But you have to, it's an interesting name, Mr. T.
- Right, well, I changed it because I wasn't given
respect before, you know, people have a tendency
to always constantly call a man boy.
For what reason, I don't know why, you know,
so I changed my name to Mr. T.
So the first word out of everybody's mouth
would be Mr., that's a sign of respect.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Now, do you have a first name?
- First name is Mr., my middle name is the period,
my last name is the T.
You mentioned before that this was your first acting part,
and you don't really consider yourself
to be an actor now, do you?
- Right, I'm glad you brought that up.
You know, a lot of people, they sort of get offended
because I don't sign autographs,
and let me explain to everybody.
I consider myself a bodyguard.
I'm a full-time bodyguard and a part-time actor.
Bodyguard, and I feel my self-worth.
I like protecting people.
I know I can make more money in the movies,
but there's something special about bodyguard,
and therefore, that's why I don't sign autographs.
I might be somewhere protecting somebody,
and somebody running up to me asking me
for the autograph, they might get killed.
So I don't want them involved with that.
Seriously, see, it's the truth.
- Yeah, who are some of the people
that you are currently guarding?
Or your most recent client?
- You know.
Yes, you do.
- I do?
- Yeah.
- Oh.
- I mean, the reason why I say that
is because, no, it's understood
everybody just about in the world
knows who I've been protecting,
but I don't like to keep throwing
all them big names around
because everybody I protect is important.
I protect the welfare, mothers, children,
people who couldn't even afford my salary.
So I get tired of throwing around
the big name people I protect.
Everybody I protect are special and famous to me
because their life is something special.
- Now, before you got into bodyguarding,
you worked as a bouncer in some clubs in Chicago?
- I'm glad you brought that up.
I worked on the door.
There's a difference between a bouncer and a doorman.
A bouncer's the type of guy,
he really gets off on physically putting his hand on people.
I don't.
- I consider myself a security specialist at the door.
That's different, you know.
- Security specialist.
Have you ever had to rough somebody up, though?
I mean, you try and reason with them first, right?
- No, like I said, I don't try to put a lot of emphasis
on roughing people up and things like that.
If I get a guy out peacefully, I've done my job.
I don't like putting my hands on nobody
because I don't like nobody putting their hands on me.
You know, I just try to use a little tack
and diplomacy, that's all.
So, say somebody's causing a disturbance
and you go over there and you can't talk them
into leaving then, what do you do?
- Oh, I might buy them another drink
because I really try to avoid trouble, what do I do?
You know, I try to make my job easy as possible.
I'm not into this physical thing or this macho thing.
A lot of guys, they're into that.
They might see me walking down the street.
You don't look so tough to me
'cause they have this thing they gotta prove.
I don't have nothing to prove to anybody, you know.
They can say what they want about my hairstyle,
my earrings, all that.
As long as they don't touch me, I'm fine.
You know, they fine with them.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Can I ask you about your,
since you mentioned your hairstyle
and your jewelry and so forth?
- Right, right, I'm glad you brought that up.
The hairstyle is...
The hairstyle is not punk rock,
it's not Mohegan Indians
because a lot of people relate it to the Mohegan Indians
because that's all they know.
There's a tribe in Africa
that calls themselves the Mandinka Warriors.
They wear their hair in this fashion.
They wear feathered earrings.
They wear diamond gold.
They wear the finest there is
and I'm proud to be a descendant of the people.
And that's the reason why I wear this.
And the changes in gold is symbolic of my struggle
because my ancestor, we was brought over here,
we were shackled by our wrists and our necks and ankles.
But now I turn those shackles into gold
and that offends people.
People ask me, say, "Do that gold get heavy?"
Nobody asked my ancestors,
"Do the old changes get heavy on their neck?"
But it bothers them because they know the gold is valuable.
But that's the reason why I wear the gold
and the earrings and diamonds and all that.
- It's an interesting story that a man
working as a bodyguard and a security specialist
in bars in Chicago gets to be...
Actually, you pretty well steal the movie.
- How do you make that jump from whatever you do there
and talking people out of causing trouble
to being in a major motion picture?
- Just being hungry, you know what you want to do.
And first of all, I'm so thankful to God
that I had the opportunity.
I am successful because I believe in God
and God is in my life.
That's why I'm successful.
I'm not bad, I'm not tough, I'm not rough.
I'm not nothing, I'm just thankful to God.
That's why I'm successful.
But it's being hungry.
You got to be hungry.
Then working with a guy like Sylvester Long,
he's a perfectionist.
- How did you get the job?
I mean, there's plenty of hungry folks here, but...
- Yeah, well, you got to be, you know,
when you're being talented.
See, I knew I could act a long time ago.
When I was in first grade,
my teacher used to always tell me,
"Why don't you stop acting a fool?
Stop acting a clown."
So if I knew if I could act a fool and act a clown,
I can act anything, you know what I mean?
And I've been acting all my life.
It's just that now people begin to pay me for it.
- Yeah.
- You know what they do, definitely.
All right, all right, all right.
All right.
But back to your question, like I said,
it was that I had an opportunity,
so I took advantage of it.
I trained real hard, we trained for six months,
and we filmed for two months.
- But let me, let me go back to the,
'cause there's got to be people all across America
thinking, "Gee, I could have played a fighter in a movie
without a great deal of experience."
But you brought more to it than that.
You did a fine acting job, but how do you get the job?
How did you go up and introduce yourself,
or did Stallone know about you, or did you audition?
- Well, first, I first met Sylvester Stallone in 1978
when he came into the dressing room with Leon Sphinx,
how they lost to Ali.
Then, but they saw me on this contest games people play,
America's Toughest Bouncer Contest.
I had just won it the second time,
and I was standing there being interviewed,
and the casting director at the time
was turning the channel, and she just stopped,
she said, "Hey, this guy is different, and he can talk."
- Yeah.
- So they called me up,
and I boxed Sylvester Stallone two rounds in October '80.
He called me back for a screen test,
and we did the screen test.
He'll tell you that I was the only one
of over 1,200 guys who auditioned for the part.
I was the only one who auditioned
about a 10-page script without looking at it.
- Mm-hmm.
- You know, and he said that impressed him.
- Yeah.
- Among other things that I did.
- Yeah, well, you're a very impressive person.
What are we gonna do here?
We're gonna pause.
We'll come back.
You can stick around for a few more minutes,
can't you, sir?
- Sure, as long as you pay me.
Let's see what we can come up with.
- We have time for just a couple of quick questions.
I know you mentioned that you're making your living
as a bodyguard now, but if somebody came up
with another movie part, you'd certainly take that,
wouldn't you?
- Well, yeah, it's got to be the right parts.
You know, been too many, I don't get involved
in no black exploitation movies, no dope-dealing movies,
no pimp roles, things like that.
And I tell them if they want me in other movies,
give me the type of roles that you give Charleston Heston.
Give me a Moses part in the Red Sea in the 10th Commander.
Give me a Ben Hur, 'cause I am talented enough
to play them type of roles.
So I won't get involved with just no trashy stuff.
- Have you been offered some pretty good things,
or are you looking at things?
- Well, I'm taking my time.
I wanna have control of my destiny.
They bring me a lot of things, but I'm not really,
you know-
- Do you have an agent, a manager, and so forth now?
- Believe it or not, really I don't,
because a long time ago they told me,
they said, "Mr. T, you ain't hot enough.
We don't only take stars."
So I tell them I'm too hot for them now.
- And you have a book that you've written?
- Right, well, I'm playing with publishers now,
because again, long time ago they said,
"We don't wanna hear no book about you."
Now everybody come, "Oh, you still got that book?
We want it now."
The book is called "Mr. T, the Bodyguard."
And I go in detail in explaining why
that I am the best bodyguard of the years,
and explaining why I'm the best is because
that I consider myself a kamikaze pilot
when they come to bodyguard.
They were dedicated to their country.
I'm dedicated to my client.
If there's a gun in the room,
I will take the bullet.
If there's a knife, I will take stab.
I will be stabbed, so I don't fear death.
That's the reason why I'm the best.
In my book, I go in detail and explain all that,
and also I explain that everybody needs a bodyguard,
whether you can afford one or not,
because all the time a crime is committed,
it has nothing to do with money.
There might be people that just don't like you
for whatever reason.
A lot of people out there don't like me.
I deal with that.
- Now, do you need a bodyguard, do you think?
- A guard protects me.
That's why I don't fear nothing or worry
or hate or whatever.
- It's a fascinating way to make a living,
and I hope you get another really good part
that you're interested in doing,
and thank you for being here,
and I'm sorry about the mix-up last week.
We're okay now, aren't we?
- No, that's okay,
'cause you said we're gonna pay me foot,
so it's all right.
- Yeah, okay.
Mr. P, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you.

Mr. T Isn't A Fan Of Dave's Corny Jokes | Letterman

My first guest makes his acting debut in "Rocky 3,"
and if you've seen the film,
you know that he isn't an easy guy to forget.
If you haven't, you'll soon see why.
Please welcome Mr. T.
You make an impressive entrance.
But before we get started,
you were so frightening in that motion picture,
and have you acted before,
or was that just you we were watching there?
- Well, the character calls to be hungry,
and I've been hungry all my life, so it wasn't a problem.
That's why I wear these combat boots,
because it's symbolic of my struggle.
I'm born in the ghetto and raised on welfare,
so that's what sort of the character was about.
A lot of people mistake him for being mean and hateful.
He don't hate, he's just hungry.
He's been pushed aside so long.
Here he's the number one challenger,
and still he don't get a shot at the title,
so that makes a guy mad.
- Yeah.
- So that's where I've been.
I've been lost a lot of jobs and things like that.
- What kind of jobs were you?
Like, secretarial work, I'm guessing, is out.
That's how you don't--
I'm just--
I'm just a joke.
I'm just--
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Now you have--
- See, that's why I'm squeezing this ball,
you know, because so I won't get too mad.
I was mad last week I was supposed to come on,
and I'm a very impatient guy.
You know, a lot of things I could be doing,
so I'll come here, I said,
so in case he get to telling them corny jokes,
I'm gonna squeeze this ball.
If I squeeze the ball too many times,
if you see me squeeze the ball over 10 times,
that mean cut jokes out of squares
about six times already.
- Oh, shit.
Six.
We're up to six.
We have six over here.
Now you're just--
let's explain what happened last week.
You were scheduled to be on the show,
and we ran out of time.
I know what it was, it was the elevator races.
- Right, it really made me mad.
- Really, were you actually angry about that?
- Oh, I'm very mad.
So I'm a man, I believe in,
see if I just tattooed my arm, TCB,
I believe in taking care of business.
I came here to do the show.
Mr. T do not like to wait for nothing.
- Yeah. - For nobody.
- Uh-huh.
Well, let me just apologize for any inconvenience,
and we're glad that--
you didn't squeeze it again, did you?
- It's okay.
Eight times, you got two more times.
- Eight times.
- It's okay, it's okay because he's paying me for it,
so it's all right, so--
- That's right, yeah.
- What else I'm getting paid for?
See, I need the money to help buy my mother a house,
and help build a community center for the kids in Chicago,
for the less fortunate people in Chicago.
That's what I'm about.
So all the money I get on these shows,
and I save the money and give to the people
who really need it.
A lot of people are out of work and don't have jobs,
so they can use the money.
- I want to talk about your name, first of all.
Is that your real name?
- Well, if Pope John Paul II was to come here,
would you ask him what his real name was?
- Well--
- But you have to, it's an interesting name, Mr. T.
- Right, well, I changed it because I wasn't given
respect before, you know, people have a tendency
to always constantly call a man boy.
For what reason, I don't know why, you know,
so I changed my name to Mr. T.
So the first word out of everybody's mouth
would be Mr., that's a sign of respect.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Now, do you have a first name?
- First name is Mr., my middle name is the period,
my last name is the T.
You mentioned before that this was your first acting part,
and you don't really consider yourself
to be an actor now, do you?
- Right, I'm glad you brought that up.
You know, a lot of people, they sort of get offended
because I don't sign autographs,
and let me explain to everybody.
I consider myself a bodyguard.
I'm a full-time bodyguard and a part-time actor.
Bodyguard, and I feel my self-worth.
I like protecting people.
I know I can make more money in the movies,
but there's something special about bodyguard,
and therefore, that's why I don't sign autographs.
I might be somewhere protecting somebody,
and somebody running up to me asking me
for the autograph, they might get killed.
So I don't want them involved with that.
Seriously, see, it's the truth.
- Yeah, who are some of the people
that you are currently guarding?
Or your most recent client?
- You know.
Yes, you do.
- I do?
- Yeah.
- Oh.
- I mean, the reason why I say that
is because, no, it's understood
everybody just about in the world
knows who I've been protecting,
but I don't like to keep throwing
all them big names around
because everybody I protect is important.
I protect the welfare, mothers, children,
people who couldn't even afford my salary.
So I get tired of throwing around
the big name people I protect.
Everybody I protect are special and famous to me
because their life is something special.
- Now, before you got into bodyguarding,
you worked as a bouncer in some clubs in Chicago?
- I'm glad you brought that up.
I worked on the door.
There's a difference between a bouncer and a doorman.
A bouncer's the type of guy,
he really gets off on physically putting his hand on people.
I don't.
- I consider myself a security specialist at the door.
That's different, you know.
- Security specialist.
Have you ever had to rough somebody up, though?
I mean, you try and reason with them first, right?
- No, like I said, I don't try to put a lot of emphasis
on roughing people up and things like that.
If I get a guy out peacefully, I've done my job.
I don't like putting my hands on nobody
because I don't like nobody putting their hands on me.
You know, I just try to use a little tack
and diplomacy, that's all.
So, say somebody's causing a disturbance
and you go over there and you can't talk them
into leaving then, what do you do?
- Oh, I might buy them another drink
because I really try to avoid trouble, what do I do?
You know, I try to make my job easy as possible.
I'm not into this physical thing or this macho thing.
A lot of guys, they're into that.
They might see me walking down the street.
You don't look so tough to me
'cause they have this thing they gotta prove.
I don't have nothing to prove to anybody, you know.
They can say what they want about my hairstyle,
my earrings, all that.
As long as they don't touch me, I'm fine.
You know, they fine with them.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Can I ask you about your,
since you mentioned your hairstyle
and your jewelry and so forth?
- Right, right, I'm glad you brought that up.
The hairstyle is...
The hairstyle is not punk rock,
it's not Mohegan Indians
because a lot of people relate it to the Mohegan Indians
because that's all they know.
There's a tribe in Africa
that calls themselves the Mandinka Warriors.
They wear their hair in this fashion.
They wear feathered earrings.
They wear diamond gold.
They wear the finest there is
and I'm proud to be a descendant of the people.
And that's the reason why I wear this.
And the changes in gold is symbolic of my struggle
because my ancestor, we was brought over here,
we were shackled by our wrists and our necks and ankles.
But now I turn those shackles into gold
and that offends people.
People ask me, say, "Do that gold get heavy?"
Nobody asked my ancestors,
"Do the old changes get heavy on their neck?"
But it bothers them because they know the gold is valuable.
But that's the reason why I wear the gold
and the earrings and diamonds and all that.
- It's an interesting story that a man
working as a bodyguard and a security specialist
in bars in Chicago gets to be...
Actually, you pretty well steal the movie.
- How do you make that jump from whatever you do there
and talking people out of causing trouble
to being in a major motion picture?
- Just being hungry, you know what you want to do.
And first of all, I'm so thankful to God
that I had the opportunity.
I am successful because I believe in God
and God is in my life.
That's why I'm successful.
I'm not bad, I'm not tough, I'm not rough.
I'm not nothing, I'm just thankful to God.
That's why I'm successful.
But it's being hungry.
You got to be hungry.
Then working with a guy like Sylvester Long,
he's a perfectionist.
- How did you get the job?
I mean, there's plenty of hungry folks here, but...
- Yeah, well, you got to be, you know,
when you're being talented.
See, I knew I could act a long time ago.
When I was in first grade,
my teacher used to always tell me,
"Why don't you stop acting a fool?
Stop acting a clown."
So if I knew if I could act a fool and act a clown,
I can act anything, you know what I mean?
And I've been acting all my life.
It's just that now people begin to pay me for it.
- Yeah.
- You know what they do, definitely.
All right, all right, all right.
All right.
But back to your question, like I said,
it was that I had an opportunity,
so I took advantage of it.
I trained real hard, we trained for six months,
and we filmed for two months.
- But let me, let me go back to the,
'cause there's got to be people all across America
thinking, "Gee, I could have played a fighter in a movie
without a great deal of experience."
But you brought more to it than that.
You did a fine acting job, but how do you get the job?
How did you go up and introduce yourself,
or did Stallone know about you, or did you audition?
- Well, first, I first met Sylvester Stallone in 1978
when he came into the dressing room with Leon Sphinx,
how they lost to Ali.
Then, but they saw me on this contest games people play,
America's Toughest Bouncer Contest.
I had just won it the second time,
and I was standing there being interviewed,
and the casting director at the time
was turning the channel, and she just stopped,
she said, "Hey, this guy is different, and he can talk."
- Yeah.
- So they called me up,
and I boxed Sylvester Stallone two rounds in October '80.
He called me back for a screen test,
and we did the screen test.
He'll tell you that I was the only one
of over 1,200 guys who auditioned for the part.
I was the only one who auditioned
about a 10-page script without looking at it.
- Mm-hmm.
- You know, and he said that impressed him.
- Yeah.
- Among other things that I did.
- Yeah, well, you're a very impressive person.
What are we gonna do here?
We're gonna pause.
We'll come back.
You can stick around for a few more minutes,
can't you, sir?
- Sure, as long as you pay me.
Let's see what we can come up with.
- We have time for just a couple of quick questions.
I know you mentioned that you're making your living
as a bodyguard now, but if somebody came up
with another movie part, you'd certainly take that,
wouldn't you?
- Well, yeah, it's got to be the right parts.
You know, been too many, I don't get involved
in no black exploitation movies, no dope-dealing movies,
no pimp roles, things like that.
And I tell them if they want me in other movies,
give me the type of roles that you give Charleston Heston.
Give me a Moses part in the Red Sea in the 10th Commander.
Give me a Ben Hur, 'cause I am talented enough
to play them type of roles.
So I won't get involved with just no trashy stuff.
- Have you been offered some pretty good things,
or are you looking at things?
- Well, I'm taking my time.
I wanna have control of my destiny.
They bring me a lot of things, but I'm not really,
you know-
- Do you have an agent, a manager, and so forth now?
- Believe it or not, really I don't,
because a long time ago they told me,
they said, "Mr. T, you ain't hot enough.
We don't only take stars."
So I tell them I'm too hot for them now.
- And you have a book that you've written?
- Right, well, I'm playing with publishers now,
because again, long time ago they said,
"We don't wanna hear no book about you."
Now everybody come, "Oh, you still got that book?
We want it now."
The book is called "Mr. T, the Bodyguard."
And I go in detail in explaining why
that I am the best bodyguard of the years,
and explaining why I'm the best is because
that I consider myself a kamikaze pilot
when they come to bodyguard.
They were dedicated to their country.
I'm dedicated to my client.
If there's a gun in 