Name: It's Bob and Doug McKenzie, You Hosers | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T16:05:47.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'It's Bob and Doug McKenzie, You Hosers | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'It's Bob and Doug McKenzie, You Hosers | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

- My next guests are two of the most popular
Canadian performers.
They hit the big time in the United States
since, of course, Robert Goulet
and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Their album, The Great White North,
is a huge success in Canada
and is quickly becoming a hit in this country also.
From SCTV, please welcome the McKenzie brothers,
Bob and Doug.
- I'm on the theme.
- Beauty.
- Okay, maybe everyone will do it together, eh?
Okay, go.
Good day.
Good day, everyone in the lower 48.
I'm Bob McKenzie, this is my brother Doug.
- How's it going, eh?
Okay.
- Okay, like, this is our usual one, eh?
Like, we couldn't bring it across the border, eh?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- You know why?
'Cause there's, like, no great legs on it.
- Yeah, they miss a great legs.
But they got hot today.
- Yeah.
- Okay, our topic today is guest shots.
- Yeah.
- Okay, so this is one.
Okay, another topic.
- Oh.
- Oh, yeah.
Are we, like, have an--
- Oh, you know what?
- What?
- Like, there's no back bacon in the lower 48, eh?
- Yeah.
- The lower 48 is, like, USA, eh?
- Yeah.
So, anyway, do you wanna explain?
- Yeah, like, these are linked sausages,
'cause you don't have back bacon.
We were in a restaurant, yeah.
Remember?
- Oh, yeah, okay.
And, like, we asked for back bacon, eh?
And the waitress said, like, take off, you hosers.
We don't have any of that.
And we said, we said, okay, wait, wait.
So we described it, and then she said,
"Oh, you mean Canadian bacon."
And we said, "Oh, yeah."
And then we figured out that you call back bacon
Canadian bacon.
- Yeah, but up in the Great White North,
we got something called American cheese, eh?
So, like, you call that down here back cheese.
- We have an announcement to make.
Like, we're defecting.
- Yeah.
Down here.
- Not really.
- The reason is that, like,
you don't have government beer stores.
You can get beer in grocery stores
any time of the day or night, eh?
- Yeah.
- So that's why we're coming.
- Hey, you know what?
We went to a place in British Columbia, eh?
That's over here, out there, closer to Hawaii.
Okay, so, we're out there, eh?
And, like, there's a building.
It's got on NBC, eh?
So, like, we go in.
We say, "Hey, we do our show, hey."
So, you know what that was?
It was the Nanaimo Bulldozing Company.
Really.
- So that shows you how stupid he is, eh?
- Take off.
He's a hoser.
- Anyway, so, that's beauty.
So that's our guest shot for today, eh?
- Yeah, those are all our topics for today.
So, good day.
- Yeah.
- Good day, eh?
- Very nice.
You guys did a very nice job.
- Thank you.
- Very nice.
- Thank you.
- You know, I, in all honesty, I have watched your show
for a long time and loved it, but I did not anticipate
the kind of reaction that Bob and Doug generated here.
- They're all paid.
- Yeah.
- You got your, do you get your checks, everyone?
- How long have you guys been doing the Great White North?
- Two years.
- Yeah, yeah, two years.
- It started as filler in the third season, which was the
half-hour show, it was still syndicated.
And then when we went to network, I think at first the network
said, "What?"
And then when they saw the mail, they said, "Yeah, more, more."
- So, no, but you referred to it as filler.
And what exactly did that mean in those days?
- Well, the half-hour show, when it was syndicated,
was two minutes longer in Canada than it was down here.
There were less commercials.
It was running on the public network.
And they wanted something called Canadian content,
'cause the government legislated that a certain percentage
of Canadian, of programming in Canada
be indigenously Canadian.
And that affected radio and ultimately television.
So we said, well, gee, they wanted the extra two minutes
to be Canadian.
We said, "Isn't the rest of the show Canadian?
We're from Canada, and the show's done in Canada."
And they said, "No."
So we said, "How about if we sit there and drink beer
and fry back bacon and wear tukes?"
- Sorry, I was thinking about myself.
- Yeah, I thought so.
- No, but see, I was surprised that there would have been
something intrinsically funny about Canada.
I mean, after you've done jokes about hockey
and so on and so forth.
But these are apparently the--
- I have to say that the reason I'm wearing this
is because we've been doing interviews all day
as Bob and Doug and as ourselves.
- His hair puffs up into a coat.
- The tukes on and off.
- Well, that's not bad, actually.
Oh, the hell of them.
See, his hair is more manageable.
I don't know why.
- It's a fascinating discussion of hair care
with these two gentlemen from north of the border.
But so now, the guys you're depicting here,
Bob and Doug, are we to believe that Canada
is just full of these kind of--
- Guys?
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- No, hell no.
You never see one up there if you went looking for them.
And we're still searching for the humor there.
I think that there's guys like that somewhere.
I mean, he told me about it.
I just took his word.
- Wait, what are you doing?
You're just--
- They're like that everywhere.
They're all over the states, too.
You just don't, you know--
- You call 'em crackers, you call 'em whatever, you know.
- They're just dumb guys.
- Like, you don't call 'em hosers, you call 'em something else.
- Now, what is a hoser?
Can we talk about that?
- There's one, right there.
You're looking at it.
No, a hoser is something you call your brother
when your mom won't let you swear.
Say, if your mom happens to be NBC, say.
- Now, how did the Canadian government and folks react
to the popularity of these two guys?
- Well, they nominated us for the Order of Canada, so--
- It's a serious award.
David, and I think we should bow our heads at this point.
- Are you of the opinion that Canada has,
and I don't mean this in a negative way,
but are they operating under some kind of inferiority complex
to the United States or generated by the United States?
- Parts of Canada.
Quebec has no problems.
They have a strong culture.
The West is rich.
And Southern Ontario just kind of sits there
watching television in Buffalo going,
"Why can't we do that?"
- Of course.
- It's kind of like living in a little one-story shack
next to the World Trade Center, you know?
- Yeah.
- No, but you guys are both from Toronto, right?
- Yeah, I love the country, you know?
Watch, my citizenship is gonna be revoked now,
and I won't have anywhere to go.
- And you're continuing to do the television program,
now from Toronto.
- Yeah, we moved it to Toronto.
- I guess you moved it east a little bit.
Rick, you were the only member of the television group
that did not come through the Second City workshops,
and so forth, and you were actually, at one point,
pursuing a career as a stand-up performer,
somebody who just goes out and tells jokes or whatever.
- I did do stand-up for a little while in Toronto,
and I went down to Los Angeles to try it.
- Was that fun?
- I lasted for five weeks.
- Yeah.
- And at one point, very bizarre,
there's a little bit of a subculture going on down there.
I was standing in front of the comedy store at one point,
and there were two aspiring comics there,
and their world was like, that was it.
And one of them came up, and the other guy said,
"Where were you, man?
You were supposed to be on at 9:30."
Guy said, "Oh, man, you're not gonna believe what happened to me."
I was backing out of my driveway,
and, damn it, I took the car out, and somebody hit me.
And I got out of the car, and this lady got out.
She was beautiful, tall, blonde lady.
She got out.
She showed me her insurance.
The same insurance agent.
And the other guy said, "Hey, that's a good panel."
I figured, "Okay, okay, better get out of here."
It's interesting, though, that the group is pretty much
been operating away from mainstream show business
and thriving.
Has that been beneficial or a hindrance?
- Dave. - Oh, hi.
I think it has been beneficial, you know?
I'm not, you know, David, I...
Who can tell unless we ever get a chance
and crack at the big time?
- Yeah, yeah. - But, you know,
there are no diversions, really, in Edmonton.
He didn't hear the question.
He's winging it now.
He does this all the time.
You improv guys are quick, though, aren't you?
There's no diversions in Edmonton.
I mean, you know, literally, things close down early there.
Now, what happened, what happened...
The salad bar closes at 11:00.
Everyone's bad-mouthing Edmonton.
No, we don't want to bad-mouth Edmonton.
Edmonton's a great place.
- Mm-hmm. - Okay, all right.
- It is. - Now, the last time I saw David,
you had broken a finger.
Yeah, and it's almost better.
- Yeah. - I'm still working on it.
He busted his finger.
We were doing a sketch, Walter Cronkite's Brain.
And he was, uh, he was...
He was playing Walter Cronkite.
And he had to do this thing where he pulled out in a Corvette
and did a four-wheel skid.
- Yeah. - And came back to pick up me
waiting there with my golf clubs as David Brinkley.
So he rolls up.
He rolls up, and we wanted to get the take.
So I said the line, but I looked at his hand,
and it was hanging there, you know?
And anyway, they lost the take, and they stuck us in a van.
We went right to University of Alberta Medical Center.
And we're there as Cronkite and Brinkley in the emergency ward.
And, you know, the doctor comes up, and I say,
"I think my friend broke his finger."
Just got some x-rays.
I'd be happy to take care of it and get back to the chute.
We're kind of in a hurry.
I hope we can get this over with, speaking of which.
Speaking of which, we have to get this over with.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here.
Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas.
We'll be right back.
We'll have to pause for station identification.