Name: Art Donovan on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, April 12, 1990
Uploaded: 2023-06-18T00:23:43.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Art Donovan on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, April 12, 1990' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Art Donovan on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, April 12, 1990' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-18. Transcript available.

Okay, as you mentioned, as Paula mentioned, Art Donovan is here tonight.
He's one of the best defensive tackles ever to play the game of football, which
he did
for 12 years, most of it with the Baltimore Colts.
He was all pro four times, played on two championship teams, and inducted into
the Football Hall
of Fame in 1968.
Would you welcome Art Donovan?
Good to see you, Art.
Welcome back.
Thank you.
Nice to be here.
Yeah.
Where am I at?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Thank God.
You got the blazer on.
I wore the blue blazer.
You look very dressed up tonight.
My wife made me pay $320 for this thing.
Well, didn't she like the way you look last time?
Well, she knew you were going to wear one, she said, "You got to look just like
Johnny
Ed McMahon."
Your kid.
She's trying to make a chicken salad out of chicken, you know what.
Well, you look real nice in it, though.
Thank you.
Can you go out later tonight to a nice Hollywood restaurant or something?
No, I don't go.
I go back, I got salami and bologna and hot dogs.
That's all I need.
You don't want to go to some gourmet restaurant at all, huh?
No, I don't like quality.
I like quantity.
Your wife's named Dottie, right?
Yeah.
How long you been married?
35 years.
35 years.
Good three years.
Yeah.
Now, where did the two of you first get together?
I met on a blind date, she was playing a piano in an all-girl orchestra.
Now, you're putting me on or is it, too?
No, I swear to God.
Yeah.
I was supposed to have a date after the game with her, after the dance, and I
took a guy
with me.
He got drunk, so I had to go looking for him.
Yeah.
I forgot all about her.
Oh.
So she told me, I said, what do you do for a living?
She said, I own a drugstore.
So I figured I'd marry and retire.
And I went over there one day and I said something bad to her, and she hit me
with a display of
Anacin.
And there were about 10,000 Anacin all over the floor, and I had to go sweep
them up and put
them back in the boxes.
Oh, God.
I was like, oh, I'm a big fan of the band.
I was like, oh, I'm a big fan of the band.
I was like, oh, I'm a big fan of the band.
I was like, oh, I'm a big fan of the band.
I was like, oh, I'm a big fan of the band.
I was like, oh, I'm a big fan of the band.
And there were about 10,000 Anacin all over the floor, and I had to go sweep
them up and
put them back in the boxes.
Good.
It was a nice beginning, but it's been a relatively stable relationship.
No.
No.
Did you go out occasionally by yourself with the guys?
Oh, yeah.
I don't know.
We could, you know.
Have a few.
I would have a guy who drives us home, so we don't get in any trouble.
That's good.
That's good.
Now, let's talk about baseball.
Do football players ever hang out with baseball players at all?
Well, no.
We hung out with a couple of guys one time, a long time ago with the Orioles, a
guy named
Harold Smith.
He was a catcher, and it was Bill Pellington, who I talked about the last time.
Oh, yeah.
One of the tough guys.
Yeah, and Shuler, who was the coach of the Dolphins, and I, this guy, Harold
Smith,
and went to a bar, and we're jitterbugging in the bar, the four of us.
Yeah.
And Shuler threw this guy out and let him go, and he went right through the jukebox.
Boom!
He said, I'm getting out of here.
You guys are nuts.
Yeah.
You and Shuler roomed together, did you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah.
We had a lot of good times together.
Yeah.
I can't tell stories about Shuler.
He says, you fat S.O.B.
Yeah.
You keep your mouth shut about me.
Really?
My players think I'm legitimate.
I don't say anything about it.
We talked about the game of football today versus when you played.
Now, you played in those days.
You didn't even have the cage, did you?
Did you have the cage in the face mask?
No, we didn't even have the face mask.
None of that stuff.
You put one on, you were a sissy.
So then I got kicked in the face, and I got 58 stitches, lost a couple of teeth.
Then I got hit under the eye, and I got 20 more.
Then I put the goddamn face mask on.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you can't do too much anyhow, so...
That's a brand name, isn't it?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
We'll take a break.
We're coming right back.
Okay, we're back.
We're talking with Mark Donovan and Paula Panthorn and Mills Hinton.
Now, look.
We're talking about the days when you played and the days.
Now, you guys didn't have AstroTurf either.
No.
Is that good or bad?
Did you?
Well, I don't know, because the worst field I ever played on was a brand new
field down
in Louisville, Kentucky.
We played an exhibition game against the Cardinals.
Yeah.
And the only thing they had there before the football game was a circus.
Now, when you have a circus, you got elephants and horses.
Yeah.
And the morning before the game, they never even made the field.
So, when the offensive team and the Cardinals come out with the defense, we put
our hand
down on the ground, and you hear a guy holler, "Jeez!"
And you come up with a handful of elephant dung or horseshit, you know?
Yeah, I didn't mean to say that.
No, it's also a brand name.
That's right.
It goes with a character.
So, they say the defensive line, we could move.
So, when we move, we flip it at them.
And they were hollering at the officials, "Man, throwing horseshit at us, you
know?"
And the officials, "That's all right.
They can move.
Don't worry about it."
Hey, hey.
Now...
Now, when you were throwing this horseshit...
Now, you see, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.
Okay, you got it.
Now, you say you had 57 stitches.
Yeah.
Uh, you lost some teeth.
A lot of the guys are walking around that didn't buck this and name it today
with hardly
any knees left at all.
How did you come out with your knees?
Are they...
Oh, I got no kneecap here.
This is my knee.
Look at it.
You're kidding.
Bam!
But I didn't hurt playing football.
I fell in a pool at my club.
Oh, sorry.
I fell 23 feet.
And the guy said, "How are we gonna get you out?"
Yeah.
And a guy named Dixas Maskey who plays center for us said, "Float him out."
So, five days later, I'd come up to the top.
Well, now, we talked about...
What do you think of sports announcers today?
The way they call the games and the way they talk about the players?
Well, you know, everybody's a super guy.
Everybody's this.
If you have everybody's a super guy, you got a lousy team.
Right.
Like, one time, we were talking about the guy that did our games.
He was talking about one of our players.
What, now, we talked about, uh, what do you think of sports announcers today?
The way they call the games and the way they talk about the players?
Oh, you know, everybody's a super guy. Everybody's this.
If you have everybody's a super guy, you got a lousy team.
Right.
Like, uh, one time we were talking about the guy that did our games.
He was talking about one of our players.
What a super fellow. What a wonderful guy with a lovely husband.
Two weeks before, they tried to run his wife over.
So, uh, uh, uh.
Yeah, nobody's perfect, yeah.
Oh, I tried to run mine over a few times, too.
Um, how about quarterbacks today?
Too, uh, too protected, too, uh...
Yeah, sure, in the grass.
You guys played offense and defense, right?
No, no, not me.
Not you.
Only defense.
Only defense, but, you know, you go back and take guys like Bobby Lane, who was
a great quarterback.
Tough guy. Didn't even wear a face mask.
Yeah.
And he was known to have a few, you know?
Yeah.
And we were putting a lot of pressure on him one game in Baltimore,
and he's screaming out his offensive line, and we're laying down on top.
Damn, Bobby, you must have had a hell of a night last night.
We were gonna get drunk off his breath, you know?
He says, I had a few at halftime.
Now, I don't know what I'm saying.
Now, these guys, some guys make a million two a year now.
Two million bucks.
Yeah.
Um, when you were playing, who negotiated for you?
Me.
You had no lawyer?
You had no attorney going in there?
No, we had a, no, we had a, we had a general manager who was a con artist.
I told him I wouldn't play for, unless I got a raise at $3,000.
He says, you want me to lose my job?
I said, okay, sign me for what you want.
So, what was your top year?
$22,000.
$22,000?
Yeah, but that was a lot of money then.
I guess it was.
Buy a lot of salami, bologna.
You got any brothers and sisters in your family?
I got a, I got a sister.
She's a senior vice president of Merrill Lynch in New York, yeah.
Good for her.
But she looks down her nose at me.
She thinks I'm a big, fat slob.
You're kidding.
No, she may be right.
I don't know.
How about your brothers?
No, I don't have any brothers.
How about kids?
I got five kids.
They're from 33 down to 14.
And every morning I drive the carpool.
You're kidding.
Just Kelly Dunner and myself.
I take her to school.
Yeah.
And we go down.
Everybody knows you're in Baltimore.
And they say, what a lovely grandchild.
I go, that's mine.
I'm 65 years old with a 14-year-old.
Now, you want to, you have a clumber of.
What is it?
It's a tennis and swimming club.
Yeah.
And it's social.
I'm the best customer.
Doing well with it, too?
Oh, yeah.
I buy more money than when I went down from New York there, I guarantee it.
Yeah.
That's not a lot, but what the hell, it's better than nothing.
No.
I've had a good time along the way.
Boy, it sounds like it.
What can you do?
The guy said, well, you're going to die.
I said, the way to die is really sitting under a tree,
letting me eat all the bologna and salami,
and eat all the pizza, and drink a case of beer,
and then blow up.
I think the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the first to expound that philosophy,
and you only picked up on his thought.
We'll take a break.
We'll be right back.
Okay, we're back.
We'll just have a minute to thank everybody.
Great to have you all here tonight.
Milt, where are you headed now from here?
Oh, I'm going back to New York, do some more teaching.
Back to New York City?
Yeah, do some more teaching.
And I understand you're going to be one of the honored guests
at the Nice Jazz Festival this year?
That's right, this year.
Congratulations.
You deserve it.
Thank you.
You deserve it.
And Paula is going to be at a place called Governors,
Levittown, New York.
Governors, and I was able to swing it.
And April 18th, the 21st, the Chaplains from Detroit.
Nice to have you here.
Come back.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah.
And you're going back to, uh, back home?
I'm going back to rake leaves and cut the grass.
Tonight on the Big Shot Tomorrow of a PR.
Yeah, yeah.
Do me a favor.
Don't blow up for a while, huh?
Come back and see us.
Tomorrow night, Paul Reiser,
the music of Johnny Clegan,
Sabucan, the mayor of Palm Springs, California,
Sonny Bono, to report on what's happening down there.
Good night.
Next day it welcomes actress Diane Lane,
Saturday Night Live's Dennis Miller,
and singer Carl Perkins
to Late Night with David Letterman.
Then Valerie Harper joins Bob on
Later with Bob Costner.