Name: Bob & Chris Elliott's Book Promotion Tour, Spring 1989 re-up
Uploaded: 2021-11-25T06:48:30.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bob & Chris Elliott's Book Promotion Tour, Spring 1989 re-up' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-11-25. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bob & Chris Elliott's Book Promotion Tour, Spring 1989 re-up' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-11-25. Transcript available.

Bob & Chris Elliott's Book Promotion Tour, Spring 1989 re-up

I've heard that somewhere before.
Yes.
One of our next guests is a pioneer
and indeed a legend in radio and TV comedy.
The other is not.
They have collaborated on a book
about growing up together in the same house.
Here it is.
It's entitled Daddy's Boy.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please say hello to Bob Elliott
and his son, Chris Elliott.
Chris, is it?
He must be Bob.
Nice to see you.
Chris Elliott and Bob Elliott.
All right, we all settled there?
Is that the way it's going to be?
I think so.
You're going to sit here then, huh?
Yeah, I think.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, when we do the Tonight Show,
I'll be sitting at the closer chair.
We'll see about that.
Nice to see both of you gentlemen.
What is the story on the book Daddy's Boy?
Oh, well, thanks for bringing that up, Dave.
Well, basically,
it's my account,
a scathing and often bitter account
of growing up with this man right over here.
And it's kind of the epuration, I guess,
of my soul to get it out in the open.
There's a problem with the book
as sort of a legal snafu.
It turns out that to avoid lawsuits,
my dad gets every other chapter in the book
to sort of rebut what I say.
I see.
And that was a legal acquiescence.
And he also gets to go on this tour with me.
Tours?
Well, I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah, I bet you are.
Get out of town for a little while.
Now, Bob, are you pleased
with how the book has turned out?
Are you happy with it?
Well, Dave, I'm a little bit embarrassed
to say that I haven't had a chance to read it yet.
I think that's an incredible display
of bumptuousness on your part.
I've had a battery of expensive attorneys
going through it
with a fine-toothed mustache comb.
And they find nothing libelous.
And as you say,
you're looking forward to the tour.
I'm looking forward to that.
I had to do a lot of work last summer
when I hadn't planned to,
writing my parts of it.
Let me interrupt Dad just one second here.
Well, I wanted to tell him
I had to rewrite it
because my dog ate the original manuscript.
Oh, see, I didn't realize that.
And my wife took a picture of it,
which I brought.
Oh, you have a photo of that.
Everybody has pictures tonight.
That's Mark's the...
devouring the first draft.
Right there.
Any pictures?
Well, that's cute.
That's a nice little keepsake for you.
I know.
I know.
It's in the book.
Dave, I think you have a photo over there.
I have some photos over here as well.
This is a photo of me and my dad.
And if I could say,
this is the fond memories I have
of me and my daddy.
So there was friction
at a certain point in the life.
This is really...
This is before the friction began, though.
I don't really touch on the good times
in this book at all.
But things are better now, obviously.
Things are better now.
The turning point was...
You want to run through these photos?
If I could.
The turning point was
when I was about six years old.
I had a huge birthday party
and I knew something was going screwy
with my dad at the time.
I wasn't allowed to invite
any of my friends,
just my dad's friends.
And I think you can get a close-up
of that picture right there
and you'll see.
That's me in the back there.
Hugh, Andy Rooney,
Art Buckwald, Steve Allen,
Dick Cavett.
Dick Cavett, by the way.
He cornered me
and he bent my ear
for an hour and a half
about peanut butter.
The dullest conversation
I have ever had in my life.
Well, what can I tell you?
First time I've seen that picture.
Well, see, now you've just
forgotten things, I think.
Oh, my head.
All right.
Here is another photo.
Of course, I had to dress
exactly like Daddy.
Are these all in the book, by the way?
These are all in the book.
Usually, it was just
the blue sports coats
and the ties,
but occasionally,
you'd feel frisky
and we'd put on
our bell abs
and floppy hats
and that's what that is.
I'm sorry,
the bell abs of...
Bell abs of floppy hats
is what he called them.
You'd probably be surprised
how many times
people ask me
about that picture.
Yeah, I guess I would.
Here we go.
This is...
What do we have?
That was my fat teens.
Man.
I was lucky.
I was extremely lucky
that my father's good friend
Dick Gregory came by
and prescribed his diet.
You were doing something
different with your hair
then as well, weren't you?
I was braiding it.
Uh-huh.
I had to embrace back then.
Gosh, you must have been
screwed up.
Boy.
Oh, I was.
It was terrible.
But thank goodness
for Dick Gregory.
Yeah.
Now, Bob,
did you enjoy the experience
of being an author?
I did, really.
It was a chance
to delve into a few things,
do some research.
One of...
I had hoped to get a...
I did most of this
up in Maine last summer.
Yeah.
My rebuttals.
And I had hoped
to establish
a Finn and Hattie festival
up there.
Oh, Finn and Hattie
is a very popular
local fish?
Well, I hoped to make it that.
Uh-huh.
I wanted to.
Finn and Hattie,
as you know,
was discovered by mistake.
I didn't know that.
I was a fisherman,
I think, in Scotland
who had some haddock
in a fish-drying house.
And it caught fire one night.
Yeah.
And the next morning...
Sort of cured the haddock.
It did.
It gave it a whole
different taste.
And I thought a festival
celebrating that
would be pretty good.
So you can see, Dave,
when people get the book,
I think they should
pretty much skip through
my dad's rebuttals
and just go straight
to my stuff.
It's just about
every other chapter.
It's all in there.
The Finn and Hattie festival
and everything.
Yeah, that and lighthouses.
A good part of it
is on lighthouses.
And the effort
was a purging
and a clearing of the air.
For me, it was.
I honestly don't know
what the meaning
of his participation was.
But for me,
I feel better
that I've gotten it
out in the open.
And by the way,
I don't think
something like this
has ever been done before.
No, probably not.
It's Daddy's Boy.
Daddy's Boy.
And I'm sure
it's going to be
the runway.
We're going on tour with it
and we're hoping
you'll join us.
You'd like to go on the tour
with us?
I think not, thanks.
I would like to have you.
Nice to see you again, Bob.
Thank you.
Great, good to see you, Billy.
And Chris Elliott.
Thank you, gentlemen.
We'll be right back here.
We'll talk to the Elliotts about all this
in just a moment.
We should tell you
that millions of fans
know Bob Elliott
as half of the legendary
Bob and Ray comedy team
for 40 years,
a comedy institution in America.
Now, boys and girls,
as a matter of fact,
we are going to tell you
how you can get one of these
if your name begins with O.
Now, that's the one little thing.
We are overstocked
on sweaters with O.
Matter of fact,
we have 2,500 of these sweaters
with O's on them,
but that's your good luck.
You don't need to worry
a thing about it
because if you have a name
like O'Leary
or O'Brien,
Oglethorpe,
Osborne,
Opdyke,
Ogunquist,
you're all set.
Oh, in spite of the laughter
that Bob Elliott
has brought to America,
his son Chris
had seen fit to write
Daddy's Boy
just before Father's Day.
Bob and Chris Elliott
join us now live
on Live at Five.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks, Peter.
It's good to be here.
This is a savage book.
It's shocking, isn't it?
Did it shock you?
I was completely shocked.
I was at a loss for words.
It kept me up at night.
Explosive, also,
is a good way to describe it.
Yeah, Peter,
you know,
people have had for years
this sort of misconception
of my dad
as being a mild-mannered humorist,
Bob of Bob and Ray,
but in reality,
he was just a maniacal superstar,
and I think I kind of
blow the lid off Bob Elliott
in my book.
You know,
it's interesting
because it's so hard to tell
that looking at your father
right here.
He does look mild-mannered,
easygoing,
a superstar,
a legend.
Nuts.
He was absolutely nuts.
Insane.
And I think I put forth
in shocking Frank
and probably bitter terms
the whole story.
Peter,
would it surprise you
to know that I haven't
gotten around to
reading this book yet?
Well, I understand.
I'm glad you mentioned that
because I understand
you hadn't gotten around
to doing a lot of things
in your son's life,
reading his letters,
writing to him.
He came to me
about a year ago
and said,
I'm going to write a book
and my lawyers say,
you've got to have a chance
to rebut what I write
because you're still around.
You know,
Dan,
it might be a good idea
on this little book tour here
if you did kind of
skim through the thing.
Well, I did skim through it
when he sent them to me.
Well, we have a copy here
if you'd just like
to leave through
while I'm asking Chris
a little more
about childhood.
It's actually in the stores
now, too.
No way to recall it.
No, I'm afraid not.
Chris,
what was it like
growing up with your father?
It was sheer hell, Peter.
And I think
the best way
to describe it,
the turning point
was when I was
about six years old.
That's when things
in Daddy's career
started to spiral downward
and that's when I knew
he was cracking up.
I had a birthday party
and I wasn't allowed
to invite any of my own friends
to this birthday party.
Daddy wouldn't have
any of that.
Instead,
Daddy invited all his friends.
Do you remember this?
No.
I think he's a little...
As a matter of fact,
I'm glad you mentioned it
because we have a picture
of that birthday party here.
We can take a look
at it right now.
It's a coincidence.
There it is.
There it is, right there.
See who's there?
There's Andy Rooney.
Art Buchwald was there.
Joe Franklin.
Joe Franklin.
Dick Cavett is there
and let me tell you something.
He bent my ear
for an hour and a half
about peanut butter.
Good heavens.
He probably knows
a lot about peanut butter.
That's all he would talk about
and I guess
Charles Corralt's
not in that picture.
Steve Allen's there?
Steve Allen's there.
He played the grand piano
the whole time.
Charles Corralt
and Art Buchwald
actually wrestled each other
shirtless in the backyard.
No.
Yeah.
Good heavens.
So this is what
you were exposed to
as a child.
That's just some of the things
I was exposed to, yes.
Well, I'm sorry to tell you
we have more photographic evidence
of this abuse.
You're being so quiet.
I tried to encourage my kids
to have imagination
but this went the wrong way.
Here's an example.
What were you doing there, Bob?
Yeah.
Do you remember that one, Dan?
Apparently I was just posing there
when he was a small boy.
But I can't help noticing
there's an awful lot of hair
in that photograph.
Yes.
That's not there now.
There was a time
when I had hair.
Yeah.
But was that your own hair?
I would.
I don't know where...
Now, you know, Peter,
Daddy forced me to dress
exactly like him
at all times.
And here you see us
in our French sailor outfits
and Bella Abzug floppy hats.
That's interesting.
That's an interesting fleet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, usually it was the...
Well, that's...
Now you're seeing me
with my latex bald cap on.
When Daddy went bald,
yeah, I guess I was
about seven years old,
it bothered him
that I had a full head of hair
like I still do now.
And you don't need one now.
I'm starting to see
the savagery
which is just below
the surface here.
This is so extraordinary.
You should have been
on this tour with us.
Yeah.
It's really come out
on the tour.
Feels like we've been
on a primary.
We were in Nashville,
New Hampshire yesterday,
Worcester, Mass,
and Boston in here.
Now, you mentioned
something else in the book,
too, gold toe socks.
Yeah.
Well, that was one of the things
Daddy became obsessed with.
And again, you've forgotten this.
Gold toe socks,
had to wear them everywhere.
Had to wear them to school,
to gym class,
to the beach,
and all around the house.
And I think my dad
is still wearing them,
but I sort of rebel.
I see that.
And it looks like
you've turned out
quite normal.
Well, I don't know.
We're going to get busy
on a sequel
as soon as we can.
Oh, really?
What's that thing called?
Chris's dad.
This is a rejoinder.
He'll do the rebuttal.
More savagery?
More revelations?
Oh, there'll be plenty
of savagery.
We'll look forward to it.
I hope you'll join us here
when that book comes out.
We will.
Bob and Chris Elliott,
thanks for being here.
Thanks, Peter.
Susan.
Scanda