Name: Dick the Bruiser on The David Letterman Show, July 2, 1980
Uploaded: 2021-03-01T02:52:58.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dick the Bruiser on The David Letterman Show, July 2, 1980' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dick the Bruiser on The David Letterman Show, July 2, 1980' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-01. Transcript available.

Speaking of great moments on television, what's your idea of good TV?
See, again, here's one of these questions that I ought to have an answer for.
I like, you know, the monster truck racing.
I like that.
On ESPN, yeah.
Yes, car crushers, that kind of stuff.
I could watch that hour upon hour.
I think that's what television is.
That's what television ought to be.
We're Americans.
We want it.
We love it.
We can't live without it.
A little wrestling, perhaps?
Winter wrestling?
Exactly.
I love wrestling.
Bobby DeBrain-Heenan in Gorilla Monsoon with an in-depth analysis.
You know, Bobby DeBrain-Heenan is from Indianapolis, Indiana, my home city.
Yeah.
And Bobby was involved in wrestling in Indianapolis.
He was in the era of Dick the Bruiser, who in the Midwest, you couldn't get a
better-known wrestler than Dick the Bruiser.
True.
You knew him, I guess, from glory.
In St. Louis, yeah.
And we would go to the matches periodically.
They'd always have a big Thanksgiving card.
That's the kind of thing you want to top off.
Sure.
A family day.
Some turkey and cranberries.
And then let's go watch the Iron Sheik decapitate Hulk Hogan.
Real courier and Ives kind of stuff.
And we would go to these things.
And Bobby the Brain, even then, I thought it was a real touch of kind of genius.
I mean, he was from Indianapolis.
Dick the Bruiser, I think, was from Indianapolis, but always was introduced as
from Reno, Nevada, the world's most dangerous wrestler.
And I thought, geez, I wish I could be known as the world's most dangerous in
anything.
And by the way, how do you prove that, you know?
But Bobby the Brain Heenan, who was not Bobby the Brain in those days, was
actually a wrestler, a little puny guy that he is.
And he always had himself introduced as being from Beverly Hills.
And the wrestling crowd on Thanksgiving night, I mean, you couldn't have said
anything more irritating to these people than to have this little weasel, this
little bleach blonde geek coming into the ring as having been from Beverly
Hills and all that that would possibly suggest.
And I thought, in those days, I predicted big things for Bobby.
Big deal.
And what a talent scout you turned out to be.
You know, the single most terrifying phrase, though, in wrestling is when a
grappler is announced as being from parts unknown.
Ooh, that sends a chill down my back, you know?
What kind of background does this guy have?
He doesn't even have a green card, this guy, brother.
There used to be a guy called the Masked Terror, and he was from parts unknown.
It was pretty exciting in those days.
Okay.
Thank you, folks.
I sincerely hope at home there you're still watching because we have a great
treat for you tonight.
My next guest is here every night playing bass with the band.
But by day, this man works as a singer on numerous commercials and on albums
with people like Chaka Khan, George Benson, and Peter Wolfe.
Here tonight singing Stagger Lee from parts unknown, our very own Will Lee.
And finally, folks, from the World Wrestling Federation, the most intelligent
man in professional wrestling, Bobby the Brain Heenan.
Bobby, where are you?
How did he do that? Very nice.
In the early days of television, wrestling was one of the most popular sports
on TV.
Today, it is still viewed by millions of people.
And our next guest is one of the most popular and most successful wrestlers in
the United States.
Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the world's most dangerous wrestler, Dick the
Bruiser.
Hello, Dick.
Excuse me. How do you do, Dick?
Whoa, no, wait a minute. Just have a seat over there, Dick.
You seem to be in a fine mood this morning, Dick.
I just tore the fork off your lift.
You've got a forkless lift and some dummy good.
You didn't have anything to do with our phone malfunction, did you, Dick?
I ripped the cable out downstairs.
Thank you very much. Just helping out where he can, Dick the Bruiser, ladies
and gentlemen.
It's a pleasure for me to have you here.
I mentioned to the audience that I have been watching you wrestle for a long
time.
Would you like some dip for that?
Would you like some dip for that?
I'm not even going to eat it.
You and I spent a long time from the same city, Indianapolis, Indiana, and you
still work out of there?
I work out there, but I don't work out of there.
I see. You're actually from Reno, Nevada. Is that correct?
I was a bodyguard at Harold Smith in Reno, Nevada at Harold's Club.
I went to school there, but I'm originally from Indiana.
How did you get to be the world's most dangerous wrestler? Is that a
competition they have every year?
No, it's tearing up forklifts and splicing cables from Texas.
Dick, help me out with your history now. When did you start wrestling exactly?
I played football at Green Bay.
When would that have been?
1950 through 55.
And in the off-season, I went to the University of Nevada in Reno and finished
my education
and also worked as Harold's personal bodyguard.
That's how I got so articulately.
Now, tell us about your wrestling style.
How would you describe yourself? Are you a scientific wrestler?
Yeah, that's right. I've got the most scientific punch.
Kick in the belly, tear the toe up, and rip out the tongue.
Now, um...
Don't you laugh at me.
No, I'm sorry, Dick.
This kind of stuff goes great with breakfast, doesn't it?
Now, you wrestle every night of the year for 20 years, 25 years?
I wrestle about four nights a week.
Four nights a week.
As far as the planes can take me.
Yeah. Is it, uh...
Are you, like, the world champion now, Dick?
I'm one of the world's champions.
There's four in existence.
Four world champions.
So you're looking at the one-fourth of it.
All right. I'll accept that.
Now, um...
Is it dangerous? Is it difficult?
Are you getting hurt every night, Dick?
I'm not getting hurt every night.
My opponents get hurt every night.
I maybe get hurt when I see a pretty girl walk by and I turn my face and I get
hit in the air or something.
Yeah, yeah.
I've got 350 stitches on my face, on my head, but you can't see it unless you
get down with a microscope.
But you can see that I'm pretty well battered.
Uh-huh, yeah.
In fact, you're a lot prettier than I am.
Well, I don't know about that, Dick.
You're a Sigma Chi, aren't you?
That's right.
I'm a Beta, and we don't like Sigma Chis.
Well, good. I understand Dick has to run.
Gee, we could, uh...
Uh, we got some videotape of, uh, Dick in action that we're going to show here.
Is this wrestling?
Yeah, you're...
Oh, I see.
Yes, this is wrestling, Dick.
Now, the court has the other videotape now.
Dick, you looked, uh...
You looked winky there.
You looked like the guy was about ready to turn your lights out.
Well, the producer's a brother-in-law of that guy,
and, uh, they didn't show what I did to him right after that.
Took care of him.
We're going to continue talking, uh, with the legendary Dick the Bruiser,
the world's most dangerous wrestler, in two minutes, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome back to the show.
This gentleman is, uh, Dick the Bruiser, a professional wrestler,
one of four world champions, and, uh, what do you think of women wrestlers?
They should stay with horses.
You don't like, uh, you don't like women wrestling?
I don't like women wrestlers.
Uh, I don't like women that race cars.
Women should be in a home cooking your meal.
Oh.
Ooh.
Um...
I'm not running for anything.
So you can, you can say that sort of thing.
I can say I can beat up any woman in the joint.
What a touching sentiment, huh?
Uh, now, you must have a lot of women fans, though.
I certainly do, and they've all tried to hit me right in the face.
Do you, do women have, uh, do wrestlers have a lot of groupies?
Uh, well, yes.
And, uh, I might say they're uglier than I am.
Wow.
So, uh, there's, there's, uh, there's real inducement for any of you kids
thinking of going into wrestling.
Uh, what about the, uh, the physical wear and tear to, to the human body?
How is it compared to, say, professional football?
Well, professional football's bad.
But, one, you've got to remember that, uh, once the season starts in
professional football, you have one game a week.
You get to rest up four or five days, and then they might scrimmage once, and
one game a week.
We have contact, which is hard, difficult, dangerous.
Every night you wrestle.
Mm-hmm.
And you don't get that, uh, place to rest.
Mm-hmm.
Just like I can't straighten my arms, I've got 350 or over on my face.
I used to have short hair, as you know.
I grew it long because every time I'd bend over, people would start reading a
map, trying to go somewhere.
So now I'm just beautiful Dick DeBruiser.
Well, and we're happy to have here Mrs. Marv Mendenhall is going to come out,
and Dick's going to put Mrs. Mendenhall in a, uh, hold.
If we have, have just a few seconds here.
This is Mrs. Marv Mendenhall, Dick DeBruiser.
There's a man wrestling with me in the back.
Yeah, okay.
Uh, what are you going to, what are you going to do to, uh, Mrs. Mendenhall?
We have about 30 seconds here, Dick.
If you go ahead.
Do you want to step out here?
Why don't you guys move out here, and there you go.
Who are you, one of those funny girls?
Why don't you, why don't you put, you're going to put her in a claw, Dick?
I don't like to touch women in a wrestling sequence.
Uh-huh.
Or wrestling holds.
Uh-huh.
But I just might do something to you that would hurt you.
Oh.
This is called a stomach claw, and I use it to finish off wrestlers.
Oh, all right.
Especially.
Come back here, Silo.
Now, I'm going to put this on you, and I don't want you to scream.
Have you got a release for her to sign first?
Yeah, that's all right.
She's already signed a release.
Go ahead and put her in there, Dick.
First of all, let's see, it's hard with her.
Oh, go ahead, Dick.
Just give it, give it, give her a.
Go right ahead.
Just give it a try, Dick.
Just go right ahead.
You're built very peculiar from it.
No, no.
You reach right in here, and you grab the hat.
Oh, Dick, you're so silly.
Okay, thank you very much.
Dick the Bruiser, Mrs. Marv Menendahl, Edwin Newman will be right back.
Thank you.