Name: Talk Show Hosts Collection on Letterman, Part 1 of 7: Steve Allen
Uploaded: 2021-02-06T20:53:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Talk Show Hosts Collection on Letterman, Part 1 of 7: Steve Allen' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Talk Show Hosts Collection on Letterman, Part 1 of 7: Steve Allen' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-06. Transcript available.

Talk Show Hosts Collection on Letterman, Part 1 of 7: Steve Allen

Welcome back to the show.
What fun we're having this morning.
My first guest is an author, composer, performer, singer, and comedian
who has taken it upon himself to write a book,
Explaining China.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome,
a real thrill for me to have him here, Steve Allen.
Have a seat, Steve Allen.
Thank you.
Is this mine or yours?
That's yours, hope you so.
Okay.
What do you want to do?
Well, the first thing I should do, I was struck, as we say.
Oh, no.
I was struck, yes, by a stagehand on the way out.
No, I was struck by your introduction of this picture into evidence, Your Honor.
Yes.
And this was the man who was doing research into how ducks make out.
That's right.
Actually, this picture does not substantiate the thesis.
Uh-huh.
This is foreplay.
Oh, that's true.
And we are not permitted on television, at least at this time,
to do anything much, now that I think of it.
Let me, um...
I'm real excited you're here, uh, this morning.
Well, then I'll be running along.
There should be no excitement at 10 in the morning, folks.
Here, have one of those.
You ever use one of those?
Oh, yeah.
Give that a shot.
Well, I did star in the Benny Goodman story.
Yeah?
So who's better qualified than to play one of these?
There's only one finger hole.
That's all you need.
That's all you need.
What does it say on there?
Made in Japan.
That's interesting.
What is this?
Well, give it a shot.
Call for Elizabeth Taylor.
Uh, let me see.
Um, I want to ask you about the Tonight Show.
You started the whole thing.
You're the reason we got a desk here.
You're the reason that talk shows are what they are today.
What was that like, the very first Tonight Show?
We had no idea that it was, uh, you know, going to go on and be a 27-year thing.
It was just, uh, you know, as in the case with your own show, you're just
trying to be funny each day.
And, uh, that was all we ever thought of.
As a matter of fact, um, you can't even look back at it with any great, uh,
attention because the network burned, as you probably have heard.
Just about all the old kinescope film it had, running from about 1949 to about
1956 or so.
So all those three years are gone.
Does that bother you, that that just...
Uh, well, I'm so busy right now, it doesn't.
But as soon as I, my schedule slacks up a little bit, I'll get bothered again
by that, yeah.
Now, you did the, the, the original Tonight Show for five years, right?
Three years.
Three years.
It seemed like five.
Uh, and, and, and then, uh, Jack Parr did it for...
Five years.
Five years.
Seemed like three.
And, uh, and then, uh, Mr. Carson has done it now for 18 years.
Yeah.
Uh, you were the shortest one of the bunch, so to speak, uh, in terms of years.
Why, why did you leave it after three?
Uh, well, they asked me to do, and I did, uh, a primetime comedy show, and I
thought I could do both at the same time.
And for a while I did, but I couldn't do justice to, uh, either or both.
So I realized that at, uh, in primetime I had about ten times as many people
watching, and the salary was eight times as large.
So it was an easy decision to make.
Yeah, that's not, not a great deal of thought involved with that.
As to which to give up.
Yeah.
What about, uh, uh, now the show that I, uh, remember mostly and love a great
deal is the, uh, the Westinghouse show.
In the early 60s, yeah.
Yeah, and it seemed to me that you were always doing very peculiar things on
that show.
Yes.
When the writers should have been writing jokes for me, they were, uh, concocting,
uh, plots on my life, I think.
Some of those things were actually dangerous, and I was, upon occasion, moderately
injured.
And frequently scared as hell.
Well, was, uh, was one of them the human teabag?
Were you, uh, near?
Do you were, tell them about the human teabag.
There was no physical danger in being the human teabag, only hideous
embarrassment.
But, uh, I was attired as I am at the moment.
In fact, this is the same suit.
I knew it was still a little more.
No, I would, the whole point was to be dressed like a gentleman of some kind,
and then have to, uh, I was covered with little teabags.
I had to jump into about 89 gallons of hot water.
Imagine, a grown man.
Yeah.
That's when I started groaning, as a matter of fact.
Did, uh, during all of that, did your kids say, you come home from the show and
you say,
jeez, dad, a human teabag, lay off, will you?
They refused to speak to me for those three years.
The, uh, one of the things that I remember vividly and one of the things that I
just loved, and in fact, we did a version of it here one day.
You put a camera outside and you just look at the folks walking by.
Yeah.
And, uh, I guess you did that the first.
Uh, yeah.
In fact, we did it, uh, last Saturday.
I'm doing, as you know, some comedy things for NBC right now, and we, we did
that as part of the show.
And I loved, uh, your version of it, which was brilliantly creative.
I saw it, I don't know, two or three weeks ago, where you, you, uh, shot the
people on the street and then referred to it as a fashion show.
We had a fashion parade.
That was really funny.
Now, uh, we have, uh, we have a camera this morning down on, I believe, 6th
Avenue, unless it's been stolen.
Ah.
Oh, there it is.
If, if you don't mind, could you just comment, uh, do you need a little piano
with this, Steve?
Uh, yes.
Okay.
At least it helps.
You know, the great value of the piano is, uh, otherwise people notice the silences.
And there's a man who seems to have heard what I just said.
He's smiling.
Huh?
He's not too bright, he's, he doesn't know the war is over, he's still tearing
up his draft card.
Ah.
It's brisk out today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's why people look purposeful.
Where is that, 6th and, oh, it's, I see, it's right near the, uh.
Yeah, it's just looking at Rock of, uh, or Radio City Music Hall.
Yeah.
There's old white pants again.
You know, I always thought that this, this would make great late night TV.
You just let this thing go.
Yeah.
I, I, I, one of my fantasies is having my own TV station in, you know, Terre Haute,
Indiana or someplace,
and doing stuff like that.
Well, I think you could also have a family that would come out at midnight, or,
and just, just, uh, spend the night on, on television.
I don't, I don't mean entertain, I just mean, uh, you know, go to bed, brush
their teeth.
Hi.
Hi, sweetheart.
You know, the great thing about this, as you perceive, David, is you don't
really have to say anything very witty.
It's the people, the situation, the reality that's funny.
Very entertaining.
Very entertaining.
We have to pause for a commercial.
Uh, with any luck at all, we'll be back, though.
Hi, David, great.
Hi, David, we're talking to Steve Allen, uh, in his most recent book, Explaining
China, which we'll get to in a second.
So, hurry.
I appreciate your, you're doing that, you know, because you go on some shows,
and literally the hosts do this.
No names, please.
They say, Steve Allen has a new book, and I think, uh, that's my book book, you
know.
There's something else you may be interested in.
The Monday, the game show started, and they already started loading up some of
the equipment.
There you go.
However, I do, speaking of the world of game shows, I have some sad news.
Johnny Olsen, who, you know, has been on a lot of them over the years, he's now
working out in Los Angeles with the, uh, ASPCA.
Whenever there's a cat stuck up in a tree, he yells, come on down!
Very sad.
Presidents for 20, Art.
No, I'm sorry.
You have a great audience here.
Yeah, the audience is very nice here.
Yeah, a great audience.
And they're all...
They are...
I'm applauding for these things.
The interesting thing about them is not that they're just a good audience,
which is nice, you know, selfishly speaking for us, but they are all of a type.
They're all hip, young people out of work.
Yeah.
I can sort of relate to that.
Now, what we, uh, I want to, uh, we brought, you brought some videotape from
the old show that we alluded to, and do you mind taking a look at this with us?
No, I have nothing else to do in the next few minutes.
All right, this is, uh, do you know what we're going to look at?
It's the...
Somebody mentioned the, uh, the human kite.
Human kite.
This is, now, this was an opening to one of your shows.
Yeah, this was how it was every night.
Typically, I did some stupid thing of this sort, and I was quite prepared to
fly on this occasion, but I had difficulty getting airborne.
So this, uh, take a look at the monitors, uh, Mr. Steve Allen flying.
This is your, uh, Mr. Bill Captain speaking.
We're about to take off from La Marotta Airport, and we will be flying at a
height of about five and a half inches over the Hollywood Ranch Market,
last case coffee shop, and directly into the Los Angeles General Hospital.
How do you love it?
I guess we're, uh, about ready to go.
John, I'll give you the glasses, if I may.
We'll back up here.
I have a big tail on the kite out here.
I'll grab my little wing birds.
Okay, let it rip!
I'll grab my little wing birds.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
Oh, brother.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
Oh, brother.
I'll grab my little wings.
I'll grab my little wings.
There was, I recall, and I don't mean to dwell on it, but I do mean to dwell on
it, is,
I love this stuff that you had one time yourself covered with ants and then
some ant eaters
released.
Yes.
Or was that just a date?
No.
It was something a couple of my uncles dreamed up, actually.
No, all seriousness aside, I was in a sketch, I think with, I don't know, Pat
Harrington,
Jr., and I was wearing a pith helmet and Stuart Granger wardrobe, and I was
spread-eagled.
If you've ever had your eagle spread, you're not a painful enemy.
Anyway, I was helpless, prone, prostrate at the same time, and then some guy
came out
with a jar full of real big ants and poured them all over me, and I couldn't do
anything
about that, and then they brought out an ant eater, and he ate the ants off me.
Weird.
Did, uh--
Listen, don't knock it until you've tried it.
It's going to be one of the most exciting moments of my life.
We have to take another short break, and then we'll come back and continue.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
We have to take another short break.
Thank you very much.
And that's the sound of music?
No, it's not the sound of music.
That is really-- that's really what you call toe-tapping music.
Whenever I hear that music, I take out a small hammer and tap my toes just at
infinite.
Now, you've got the serious up here.
You brought this book.
Let's talk about the book.
Explaining China.
I started reading this yesterday.
Voluminous.
Yes.
And that's the sound of music.
Thank you very much.
And that's the sound of music.
No, it's not the sound of music.
That is really-- that's really what you call toe-tapping music.
Whenever I hear that music, I take out a small hammer and tap my toes just at
infinite.
Now, you've got the serious up here.
You brought this book.
Let's talk about the book.
Explaining China.
I started reading this yesterday.
Voluminous.
Yes.
And tell me what-- tell me all about it.
We have two minutes.
Tell me all about this Voluminous book.
Well, first of all, if I may point out that the title "Explain China" has
quotation marks
around it.
The point of that is it would take 1,000 bo