Name: Patchett & Tarses on Letterman, September 30, 1982, & Stand-Ups, 1967
Uploaded: 2021-02-05T05:15:42.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Patchett & Tarses on Letterman, September 30, 1982, & Stand-Ups, 1967' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Patchett & Tarses on Letterman, September 30, 1982, & Stand-Ups, 1967' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-05. Transcript available.

Patchett & Tarses on Letterman, September 30, 1982, & Stand-Ups, 1967

Once again, I would like to thank David Howard from Houston, Texas, who, by the
way, is in
town with his wife, and we do have a swell gift for them.
We have the lovely late night with David Letterman Sponge, certainly the envy
of every homeowner
in North America.
There it is.
A keepsake to remember his trip to New York City.
Thank you once again, Mr. Howard, for your help.
My next guests are two of television's most successful writers and producers.
Some of their credits include The Bob Newhart Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The
Tony Randall
Show, The Mary Show, and recently a show called Open All Night.
Please welcome two very funny men, Tom Patchett and Jay Tarsie.
Hi, gentlemen.
Hi, Tom.
Jay Howard, nice to see you.
It's nice to see you guys here.
Thank you very much for coming to New York City.
You're here working on a project now, aren't you?
Yes, we're casting a new show we'll be doing mid-season on NBC.
And who would we see in this show?
Dabney Coleman.
Do you know who Dabney Coleman is?
I reckon he was...
Dabney Coleman is in 9 to 5, the movie.
He was the boss.
He's in on Golden Pond.
He's a mustache.
He had a mustache then.
Jane found his boyfriend in 9 to 5, the Golden Pond.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's a dandy.
Yeah.
Well, good luck to you on the show.
Now, you've also worked with some other monsters.
Some other monsters.
Mary Tyler Moore?
Yes.
Monsters in show business.
Oh, yeah.
Bob Newhart.
Oh, yeah.
Carol Burnett, Tony Randall.
Now, do you still keep in touch with these folks?
You're still good friends with all of them?
No, we don't see any of them at all.
We just hang around with Trevor Howard and John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson.
We play cards with them.
But we heard that Trevor Howard doesn't want to play anymore.
And we want to know if you'd like to just, you know, get in a pretty good poker
game.
I know.
I'd love to, but I don't play cards.
You don't gamble?
I don't play cards.
Thanks, anyway.
Just thought we'd ask.
Well, it's very nice of you to ask.
Now, when I met you, first, gentlemen, I think, first met you, gentlemen, it
was on a show
for another network with Mary Tyler Moore.
It was a variety show.
Yes, yes, yes.
And some very good people on that program.
Some really good ones.
Mary.
Mary Tyler Moore.
Yeah.
It was a variety show that lasted about 12 seconds, I think, on the air.
But we liked it.
David was on.
He was sort of the emcee.
And there was Michael Keaton.
Michael Keaton, who is now suddenly a hot, young film star.
Yes, he was in Night Shift, a movie that's going to make him a star.
And Swoosie Kurtz was on the show.
Swoosie Kurtz.
She has her own show now.
Yep.
Boy, and it was fun, too, you know.
And we read that we used to dress you in porcupine outfits.
No, yeah, that was actually, it was a dog suit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it wasn't, I mean, it was your dog suit.
No, no.
See.
We never supplied you with that dog suit.
You wanted to wear it.
No, there's some confusion about whose dog suit it was.
Well, we certainly didn't own a dog suit.
Now, when you worked with Bob Newhart, did you ever dress him up in dog suits
at all?
No.
Bob was sort of...
Bob liked to wear an owl costume.
I didn't realize that.
Yep, yep, yep.
He was a concern.
Excuse me.
He was a concern.
What's that?
Can you hear that?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's not the theme to the Newhart Show.
You know, excuse me, could we turn it down a little?
What is it?
Somebody got a radio?
I know what it is.
What is it?
I know what it is.
Excuse me.
I'll be right back.
I'm sorry about this.
I'll be right back.
I can handle it.
Don't worry about it.
I'll excuse you.
No, it happened one other time.
I'll be right back.
I'm sorry.
Excuse me.
Oh, jeez.
Listen to this racket in here.
Will you do me a favor, Troy, and turn this record player down?
It's not a record player.
It's a tape player.
Well, whatever it is, turn it down, will you?
Why should I?
I'll tell you why.
I'm right in the middle of an interview down there.
That's why.
I can't even hear myself think.
Saul?
Hey, Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, come on.
It's not the way to handle this.
Yeah, but I think all the times that they've been fishing, and then there were
the trips
to the zoo, and the afternoon at the ballpark.
Yeah, but getting angry will just make things worse.
Yeah, look, Dave, we're both fathers.
We've been dealing with this kind of stuff for years.
Let us talk to the boy.
Well, okay.
And Dave, don't be angry.
I'm not angry.
I'm just disappointed.
That's all.
Hi, Troy.
Got a minute?
No.
Look, I can see that you're a sophisticated kid, so I'm not going to try to put
anything
over on you.
Ring, ring.
Is that the phone?
Say, I think you're right.
I'll get it.
Hello, who's calling?
Wow, it's Pete Rose.
How do you like that?
It's baseball superstar Pete Rose.
Right.
Hey, Pete, what can I do for you?
Oh, okay.
Well, thanks, Pete, and goodbye.
You know, he was just calling to say that he thinks getting to sleep early is
the most
important step you can take to becoming a famous baseball player.
Big deal.
I hate baseball.
See, I told you, cheap tricks aren't going to work on this kid.
He's too smart.
Yeah, you're right, Tom.
Let's just give it to him straight.
Look, Troy, Dave's under a lot of pressure.
It's hard work trying to be wacky and irreverent day in and day out.
You think he likes having to sit down there and talk to authors and bag ladies?
No, of course he doesn't.
It takes time for him to come up with fresh, innovative material and a lot of
hard work,
or else he'd have to do small-town news every night, and you wouldn't want that,
would you?
No.
Well, then, when Dave tells you to turn on your music because it's disrupting
an interview,
try to be a little more understanding.
He's under a lot of pressure.
He's doing the best he can.
Do you understand?
I think so.
So, well, will you turn down your record player?
What if I don't feel like it?
I don't even know who you are.
Ring, ring, ring.
Hey, it's the phone.
I'll get it.
Hello.
No kidding.
This is Pete Rose again.
Hi, Pete.
What's that?
Fine.
Fine.
I'll tell him.
Oh, he says the only thing left to do is to smother the kid with a pillow.
That's what Pete wants.
Sorry, pal.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Welcome back to the show.
And television producers Patchett and Tarsus are with us tonight.
Also, tomorrow night, Robert Klein will be with us.
And it's our big bar mitzvah gala.
So you're going to be sure and wanting to join us.
You're going to want to be sure and, you know, just be here for the big bar mitzvah
show.
That'll be tomorrow night.
Hi.
Did you get it taken care of, boys?
Yeah.
Oh, great.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate the help.
Newhart mainly worked in street clothes, though.
Oh, yeah.
Pretty much his own wardrobe?
Yep.
Yeah.
Now, before you got into the world of producing and writing television shows,
you actually had
a stand-up comedy act, didn't you?
That's right.
Five years.
About five years.
Very erratic.
We never knew how we were going to do.
And that's what got us out of it, standing up in front of an audience.
What kind of places were you working?
Toilets, basically.
So, well, we had a stand-up.
Well, let's name names here.
Well, we played a lot of clubs.
Back in the 60s, you know, the late 60s, when Stiller and Mira and Burns and
She...
Even before, you know, right before you burst on the scene, we were out there,
you know.
We had a small coterie of, like, 10 or 12 people that knew who we were.
Yeah, you had a kind of a cult and a real dedicated cult following.
Some of them may still be alive.
Are there people who know who we were when we were a comedy team?
Thank you very much.
No kidding.
That's pretty impressive.
Thank you.
You're beautiful.
Did you say that?
Now, you also had a, is this correct, a record album?
Yes, it was called Instant Replay.
Still available.
Yes.
No, it isn't.
I don't think it is.
No?
Yeah.
I saw it for 99 cents the other day.
It was about professionals.
Speaking of children.
Yes, sir.
If I could indulge my son.
I just want to say it's my son's birthday.
And not actually tonight, not when the show will be shown, but it's actually
his birthday.
And I just want to say happy birthday to my son.
So it's not tonight, but by the time, Matt, by the time the show airs, it will
be his birthday.
No, it's his birthday tonight.
Oh, it's his birthday now.
Actually.
And I'm never home on his birthdays.
I'm always out of town.
On business.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean it.
Yeah.
On business.
So now when Matt actually sees this, it'll be some two weeks later.
It won't mean a thing to it.
No, it'll be meaningless.
Okay.
Thanks.
Now, before the, what were we talking about, the stand-up comedy?
What kind of material would we hear in your act?
Well, the satirical vignettes, which, as you know, go over very, very well in
places like,
you know, Las Vegas, where we were actually part of a nude review one time.
But we, I mean, we were dressed like this, but we would come out following the
bordello
number.
We'd come out and do a satirical sketch about, you know, Howard Johnson's
restaurants or something,
which the audience was just really ready for.
Yeah, that goes well with the naked people and booze.
Is it some good satirical material?
They couldn't wait to see us.
It's kind of like now.
And so then what made you get out of it, stand-up comedy?
Tired of standing up and just wanted to sit down.
Give us a break.
Yeah.
And you got into television producing and writing first, right?
Writing.
Yeah, we met Carl Reiner one time on a talk show that we did, I think the Steve
Allen show
years ago.
And Carl liked what we did and said, I'm going to give you guys an entire talk
show.
I'm going to give you guys an entire career and you'll be indebted to me for
the rest of your life.
And he did, and he did, you know, sort of.
Yeah.
We're functioning, you know, family men.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, Jay starred in The Jerk.
You were in The Jerk?
Yeah, this is Steve Martin.
I was the star.
I played, no, it's a joke.
Now, you're confused now.
Yeah.
But you have written some films that the folks would remember.
Yeah, yes, we have written a couple of films.
We wrote a Muppet movie, a second Muppet movie called The Great Muppet Caper,
which was,
you know, real cute, furry things, doing satirical vignettes.
And we also wrote, now hold on to your hats, we wrote a movie called Up the
Academy.
Thank you.
And I did not see Up the Academy.
Was that a...
It was no good.
No good.
That's too bad.
No good.
I think that's what the reviews said.
Now, this is no good.
And who was responsible for it being no good?
I mean, you obviously didn't write a no good script.
Well, we could probably, you could, well, sour grapes, you know, it's just sour.
Everyone but us is the answer.
We wrote a perfect script.
But it somehow...
It was butchered along the way.
Yeah, that's too bad.
We had nothing to do with it.
But you have the new series coming on and another Muppet movie.
Yeah, gosh, things are going real well for us.
We're going to just keep going.
Yeah.
Now, when is the new Muppet movie and what's the name of this one?
It's all on the, you know, it's all on the planning stages.
Oh, I see.
I see.
Okay, well, they're planning a Muppet movie.
No, no, they're going to do one.
Well, you're actually going to do one.
Yeah.
It'll be shot in New York, hopefully.
It's called Muppets, the legend continues.
And it's the story of how the Muppets actually, when they graduated from
college, how they came
to New York to perform satirical sketches.
You know, I don't want to cause any problems, Jay, but it seems that Tom has
all the answers.
And you tend to be pretty vague on this stuff.
Well, Tom's...
Are you still a team?
He's got a poker game.
I have to play cards.
It's Trevor Howard.
Tom's bright.
Tom does...
He's good at this stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
We...
You know what we're going to do?
We have...
This is something you're going to enjoy.
Nightcap Theater.
Whoa.
As soon as we come back.
You think you've had fun now.
Wait