Name: Carl Reiner on Letterman, June 14, 1994
Uploaded: 2020-06-30T21:33:04.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Carl Reiner on Letterman, June 14, 1994' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-06-30. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Carl Reiner on Letterman, June 14, 1994' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-06-30. Transcript available.

Our next guest is an 11-time Emmy Award winner. Oh, you are not. You haven't
won. No, you haven't. You haven't won. You wish you'd won 11 Emmys. Get in a
cab, will you? Get an Emmy for winning a... Oh, hi.
He's also the creator of such programs as The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Tonight he is here to mark the re-release of his and Mel Brooks' famous 2,000-year-old
man, right there, in popular CD format.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome comedy legend Carl Reiner. Come on out,
Joe.
Carl Reiner, ladies and gentlemen. Carl Reiner.
Make a little comedy bit there ourselves, aren't we?
Hey, look at these guys. I'm telling you, what can you tell us about these two
guys right here?
First of all, how old were you and Mel? Look at this. Man, if that isn't
trouble, you guys look like the kind of guys who go to a TV show and win hockey
tickets.
That was 1960, and it's now 1994.
34 years ago. My goodness.
I was that much younger.
This is my toupee that I sold the other day at Stanford for $400 at a benefit.
I did. At Stanford Center of the Arts, and I sold that toupee.
But when you look at that picture, what does that represent about the way you
were and the time of your life and the way Mel was and how you guys got along?
I mean, it looks like you really were on top of the world.
Well, we are still friends.
We dine at least once a week, see each other sometimes two, three times a week.
And this started all for fun.
I heard a program called We the People Speak.
I think it was CBS at the same.
And Dan Seymour came on one night, and he said, here's a man who was actually
in Premier Stalin's toilet, and he heard the Premier of Russia say, the USSR
say, you're going to blow up the world Thursday.
Literally, I said, that's the most irresponsible thing I've ever heard.
I came in furious.
I said, if that's true, don't tell America.
Tell the President.
Don't tell America.
They're nervous enough.
So I came in the office.
I said, Mel was here.
I sat here on a couch, and I said, here's a man who was actually at the scene
of the crucifixion 2,000 years ago.
Isn't that true, sir?
And Mel said, oh, boy.
And I started interviewing him.
I said, you actually knew Jesus?
He's a thin lad.
I knew him.
He always was walking with 12 buddies, 12 buddies.
He said, he came into the store at a little candy store, and they never bought
anything.
They always came in from water.
They gave him a little water.
I gave him a little water.
Yeah, so that's the way it started.
Then I realized I had a genius here.
I mean, if I had actually said that to somebody else, I might have not gone for
10 years before we did it on record.
Right, but still in all, I mean, the idea was yours then.
Well, yes, the idea of making somebody 2,000 years old.
But if I had asked anybody else in the world, maybe even including you, for 10
years, I interviewed this man about Shakespeare, about Robin Hood, about
everybody.
He knew everybody, and he talked about them intelligently and very funnily.
That's the thing.
What was he like as a, and I know that this is not really about Mel Brooks, but
since you're here and you know him and we brought it up.
Well, it is about Mel Brooks.
It's the genius of Mel Brooks.
Well, then why the hell didn't we get Mel Brooks, for God's sake?
What are we wasting our time with this loser?
Hell, are you trying to pull?
But what was it like when you guys collaborated in an office on a television
show, your show of shows, or whatever you were working on?
Show of shows, there was Neil Simon, there was Mel Brooks, Mel Tolkien.
There was a lot of wonderful writers, and Mel was irrepressible.
He would always come late, so he'd slide into the room and say, safe, and do
crazy, jump on a table.
But would he throw fits?
Would he get worked up?
Did he have a temper?
Oh, he had, well, he has a lot of anger in him, but he always can turn anger
into fun.
He once told me he was so angry at Jerry Lewis, he is, he did a picture, he did
a picture with Jerry Lewis.
Well, get in line.
No, this was, this was, he described this to me, I thought it was the funniest
thing.
He said, I told him a couple jokes, and he told me no good.
It was an argument about whether things are funny or not.
And he's so, so furious and Mel, and he gets furious, his jaw sticks out.
And he came in, I have to stand up to do this.
He came in to Jerry's office, say Jerry's over there, and he says, Jerry, he
was furious.
And he says, Jerry, I've had it up to here.
And he noticed in Jerry's face real anger, like, he said, I've had it up to
here.
You've got all this to go yet, Jerry, all this.
Mel can turn anger, he, this may, you may not agree with this, and Mel didn't
either.
I was given an award, a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Comedy Awards.
That's pretty silly, the Comedy Awards.
I tell George Slaughter, it is the stupidest award I've ever seen.
Comedians are not supposed to give themselves awards, they're supposed to make
fun of awards.
Exactly.
Well, they gave me this award, and they asked Mel if he'd come and say
something.
And they got Steve Martin, they got a Kirstie Alley, they got my son Rob to get
up and talk.
And Mel says, do I have to go to this?
I says, no, Mel, it's a commercial venture.
I wouldn't be hurt, really, it's a commercial venture.
He says, yeah, how would it look, your best friend not to show up?
He was angry at me.
I said, Mel, you don't have to come.
You know, they'll think I'm a schmuck if I don't come.
So he came, he's sitting next to me, this is a true story.
Sitting next to me, the whole dinner, he goes away for five minutes to call his
wife, she wasn't feeling well.
And on the stage is Steve Martin being very funny, and Robbie was just sweet
and darling.
He really, you know, made me cry a little bit, and Kirstie Alley was funny.
And now they introduce Mel, my best friend, a 2,000-year-old man.
And he stands up, he's sitting next to me, and he stands up, he says, I don't
believe this award is correct.
He says, this man does not deserve a Lifetime Achievement Award, he's not funny,
I've never felt he was funny.
And he says, and I am not the only one.
He says, roll the videotape.
And he had hired 20 people outside the placard saying, Carl, they videotape,
Carl is not funny, he had never been funny, doesn't deserve an award.
A demonstration.
Wait, then came the topper.
I'm sitting next, and I'm laughing, I think, when he said roll the videotape, I
got hysterical.
Now Mel stands up, and he says, and he has ruined my life, this man.
He has made me a Jew.
He has made me, the whole world thinks of me a Jew.
He says, and I'm tired, sick and tired of it.
And he rips off a nose that he's pasted over his other nose.
He rips off his nose, he says, now I can go back to being who I am.
John Wilkinson from Waco, Texas, and that's who I am.
I was on the floor, but it was out of anger that he did that.
He didn't want to go, so he made fun out of the anger.
You know what we should do now, because this has been a huge mix-up.
We should now have Mel on to talk about you.
That seems only fair.
We have to do a commercial.
We'll be right back.
Okay, well, they've re-released the complete 2,000-year-old man with Mel Brooks
and the man who thought up that idea and many, many other great ones, Carl Reiner.
Carl, thank you very much for your time tonight.
My thanks also to David Byrne and Ted Danson.
And how about those Rangers?
We'll see you tomorrow night with Katie Couric and John Hyatt.
Good night, everybody.