Name: David Letterman's Christmas Shows, 1984 & 1987, & BIll Luhrs Collection
Uploaded: 2019-12-06T05:49:42.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman's Christmas Shows, 1984 & 1987, & BIll Luhrs Collection' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-12-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman's Christmas Shows, 1984 & 1987, & BIll Luhrs Collection' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-12-06. Transcript available.

David Letterman's Christmas Shows, 1984 & 1987, & BIll Luhrs Collection

THE FOLLOWING PROGRAM IS BROUGHT TO YOU IN LIVING COLOR ON NBC.
CHRISTMAS
Sleigh bells ringing, children singing, it smells like Christmas.
Snow is falling, Santa's calling, it smells like Christmas.
Tins are red and they're so tall.
Chestnut's roasted hot.
Grandma's famous fun.
She always makes a lot.
Stuffing stockings, baking hot things, it smells like Christmas.
Carving pumpkins, no, you bumpkin.
It smells like Christmas.
Mr. Polkman, bring a smoke pan.
It smells like Christmas.
Hello, Melkman, gimme my man.
It smells like Christmas.
Smurvy faces.
Muslet races.
Snowball throwing.
North wind blowing.
You want starks?
Pat Boon remorse.
Sure smells like Christmas.
CHRISTMAS!
CHRISTMAS!
It's beginning to smell very, very much like Christmas.
Yes, yes!
It's Christmas with the Leathermans.
It's Christmas with the Leathermans.
Starring the whole Leatherman family.
Featuring Dave's wife, the lovely Audrey Daniels Leatherman.
And the Leatherman kids, Hank, Terry, Melissa, Kyle.
Plus, Dave's older brother, Daryl.
With guest stars, Pat Boon.
And brother, Theodore.
And the Doodletown Pipers.
And now, a man who for 43 years has entertained our boys overseas.
David Leatherman.
David Leatherman.
David Leatherman.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for the show.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, folks.
Welcome to the program.
My name is David Letterman.
And this is our special holiday program, Christmas with the Lettermans,
featuring, among others, the legendary Doodletown Pipers.
Now, any time you have a show featuring the Doodletown Pipers, one question
comes to mind.
And that, of course, is where exactly is Doodletown?
This is my favorite time of year in New York City.
I'll make no apologies for that.
You walk outside, the smell of chestnuts, the smell of pine trees, subway fires.
You just...
Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, a very special evening for us.
Now, say hello to our good friend and a member of the family, Mr. Paul Schaefer.
Paul, thank you so much.
Thank you.
David, Merry Christmas to you.
You know, I want to say that, as I say every year, you know, people, ordinary
people, they only get to feel this wonderful Christmas spirit once a year.
That's right.
We in show business, we feel this love all year round.
That's right.
We feel it.
You know, but...
365 days a year.
But it's great to be celebrating Christmas with you today.
Great to be here with you, Paul.
This is quite a night.
We have wonderful guests.
But let's get right to the heart of things, folks.
It's Christmas with the Lettermans, and you really can't have Christmas with
the Lettermans unless you meet the Lettermans.
Let's do that right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, please say hello to my wife, the lovely Audrey Daniels
Letterman.
Audrey!
Audrey, how are you?
Boy, you look terrific.
You look great.
Audrey, ladies and gentlemen.
Go ahead and sit down.
Paul, you remember Audrey, don't you?
I love Audrey.
Yeah.
You're a lovely wife.
Nice to see you, Audrey.
This is exciting, isn't it, Audrey?
It's just like at the house, huh?
Oh, it's great.
It's great.
Now, you may not know this, but before Audrey and I were married, she had quite
a very successful career in show business.
Go ahead and tell them about it, Audrey.
No, I...
No, no, come on, look.
Look at this.
She was one of the original members of the cast of Mission Impossible.
There she is.
No, I was never actually on the show.
There was a problem with Greg Morris, and so they had to make a change.
Oh.
Well, still and all, it's a nice photo, and you have your memories and so forth.
And if we have time now, you know how time gets away from you on TV, but if we
have time a little later, we'd like you to sing a song, maybe.
Oh, that'd be great.
All right.
Audrey, let's go ahead and introduce the rest of the clan, okay?
I'd be delighted.
Okay.
First, our two oldest boys, Hank and Terry.
Hank, come on out here, guys.
Good to see you.
How are you...
Now, you guys behave yourselves.
They're crazy.
These guys are nuts, these kids.
And then there's my favorite child, Melissa.
Melissa, come on out, honey.
Nice to see you, Melissa.
You having a lot of fun?
Yes.
Oh, this is great, isn't it?
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Then our youngest, Kyle.
Yeah.
Kyle, come on out, buddy.
Oh, here's Kyle.
And ladies and gentlemen, with Kyle, this is my older brother, older brother, Daryl.
Daryl, nice to have you with us tonight.
Yeah, well, I thought Kyle could use a little adult supervision for a change,
David.
Let me tell you a little bit about Daryl.
He lives right here in the tri-state area, and he's a very successful
businessman.
Go ahead, Daryl.
Mention the name of the company.
Get a plug in here.
It's Daryl's Home Insulation.
It used to be Letterman's Home Insulation, but your lawyer said there was a
conflict of interest,
so they took the name from me.
But it's worked out for the best in the long run, don't you think?
Yeah, I do, too.
All right, we want to start the show tonight.
Every year at the house for Christmas, we have some family traditions,
and we're just going to share them with you tonight.
The first one involves the older boys, Hank and Terry.
They get an opportunity to come over here to the lollipop tree and pick a lollipop
up there.
Go ahead.
All right, Terry.
There you go, Hank.
Thanks, Dad.
Sure.
Wow.
Thanks, Dad.
Yeah, thank you.
You enjoy it, don't you?
Oh, I love it.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right, that's the first of our traditions.
Now, the second, of course, is we grant little Melissa here one Christmas wish.
So, Melissa, are you ready?
Mm-hmm.
Okay, go ahead, stand up, and make your wish.
I wish I had $50.
Okay.
There you are.
This is going up since last year, isn't it?
All right, and finally, and this may be the most important family tradition
that we go through
every year, it's time for the youngest member of our family, little Kyle, to go
out and get
us the family Christmas tree.
Are you all set, Kyle?
Yes.
Okay.
Are you excited?
Yes.
Yeah, okay.
Now, if the tree that Kyle brings back is at least seven feet tall, he gets
this solid
gold coin.
So, this is going to be something, huh, Kyle?
Yes.
Okay.
You ready?
Yes.
All right, let's go.
Come on, Kyle.
Come on.
Come on over here.
Get us a real nice...
Get the coat, Audrey.
Come on.
Come on over here, Kyle.
And now, be really careful and get us a really nice...
Give me the coat, Audrey.
Give us a really nice tree.
There you go.
Okay, and we'll see you back in about an hour.
Okay.
Bye-bye, Kyle.
Take care.
This is really going to be something.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
We'll be right back, folks.
Okay.
Hey, look, I think there goes your brother, Kyle.
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
We'll get us a, I'm pretty sure he's going to get us a really nice drink.
I'm sure I'll get a great drink.
Yeah.
This will be exciting.
Gosh, this is fun.
We do it at home every year, and we're happy to share it with you folks here
tonight.
Well, you ready to meet our first guest?
Sure am.
All right.
It's truly a pleasure to welcome this gentleman to our program tonight.
He will be starring in his own Christmas special, airing on December 25th over
the Christian
Broadcast Network.
It's called Pat Boone's Old Fashioned Christmas.
Please welcome Pat Boone.
Hi, Pat.
How are you?
Nice to see you.
Pat, I know, I know Audrey wanted a chance to say hello.
I tell you, I was so moved watching you.
You know, this is really a sort of a very emotional moment to see all of you
together like this,
a real family, and it reminds me of that wonderful time, you know, when John
Davidson and Andy
Williams brought their families together.
Yeah.
Well, that's what we thought we'd do.
They're professional with their lawyers.
Yeah.
With their lawyers.
Yeah.
And I mean, it's just that kind of an emotional time.
Now, your son looks so much like you, too.
Yeah.
We're very...
Yeah.
Like father, like son, they say, you know.
He's a little sensitive about that.
Oh, okay.
Now, you look good.
You got a little tan here for the holidays.
Where does that come from?
Well, California.
Yeah.
It was raining when I left.
What was it now?
They said, somebody said that it was actually snowing in Southern California.
It did.
I saw it on the news.
Yeah.
And the news don't lie.
Where did it snow?
Well, what they said was on the roads leading into L.A. and the roads leading
out of L.A.
I don't know if it actually rained in L.A.
Yeah.
I don't think it would dare.
Rain or snow?
Snow.
Snow.
And what did they get, eight feet?
Really basically the same.
Then, now, they're talking about snow, but what happened?
Now, tell me if this isn't true.
What happened?
They probably got just the most minimal, measurable amount of frozen
precipitation, and they said,
oh, that's it, snow.
Close the schools.
We're done.
They do that when it rains, when it snows.
It's a holiday.
They apparently had three, four inches of snow.
I mean, you could see it on the news.
Now, that's silly.
Really in L.A.?
They didn't say in L.A.
That's the reason I can't testify to that, because they said leading into and
out of.
Now, the first time I saw you was in, or not the first time, the last time I
saw you was
in Los Angeles on The Tonight Show.
Do you remember that evening?
It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.
Really?
You will forever be closely associated with my most humiliating moment in show
business.
Uh-huh.
It was, yeah, all right, yeah.
It was on The Tonight Show.
You were hosting, it was one of those rare nights when Johnny wasn't there.
Uh-huh.
And, um, and I don't know how it happened, but I came out and I was singing a
song, one
of my own records.
What was the song?
Wonderful Time Up There.
Uh-huh.
Everybody's Gonna Have Religion and Glory, that song, lots of, that moves fast.
But I've done it for so many times in my career, so I really wasn't
concentrating on
the words, and suddenly they were gone.
Just evaporating.
They were just, it was blank, and I began to make up a whole other language.
Uh-huh.
And, uh, and it was...
What's the first thing that comes into your mind when you realize that you've
lost the
thread of what you're singing?
Uh, complete obliteration.
Just the end of everything.
Do you freeze momentarily in panic?
Do you think, oh, no.
There's a vacuum.
It's a, it's an emptiness in your brain that you're probably familiar with.
Yeah, sure.
I think we may run into that a little later tonight, as a matter of fact.
And, and I looked at, uh, I looked at Freddy de Cordova, the kind,
compassionate man that
he is, and I said, Freddy, this is tape.
Can we please stop and start this over?
And he looked at me and said, no.
No, no way.
So now that's on the tape, too.
You know, that's...
Now you're trying to beg out of it, sure.
And I have to try to find my way back into the song.
I actually did.
And then it left me again.
And I finally, after a complete shambles, wound up on the last note with the
orchestra,
walked over, you were, you were standing, applauding, along with the crowd.
And you said, folks, now we have these auditions every Friday night.
You remember, remember when that happened, Audrey?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I saw her chuckling.
I don't think she made the trip west with me, that particular kid.
I think she was, I think she was pregnant with one of the kids at the time.
Well, probably Kyle.
Yeah.
I think Kyle.
Uh, now I know people ask you this over and over again, and forgive me for, uh,
jumping
on this, but are you 