Name: Phil Hartman on Late Late Show w/Tom Snyder, April 10, 1995
Uploaded: 2019-09-21T19:50:28.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Phil Hartman on Late Late Show w/Tom Snyder, April 10, 1995' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-09-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Phil Hartman on Late Late Show w/Tom Snyder, April 10, 1995' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-09-21. Transcript available.

Phil Hartman on Late Late Show w/Tom Snyder, April 10, 1995

hi folks and welcome back everybody i'm tom this is the simulcast up and
running now live
on monday night the 10th of april 1995 with phil hartman the star of the brand
new show on nbc which
is called news radio and a bit later on the real uh uh role from roe v wade
norma mccarvey is here
tonight norma mccarvey with a very unusual story about the abortion clinic at
which she works and
the occupants of the suite of offices next door uh phil hartman and the real
role from roe v wade
norma mccarvey on tonight's show i was away last week as you know you figured
out that the program
was in repeats and i thank you for watching those and for your kind calls to
the office on voicemail
last week and i was up in my favorite city in america that would be san francisco
california
and i'm going through the paper up there last monday and i noticed in the
listings for tv on channel
five the cbs affiliate there that at 11 o'clock they have the late show with
david letterman and at 12
midnight they have the late late show with ts i thought man this is great
because normally they run
the show a little bit later at night in san francisco but we finally have
achieved prime time
status in the city by the bay and i thought why not call the general manager of
channel five and thank
him personally for the upgrade so i did and a very nice lady came on the phone
and she said i'm sorry
but the manager is a is in a meeting right now but would you like to talk with
the program director i said
absolutely what is her name and she said that would be miss roach as in motel
see she didn't say that
but i i added that and you'll find out now how the conversation went okay so
miss roach came in
the way very very nice she said by the way i said i really want to thank you
for the upgrade uh that
you're running our show at 12 o'clock in san francisco i'm very very happy and
i can't thank you enough
she said well tom before you thank me too profusely keep in mind that the
upgrade is for one night only
uh it's ncaa basketball night and tomorrow you'll go back to your regular time
and i said what would
the regular time be and she said that would be 2 30 in the morning i said oh
she said however she
said you know we have to run northern exposure at midnight and then because
they're a westinghouse
station they have some other stuff that they have to run she said but you go on
at 2 30 and i want
you to know that we get a lot of complaints and when i say a lot i mean many
many complaints from
people who love your show and they videotape it every night and she said our
goal is to get you on
at midnight as quickly as we can i said thank you very much there's a nice end
of the call right so
you know as quickly as she can which i would imply to mean soon like the old
gag about when the guy's
talking to god but i don't tell jokes so i won't do it but it'll be soon we'll
be on the air at midnight
don't beg in san francisco anyway he said god how long to you is 600 000 years
and god said a second
and he said god how much to you is 650 million dollars and god said a dime and
he said god
could you spare a dime and god said sure just a second
we'll be on channel five in san francisco just a second back with phil hartman
and your phone calls
on the toll-free line after these messages thank you all for watching we'll be
right back after a short commercial break
for eight years and more phil hartman made us all laugh as one of the stars of
saturday night
live and now he's back at it with his own sitcom which is called news radio on
nbc thanks for coming
over my friend and welcome to cbs it's good to have you here thanks tom
pleasure to be first off what
has become in the last couple of weeks here the bashing of saturday night live
i mean the people
on this show have been criticized in new york magazine newspaper accounts uh
you had some quotes in the new
york post uh what what what happened in your view at saturday night live to
bring it to its present
position you were there the past eight years from the glory days to now yeah uh
oh gosh you know it's
difficult to talk about it because any criticism levied against the show
ultimately takes on personal
overtones and impugns the reputations of the comedians who are there now and i'm
loath to do that i'm not
asking you for that my friend but you know you you you had a telling point and
a quote you gave to the
new york post well i listen i was there for eight years uh the show was close
to being canceled when
i was hired in 86 and uh and so after my tenure i can't help but have an
opinion and i feel irrespective
of the talent that's on the show now and i adore these guys you know and women
i worked with them
it seemed to me that what really made the show peak was having utility players
who could do a lot of
different things um i i did that dana carvey did that dan akroyd uh billy
crystal people who could
do a lot of different things impersonations voices uh bill clinton you were you
were ed mcmahon you were
phil donahue you were the waiter in the restaurant you were any number of
people they could take you week
from week and make you somebody different because you were malleable you were
flexible well so my
my contention is that having performers like that on that show expands the
possibilities in the realm of
the writing area you can do political debates you can do the oj trials you can
do newt gingrich in
congress whatever's in the news and one might say that the show is at its best
when it is satirizing
what was in the news that week and now you have a lot of funny people on the
show but they're relatively
limited in what they can do comedically and i i think there's nothing wrong
with that show that a
few utility players male and female wouldn't solve but where are these people
you know we tried when jan
hooks left we threw 10 women out there and couldn't replace her you can't take
talent for granted and i think
that's the one thing that's born out in this whole situation the telling quote
that you gave was that
saturday night live was always a show that was very good at irreverently
kicking people when they
were down or suffering misfortune believe me i've had some experience now the
show itself finds itself
being in the very position of the people it parodied for so many years and that's
ironic as you pointed out
yeah it seems there might be some poetic justice in that but the truth is i
think everybody who loves
comedy and political satire and specifically would love to see it make a
comeback no question and forces
are lobbying to engineer that comeback now uh what about drawing the line on
something like saturday night
live or in living color or the other satirical programs on the air when you
want to lampoon somebody
you want to make the most of a political joke or a personal caricature yet you
don't want to cross the
line where it becomes offensive and the audience is oh my god they went too far
does everybody at
saturday night live or did you know when you worked there where that line was
the line that you would
not cross well unfortunately we often found the line after the fact you know uh
when you're writing satire you
don't really know exactly where the line is it's a precipice that you walk up
to and look over and
you know if if you don't get close to that line you're accused of losing your
edge and if you go too
far the audience tells you instantly when did they tell you that you knew right
afterwards that you'd gone
too far when they're one with chelsea clinton yes uh on wayne's world they did
a top 10 list the top
10 things about having the clinton gore administration in power and one of them
was
those groovy gore babes and mike myers said too bad about chelsea i guess she's
a babe and waiting
and it got kind of a groan from the audience and hillary immediately responded
in the press with
vehemence and the show wrote an apology to the white house and we knew that we
had gone too far with that
i mean obviously here's a young child who is having enough difficulty i'm sure
adjusting to this
new lifestyle that's been thrust upon her and to to tease her like that it
could have had repercussions
beyond the obvious you know with friends and so on at school and it was wrong
sure tough we're with phil
hartman on the toll free at 1-800 uh 1-800-95-cbs tv the other thing i wanted
to ask and then i'll move
on to uh to news radio a project in which i have enormous interest because of
its title and the fact
that you're one of its stars by the way i know there are authors saying what phil
do to his hair
i'm doing a movie uh i'm happy to say uh sergeant bilko uh with steve martin
and dan akroyd what a
great idea for a movie what a great idea yes steve is playing bilko and danny's
playing colonel hall
glenn headley is playing rita the love interest and i'm the villain major colin
thorn and the director
wanted me to look aryan i'm one quarter german and uh it all came out with the
bleach you know i have to
have to wear blue contacts jeez what a great show remember silvers and and uh
and paul ford the guy
that was his all right bilko is dopamine he's certainly not in that footlocker
sir
well what's that rumbling noise i don't know sir i could say but let's walk
over here and take a look
just what those guys taught you about comedic energy and and the glory of a
great ensemble
fantastic and the pictures before the lenses now for a release later on this
year what a terrific idea
for a movie what a terrific idea for a picture on saturday night live who were
your favorites of
all i would hope that ed mcmahon was one you are correct yes oh gosh i just did
so many you know
frankenstein uh uh phil donahue yes uh and then impersonating the president was
a special and you
met the president on one yes i did and was this after all the spoofing and
everything else uh-huh
and what did he say well he was very charming he uh i told him that i had voted
for him hoping to
you know and uh he got up on stage later and said i want to thank phil hartman
for voting for me but
it doesn't make up for all the abuse i've taken uh he's a charming man but you
know i i'm sure it
gives him the willies having somebody make him look like a fat slob gorging on
mcdonald's junk food you
know it's it's an ironic thing tom there was an interesting article in the new
york times a few
years ago about how when there's a republican administration in power we tend
to attack their
policies we liberal satirists you know and and uh like now the republicans are
taking away kids
lunches they're putting women in the streets right whereas the democrats well
with the democrats we
agree with their policies so we attack them personally they're womanizing their
drinking their you know
their fast food addiction and that's much more hurtful to someone that and and
so i don't expect to be
invited to the white house dana carvey stayed in the lincoln bedroom and he did
just a more or less a
benevolent caricature of george bush and and i did some pretty mean stuff with
clinton yeah but it was
funny i remember the one time when uh when you said to the guy in the fast food
restaurant you're gonna
finish those fries and then to the other guy could have a little of your coke
to wash it down i think
the president would understand that kind of humor probably not probably not
anyway on to news radio
and and phil hartman after a commercial break we're with phil at 1-800-95-cbs
tv you know it you love
it you call it stand by we'll be right back after this break we're back with phil
hartman of news radio
on nbc in which he plays bill mcneil the crazy co-anchor of of news radio now
how many times did
you visit the radio station or a news radio station to prepare yourself for
this role all told yeah zero
you didn't feel it was necessary in any way well no i spoke to some people who
worked at knx our local
source radio station um you know the show isn't really so much about radio as
it is about an office
environment and the inter-office politics and riv