Name: Dennis Wolfberg on Letterman, April 28, 1986
Uploaded: 2019-05-02T21:28:27.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dennis Wolfberg on Letterman, April 28, 1986' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-05-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dennis Wolfberg on Letterman, April 28, 1986' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-05-02. Transcript available.

I know! My next guest is a talented comedian who can be seen starting tomorrow
at the Comedy Castle.
Lord, I wish I was there now.
Please welcome, for the first time on this program, comedian Dennis Wolfberg.
Hey! Thank you very much. How are you doing?
Good. Well, very exciting. Doing comedy on national television is very exciting,
following an 80-year-old golfer. Unusual.
Last week, I'm not making this up, I played an old age home in Columbia, South
Carolina.
You want to talk old? I had a woman in my audience celebrating her 102nd
birthday.
In fact, at the end of the show, they brought in a cake to celebrate this event,
but in a stroke of incredible misjudgment, they gave her these candles that you
cannot blow out.
A brilliant gag for a woman who had no concept of reality and blowing her
brains up and spitting all over the cake.
It was disgusting.
And then she cut a slice and asked, if I would like some, I said, I'm trying to
cut down on saliva in my diet.
In fact, it's not cake, now it's pudding, thanks to you.
102. What would you buy a woman? 102.
50 is gold, 75 is diamond, 102 is oxygen, something that'll help her breathe.
And this was a comedy show. She didn't laugh at anything, I said.
And I said something to her I thought was so funny.
I said, 102, I'll bet there's no peer pressure.
That's comedy. I have not always been a comedian.
I was a schoolteacher for 12 years here in New York City.
A job that I began with great enthusiasm, a fervor, you know, give me the
children, I'll save the world.
But after a couple of months, I began to fantasize about force-feeding them asbestos.
Because they drive you nuts.
I taught sixth grade in part of New York called the South Bronx,
a neighborhood that socioeconomically ranks under Calcutta, to give you an idea.
People from India would say, South Bronx, what a hellhole.
And I taught in a school that even by South Bronx standards was a difficult one.
Any elementary school that has its own coroner, it's unusual.
Reading was my main responsibility, sixth grade.
And I say reading, my kids had difficulty remembering my name, which is Wolfberg.
You wouldn't think all that tough.
And the kids called me Wolfman and Wolfgang.
I had a kid first day of school, one year called me Wolfbutt.
And he said, hey, Wolfbutt, we got homework tonight.
And I said, the name is not Wolfbutt, it's Wolfberg.
And what's more, it is Mr. Wolfberg.
And the kids said, how am I supposed to know you married?
Then they gave me the slow class for six consecutive years.
Not special, just slow.
I used to think of them as stationary, motionless.
They grew up with them according to intelligence tests.
And the whole concept of intelligence testing always amused me because at the
low end of the intelligence spectrum,
where I taught, they had categories they were called, in order, I'm not making
these words up,
they're called a moron, an imbecile, an idiot.
This amused me because conceivably you could have an imbecile who was working
very hard to become a moron.
I could imagine a kid running home when they said, I'm a moron.
That's how we knew you could do it.
Six consecutive years, I had them all.
I had a kid, Frank Daly.
These are true kids.
First day of school, we fill out standard rule book information.
So I said, Frank, tell me your birthday.
He says, March the 21st.
I said, what year?
He says, every year.
Truancy.
My kids were truant beyond all human imagination.
And they come in with the most brazen excuses.
I taught sixth grade.
I had a kid who missed two days and told me he'd had a stroke.
I congratulated him on a remarkable recovery.
To be back in school two days after a stroke is an unbelievable commitment to
education.
I had one kid who missed three weeks and told me he'd been on jury duty.
Can you believe it?
They assume you believe anything, they tell you.
And I, when I said, I would teach them, at the sixth grade level,
I would teach them how to write what they call original research reports.
And I say original research, despite the fact in 12 years,
I never got anything handed in that even remotely qualified as original
research.
You give them a subject, they go to the nearest encyclopedia,
and they become stenographers.
And they hand this in, assuming you cannot detect blatant plagiarism.
I had a kid, James Drucker,
hands in a report on the country Peru that began with a sense, get this,
Peru is epistemologically, sixth grade,
attempting to deal with the long-range effects of a protracted economic
depression.
I say to myself, might this be copied?
Who's to say?
This kid don't talk to him, but put a pen in his hand.
He's another Hemingway.
What a metamorphosis.
I had never seen a transformation like this.
The kid was functionally subliterate and comes into my class as a transfer
student from a prison release program.
What a delight.
Having stabbed his last teacher, a joy to have him on my roster.
With a note from the guidance counselor that said,
James is socially disadvantaged.
Which in the South Bronx is a euphemism for criminally insane.
Socially disadvantaged, sixth grade, show and tell he brought in a subpoena.
And the guidance counselor said you must, you must gear the curriculum to meet
his needs.
I figured I'll teach him plea bargaining.
This will certainly be helpful.
Gear the curriculum.
I'll teach him how to write a good ransom note.
This will certainly come in handy.
If you ever want to see your son alive again, comma.
Thank you very much.
Very nice to have you here.
It was very funny.
Thank you very much, David.
You doing all right?
Things going well for you?
Things are going terrific.
I noticed my hair.
I'm a little self-conscious about my hair.
Is that right?
I don't think people appreciate what it's like when you start losing a little.
Tonight I asked my wife, how does my hair look?
And she said, they look nice.
Is it true that your wife is also a comedian?
My wife is also a comedian.
Jeannie McBride is her name.
Jeannie McBride?
Jeannie McBride.
How does that work out?
Well, for the moment, things might change a little.
She is expecting.
Oh, that's nice.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
Kind of simple.
And so we travel frequently together.
We haven't been married all that long to have a child expecting.
Although, we lived together for a little while.
A year and a half we lived in sin.
Well, the Bible says premarital sex is a sin.
My wife says the way we did it was a crime.
Crime.
Okay.
Well, I'll tell you what.
We'll do another commercial and then we'll be right back.
Okay.
We're running a little late, folks.
Thank you very much for being here.
We'll see you tomorrow night.
Thanks again.
Dennis, nice to have you with us.
Come back again.
Good night, everybody.