Name: Emily Prager Collection on Letterman, 1982-83
Uploaded: 2018-10-27T22:28:58.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Emily Prager Collection on Letterman, 1982-83' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-10-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Emily Prager Collection on Letterman, 1982-83' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-10-27. Transcript available.

Emily Prager Collection on Letterman, 1982-83

Thank you very much, Paul.
My next guest is a very funny and imaginative writer
who has worked on the National Lampoon,
Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, and Penthouse Magazine,
where she has a monthly column.
She has just published this book,
which I earlier inaccurately described as something.
The correct title is A Visit from the Footbinder,
as opposed to what I said,
which I believe was A Visit to the Footbinder.
The correct name, A Visit from the Footbinder.
And other stories, which is receiving terrific reviews.
Please welcome Emily Prager.
Hello.
Brian, how are you?
This must be really exciting for you.
You got a great review that I was reading this afternoon
in the New York Times.
These stories are funny, naughty, and tough.
They reinforce my credo,
Aberrant Behavior is the Spice of Life.
Dan Aykroyd.
That's correct. Mine too.
He would know Aberrant Behavior, I'm guessing, wouldn't he?
I think Danny would know.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let me, I guess I can ask you about the title.
A Visit from the Footbinder.
Yeah.
Well, I was glad that you changed it from To the Footbinder.
Yeah, I'm sorry I screwed that up.
Because the women in the house,
since they all had bound feet,
wouldn't be able to get over To the Footbinders anyway,
because they couldn't walk, you know.
Well, I was interested in it.
The title sailed into my head
while I was doing some editing, actually,
for Mr. Mike's Mando video.
And I liked it because it was about,
it's something that I do in my writing,
which is a combination of violence
and then an overlay of delicacy.
I've done several things like that,
the parody of the Tampax folder,
you know, the folder that comes in the box.
Well, I did a parody of that,
but never mind.
And several other things like that.
So it combined these two elements,
which were extreme violence
and then the incredible delicacy of medieval China,
which was just fantastic and filled with things.
So I did a tremendous amount of research
on that particular story, as a matter of fact.
Delved into medieval history and everything else.
Came out with great things.
For example, there are a lot of professions in there.
The thing takes place,
the mother of the girl is building her own burial tomb.
It's something,
I was watching that thing on Sean,
you know, on Channel 13.
And I was thinking to myself,
people building their own burial tomb went on for years,
you know, 20 years of people employed and stuff like that.
So this woman is spending like a sailor
building her own burial tomb
and trying to avoid basically binding her daughter's speech.
What exactly, when you say binding,
what was the purpose?
And good heavens, what did it look like?
The purpose is,
well, it's very,
actually, it's very fascinating.
The custom of foot binding lasted for about 800 years.
And the purpose...
Kind of a fad then, huh?
Exactly.
You know, when they were trying to figure out how it started,
there's a legend that the emperor built a golden lotus,
six foot golden lotus for his favorite concubine.
And then she bound up her feet like toe shoes
in order to dance on the golden lotus.
And all of the ladies of the house got real excited about this
and then took it on as a way to dress.
In essence, what it is,
is that you,
well,
excuse me,
you take the four toes here
and bind them under.
Then you bind this part of the heel
to the front of the foot
and then this toe,
the big toe,
is bound upward
so that it looks like the point of a moonsicle.
Good.
Well, a moonsicle was a special thing.
I don't know what that is.
Anyway, you did this when a child was about
five to seven years old,
so they had very tiny feet.
But they could kick in the NFL.
Which was the other thing.
No, no, they could or not.
Maybe they could.
I don't know.
But that must have been horribly painful.
Well, it evidently was painful
and most of the things I read,
they would say it was painful for about two years
and they became numb.
They went numb.
It went numb
and a lot of people, of course, did die.
They died of gangrene
and other things like that.
But also, in a very curious way,
it was very cute.
I hate to use that.
Now, you've actually seen feet
that have been bound.
Well, in order to do this cover,
Frank...
Let's talk about the cover
when we're finished with this topic.
Well, I was just going to say
that Frank Morris, who did the cover,
and I went to the Metropolitan Museum
to look at the tiny shoes,
one of the pieces of research
we did for the cover.
And they literally are about that big.
You know, it's almost amazing to see them.
You can't physically believe
that anybody could get into them.
Adult Asian women
with shoes and feet no bigger than...
Than cat toys.
Cat toys.
Correct.
Right.
That's exactly what it was.
And it's unbelievable to see them,
you know.
It's an amazing thing.
So...
You can't walk like that.
No, no.
But you're meant to be carried in a litter.
You know, a...
Oh, I see.
Not a litter box.
You know, a litter.
And, you know,
you're so aristocratic
that you clearly can't walk
and, you know,
just sit around
and look beautiful
and swell up, I guess.
Well, the other thing was that
as the thing developed,
I mean, it became more than just a fat.
It became, in fact,
a national perversion.
Men, when discussing their wives
in terms of beauty,
you know,
a prospective wife
would discuss the size of their feet.
Oh, really?
Yes, absolutely.
They had such things
as small foot beauty contests
in which,
honest to God,
in which the emperor
in search of concubines
would come incognito
in his litter.
And this was a way
for peasant girls
to rise up in status
because women had really
no place to go
in that society.
They couldn't work hard enough,
so they really weren't
very valuable,
except in the sense
that they could get you in
with the aristocracy
by becoming a concubine
or coming to the attention
of the emperor in some way.
So if you were a peasant
and had a daughter
that was pleasing you
and, you know,
you would bind her feet
at a young age
and hope that
when they held
the small foot beauty contest,
the emperor would show up
and, you know,
choose to...
So guys would actually
get together and brag
about whose wife
had the smallest feet.
Not only that,
but when the missionaries came,
the British missionaries
in 1850 about,
I think it is,
the women,
the female missionaries
were just outraged
by this thing.
So they called
great groups
of young Chinese men
together
in lecture halls
and they started
lecturing them
and holding up pictures
of bound feet
and there were riots
because the men,
it was such a perversion,
and it was very secretive too.
I mean,
you didn't really...
There were all kinds
of rules
and things you did
with binding cloths
and ways that you
were supposed to sit
and a mystical fascination
grew up.
People would steal
each other's tiny shoes
when they were angry
and cut them up
and...
So these men
for the first time
were actually
presented with photographs
of these,
of these,
you know,
it would be like
a porno photograph
and there was great
rioting
and as a result
it was kind of funny.
It's a fascinating
but strange topic
but we don't want
to mislead the people
by indicating
that this is
the only topic
covered in the book.
It's just a story
and a collection
of stories.
And I did mention
the cover
and to my way
of thinking
this may...
I don't know
that that's the kind
of thing people
want to run
right out and buy.
Well,
I'll tell you
it's had an amazing
effect.
Just the other day
someone was telling me
that they went
to Czechoslovakia
and they had the book
in their suitcase
and they got to customs
and the Czech customs
people took it right out
and started laughing
and then whipping
through it.
They couldn't believe
they thought the cover
was really funny.
So, hey,
even a communist
can enjoy it.
I don't know.
Unfortunately,
we're running
way short of time
and I feel terrible
about this.
I can only ask you
to come back
because we haven't even
gotten to other matters
in the book.
You're an actress
in addition to other
things.
You write for Penthouse.
Yes, I do.
Now, you're described
as a feminist.
Right.
How can a feminist
be in the employ
of Mr. Guccione
in Penthouse magazine?
Well, I'm in the
missionary position
over there.
We'll be right back.
Emily Prager.
Thank you very much,
Bill.
We're out of time.
I want to thank
our studio audience
and, of course,
Emily Prager.
Emily, thank you
and continued success.
Mr. Michael Keaton,
Paul Schaefer,
and the rest of the folks
who participated
in the great Chinese
food delivery race.
We'll see you tomorrow
night with Brother Theodore.
Thank you, folks.
My next guest is a very
funny and perceptive writer
who has a monthly column
in Penthouse magazine
and who has just
published this book
of short stories,
A Visit from the Footbinder.
We're delighted
to have her back
with us again.
Please welcome
Emily Prager.
Thank you very much
for coming back.
Did you see this,
by the way?
I did.
I did.
I'm sure you had that
last time.
Isn't that amazing?
That's very strange.
David said that it still
continues, this practice
of footbinding.
Is that anything
you know about?
It still continues.
I heard that in Taiwan
up until the 1950s,
the peasants thinking
that they were emulating
the aristocracy
continued to bind feet,
but I didn't know
that it would still
continue today.
Very strange.
I believe the Manchus
outlawed it.
It's awful.
The last time we were here
we talked a lot about
the title of your book,
A Visit from the Footbinder,
but in addition to being
a columnist and an author,
you are also an actress.
Yes, I am.
And where would folks
have seen you?
They might have seen me
On the Edge of Night,
a soap opera that was on
from 1968.
Well, I was on it
from 1968 to 1978.
And it was the most
frightening and amazing
experience, I must say.
The first day I went
to the soap opera,
the director came up
to me and he said,
when in doubt,
look worried.
Best piece of advice
I ever had.
The important thing
to know about the soap opera
was that it was live
on CBS.
Live, in other words,
you did it.
When you did it,
you actually saw
what was going on
five days a week.
So, if, for example,
you had a storyline
or something like that,
then it was possible
to have up to 20 pages
of dialogue per day,
five days a week.
And not the most memorable
dialogue in the world.
I remember one of my
favorite lines I ever had
was,
what a beautiful time of year
to snap out of a coma.
You mean,
you had just come to?
In those days,
no, no, no.
Actually, that wasn't me.
It was about somebody else.
Somebody else, yeah.
But in those days,
you didn't have sex
on a soap opera.
In fact, it was forbidden.
And you didn't have
that much murder either.
So, what happened
was people went into coma.
Yeah.
And, of course,
you would pray
to go into coma
because then you'd be on
three, four times a week,
paid by the day,
and you wouldn't have
any lines.
No, not a lot of chatting
at the bedside.
But, you know,
we didn't have cue cards.
What we had
was teleprompters
and teleprompters
were machines
that would run the dialogue
and they were run
by somebody in the back.
And so, what often happened
was that you would be,
you know,
did you ever notice
on a soap opera
how the first and last lines
of speeches
are always the same?
And this is because
of this dialogue problem.
So, I would say to you,
David, you look tired.
And your line would be,
tired?
Well, I'm worried
about my mother
and I'd say,
your mother?
So, we actually
had a woman
on the show
who was so terrified
that she would pee.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
No, I'm sorry.
She would, she would,
she would...
Well, pee.
She had to,
after several accidents,
she actually had
to wear rubber pants.
I had a...
That must have been fun.
It was great.
I had a guy
who played my husband
who, what he would do
is when he went up,
he would start laughing
hysterically,
but in order to cover
the laughter,
he would hold it in
and then he would
start crying.
So, tears would be
running down his face
and, of course,
they'd turn the camera
on me
beca