Name: David Letterman interview, February 28, 1994
Uploaded: 2018-09-01T04:32:04.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman interview, February 28, 1994' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-09-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman interview, February 28, 1994' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-09-01. Transcript available.

David Letterman interview, February 28, 1994

The gentleman who will take over this program is Conan O'Brien.
I've met him a couple of times.
The only thing I know about Conan for sure is that he's been in prison.
That's all I know. I don't know. I know he killed a guy.
And he's been on the show, and as I said to him when he was a guest on our
program,
I hope for Conan and his staff all of the success and the happiness that we
here have been able to achieve,
and I sincerely mean that for him and his folks.
Also, I hope that he finds it in his heart sometime down the road
to invite me back here from time to time.
I would get a kick out of that.
See how hard it is.
It's not an easy job.
All right.
Am I going to move the show along, Andy?
I think we've got things on a bit of a roll right now.
And I think it's time to proceed with...
What's going on, people?
Would you please?
Oh, no, it's a streaker!
It's a streaker, everybody!
No, no.
Why?
Why a streaker tonight, of all nights, when David Letterman's here?
We left specific instructions, no streakers.
I gave orders that there'd be no streakers tonight.
I apologize to everyone.
There'll be no more nude 50-year-old men running through the audience
throughout the show.
Please accept my apology.
All right.
Streaker's gone.
We can all relax.
My first guest tonight called this studio home for 11 years, and it is a real
pleasure to welcome him back.
Ladies and gentlemen, David Letterman.
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
Wow!
Very nice!
You know, I was really excited and thrilled and very much looking forward to
the occasion until I see a guy pretending to be fat and naked running through
the...
We can't get anyone to really do it!
And then I said to myself, "Well, the executive talent at GE really hasn't
changed much at all since..."
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
*Cheering*
Oh, I've been fired now!
*Cheering*
Thank you very much!
I love what you've done with the place, by the way!
*Cheering*
Very, very nice!
Oh, come on!
I chose these colors myself!
It's very strange for me to be here.
I was actually here about six weeks ago.
We were shooting some silly videotape outside of the building and it was about
nine o'clock in the evening and people said,
"Well, let's go on upstairs to the sixth floor where you used to work and take
a look around."
And so we came up in here and it was just like it was now except you folks
weren't here.
Well, most of you weren't here.
And then we, you know, looked around, looked at the commissary, looked at the
nightly news set and then we left and then two days later in the newspaper was
an article that we had broken in, pushed our way past the guard and I had gone
up to Bryant Gumbel's office and taken a nap.
What more heinous a stunt could a man pull?
I don't care who sees me, I'm sleeping on this couch, boys!
Cover me, I'm taking a nap!
You like it though?
You really like what we've done here?
I do.
Does it look good?
Yeah, the thing, it does look good.
And the thing that I liked about it when I came in here, I was in the studio
since 1981.
Mm-hmm.
We did a morning show.
You did the morning show here?
Right here, exactly.
I didn't know that.
And it was comforting to me to see that you guys have carved out a completely
new identity for yourselves.
And when I watched the show, it was funny, when I first watched the show, it
was a little difficult for me because I say late night and I'd think, hey, Keen.
I'll be on.
Yeah.
And then it would be Conan O'Brien, late night with Conan, and I'd say to
myself, and this is how stupid I am, I would say to myself, oh, geez, I wish I
had a show.
Oh.
Oh.
It was very odd.
It was...
You know, I know that's pathetic, but that's my life.
And then as I would watch it, and the truth of it is, when I first started
watching your show, it always kind of made me wince a little bit because I
thought, well, I don't know, you know, it's not really me, it's not my show.
Uh-huh.
But the more I watched the show, I realized you guys do an incredible amount of
comedy and stuff that is produced that is very high level.
And the volume and the quality of the stuff just knocks me out.
And I think you've really done a great job to carve out a wonderful identity
for yourselves.
Uh-huh.
And there's nothing like this show anywhere on television.
And I really, really appreciate that.
I think you did a nice job.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
But, uh, I would say the, uh...
You realize, of course, that was before I saw the naked guy in the audience.
I know, I know.
I'm sorry.
I really am.
I'd say the biggest drawback we've had so far is that, uh, you had a very, you
had a very funny window on your show.
Yeah, we had a great window.
You had a very funny window.
And my window, it isn't very funny.
I really, it, look at this.
Just please do me the favor.
You know, I just came from a show like that where there were crickets and wind
blowing.
On tonight's show, I spent the first, you know, you talk about screwing things
up.
I'm 46.
I've been in television since 1969.
You would think that the simple things would be under control.
Tonight, for the first 10 minutes of my show, we went down to Times Square with
a live camera,
and there's a guy in a patrol booth, a little safety booth, the size of a phone
booth.
And so we were gonna talk to this guy, and he comes out of the booth, and he
introduces himself to me.
And for the first 10 minutes of the show, I called the guy Lou.
That's fine.
The guy's name is Ray.
Lou is funnier than Ray.
I defend that choice.
Naked?
That would have been good.
Come on, show me how it's done.
Anyone?
Right there.
And when we're done here tonight, I'm gonna take a nap on your couch, buddy,
and nobody can stop me!
Completely unstoppable.
I wanna ask you something.
This is a question that people wouldn't expect, but when I first got this job,
I came here to 30 Rock.
How did you get this job, by the way?
How did you get this job, by the way?
Was it a theme writing contest?
Yes.
Yes.
It was a "what would I do with a talk show," and I was fourth.
I went up, and we shot a remote in one of your offices, and it was actually in
your office.
Up on the 14th floor.
Yeah, you had moved out, and I noticed on the windows of your office, thick
sheets of plexiglass were covering all the windows.
That's right.
Protective covering, and I thought, "What a sick man."
Now, what is that?
What was that all about?
Well, first of all, let me correct you.
It's not plexiglass.
It's a product made by GE, and it's half-inch Lexan.
It's bulletproof glass.
It's what they use around hockey arenas, so guys can't bust through and shatter
glass.
Okay.
And it's funny.
When that was put up there, the guys who did the work, I know they thought I
was nuts.
Like, you know, here's a guy, it was "Sniperz."
Oh, yeah.
"Sniperz are after Letterman."
You gotta get the bulletproof glass in place.
Letterman thinks they're snipers.
But we had been in that office for 10 or 11 years, and many of the staff
members at the time, and people who are still with us, would come up there and
we would do stuff.
We would heave stuff around, and we would take batting practice.
We would play soccer.
We would play football.
We would play baseball.
And one day during batting practice, that's why the show used to be as good as
it was.
Yeah.
I was, you know, taking full cuts.
Uh-huh.
And I swung around and lost control of the bat, and it shot right through one
of the windows.
Now, we were on the 14th floor above the intersection of 51st and 6th Avenue.
Yes.
The bat just wedges in the glass and is teetering on the ledge.
And so I thought, "Now, this is a sign.
Maybe you kids better quit screwing around in the office."
Uh, but I didn't learn anything from that.
And a couple of years later, a woman who works with us now by the name of Mary
Connelly and I, we would come in and we would play baseball.
We would heave the baseball back and forth, just loosen up.
And, uh, she and I would kind of heat them in there.
You know, kind of duck them under your chin and, you know, see who would flinch.
Is this...
Uh, I'm pretty tough when it comes to playing ball with the gals.
You know what I mean?
Hey, I'll come to your house and take a nap on your couch.
That's just the kind of guts I got.
So...
Now, when is this?
Is this minutes before a show?
Shouldn't you really be doing something more productive?
Of course, that can be said of any time of my day.
But, uh, this was in the afternoon and it was like in July, early in July, and
it was about 2 o'clock.
And 6th Avenue was just crowded.
It was just a mass of people, you know, going up and down the street and there
at the intersection.
And she and I are winging balls back and forth and one gets away from me.
And I had wound up pretty good.
And it goes into the Venetian blinds of the window, shatters the glass, and
drops 14 floors to the sidewalk below.
Now, so you think to yourself, "Well, you know, folks are dead."
And it was the single worst moment of my life in this building.
But I summonsed up the courage and I got the guts up and I said to myself,
"You know, it's situations like this where a person has to be responsible for
their own actions.
You have to answer for your behavior.
You have to know what is the right thing and you have to do it."
And it was then that I sent an intern down to see who was dead.
Very nice.
Very nice.
Well, listen, we are going to take a quick commercial break.
Will you tolerate that?
Absolutely.
Whatever you want.
Okay.
We're going to step away for one second and make a lot of money for NBC.
And then we're going to come back with David Letterman.
We are back.
I'm here with David Letterman.
Sir, a lot of people were watching the Olympics this weekend.
They were watching your show.
You sent your mom to the Olympics, which got a lot of publicity.
And I was wondering, does she have the bug now?
Does she want to keep going?
You know, first of all, that was an actress.
That wasn't my mom.
A woman named Sylvia Henderson, and she's great.
And mom did audition, but wasn't right.
Wasn't quite there.
All right.
It's very strange because my mom may be the least demonstrative person I've
ever been
around.
She's very shy, very soft-spoken when she speaks.
Very soft-spoken.
And we just decided to send her over there, and we didn't really understand
what was going
to happen.
And it turned out to be fairly nice.
But as far as continuing this sort of thing, I don't think she's going to Bosnia
to cover
the trouble there.
Are other networks vying for her time, for her attention?
Oh.
Is there any chance she'll be on the 12:30 slot?
Yes.
Well, I guess anybody can get a show at 12:30.
Yes.
If I had a cab, I'd dock it to you.
I really would.
But it was, you know, my fears is, here's a woman who is my mother, so you
figure, she's
got to be older than I am.
You know, it would be odd if we were roughly the same age.
It gets a little, yeah, a little strange.
She's 73 years old.
And I thought, oh, my goodness.
And people are over there falling down and busting their legs and stuff.
And I just thought, oh, I just, the worst thing that could happen, you know,
forget the
press if she gets killed over there.
That would just be ugly, you know.
That would put an end to the whole thing right there.
And I just had visions of like a bobsled going haywire.
Oh, there's Dave's mom standing a little too close.
Because of the credentials Dave got for his mom, she was able to look right
over the bobsled
rail and caught one in the head.
And she had a great time.
And the last couple of days, I don't know, maybe it was the last week, she was
rooming
with the Italian bobsled team.
So I thought, had a girl mom.
Did you ever think all those years, those 11 years, did you ever think of using
her on
the late night show here?
Occasionally, mom would call on the phone and we would chat with her about
various things.
We had her one night to call up.
And as a kid, she used to make these fried bologna sand