Name: David Letterman's Prank Calls to Tom Snyder Collection, 1990-95
Uploaded: 2018-07-08T02:57:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman's Prank Calls to Tom Snyder Collection, 1990-95' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-07-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman's Prank Calls to Tom Snyder Collection, 1990-95' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-07-08. Transcript available.

David Letterman's Prank Calls to Tom Snyder Collection, 1990-95

All right, Lee.
Okay, Lee.
Have a good one.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Jerry in Pipton, Indiana.
Hello.
Hi, Tom.
This is Jerry.
Hi, Jerry.
Long-time listener, first-time caller, Tom.
Love the show.
Thanks, Jerry.
Now, are you on a car phone or a...
Listen, Tom, thank God.
I just wanted to say thank God for Dr. Heimlich.
Oh, he saved your life, huh?
Four times.
Once was beef, once was bacon, once was veal, and once it was gum.
Why don't you try soup?
Excellent thought, Tom.
Yeah, I live in Pipton.
I'm hoping to move to Vancouver.
I hope you live long enough.
Jeez.
Tom, Tom, this is your friend, Dave.
I have a show at NBC you were on the other night, and I just wanted to call to
thank you and
to congratulate you on your radio show.
I got to go.
I'm here in a stray bullet zone on the Deegan.
I got to hit the road.
Good night.
Very, very funny, huh?
Letterman.
Now, was he the first voice, too?
He was...
He was...
He was the whole thing.
Oh, you're kidding.
You know what's funny?
Now it can be told, okay?
And I hope Dave's got the radio on in his car.
By the way, Dave, what are you doing driving around at 1 o'clock in the morning?
You know, Letterman was going to call in the last hour and wish us a happy
anniversary, which
I don't care about, but the producers, they set this up because they think it's
cute and
it's great, okay?
So now the hour goes by, the last hour, and Letterman never calls.
We're trying to break up Pierre Frenet, the French chef, with a call from Dave
Letterman,
right?
Which is kind of like putting your silverware in your garbage disposer.
It fits that well.
So now Letterman doesn't call.
There's no call.
And now they put up this guy, Jerry, in Pipton, Indiana, to congratulate us on
three years
on the air.
And I'm saying for the whole hour, didn't you...
I'm saying to Deb in the control room, didn't you hear me say, I don't want to
talk to anybody
about the third anniversary, bump Jerry down.
So we've been bumping this guy down for the whole hour.
It's Letterman.
We've bumped Letterman.
Hey, turnabout is fair play, huh?
He had his turn nine years ago.
Tonight I got mine.
You know, these things happen.
All right, let's wind it up here with...
Thanks, Dave.
And by the way, Dave, you were very kind to me last night, and I appreciate
that.
Thank you, sir.
I talked to Bob Morton, the producer of the Letterman show today.
Where is the sweatshirt?
A joke now.
Dorothy in North Bergen, New Jersey.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi, there.
Sure won't.
No.
Good night, Sue.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Jerry in Tipton, Indiana.
Hello.
Hi, Tom.
Hi, Helena.
Hi.
Hi, Jerry.
How are you?
Fine.
You two are fabulous together.
Thank you very much, Jerry.
Thank you.
Listen, how about that Frank from North Carolina?
What a loser.
What do you mean, a loser?
Well, what was that?
What was he trying to say?
Well, he said that he and his son went to the dragon show.
Oh, then it was all right.
I'm misunderstood.
I'm telling you, I'm exhausted.
I'm just worn out.
Well, I'm sorry to hear it, Jerry.
You know, try to get a hold of yourself.
I hope we're not keeping you up.
And what with Halloween?
It's gone crazy.
Listen, Helen.
Yes.
Any plans to tour or anything like that?
Well, you know, we do dates all the time.
Is he coming through Tipton, Indiana in the future, do you think?
Not anytime soon.
No.
Let's see.
I'm going to be in St. Louis Friday and Cedar Rapids on Saturday.
No, not upcoming.
Well, I've lived in Tipton all my life, but I'm hoping to move to Vancouver.
Listen, Tom, how was the vacation?
Vacation was wonderful.
Now, I heard something that the police came to your house and you had like 25
cats.
Is that true?
Not true.
Okay, I have six myself.
All right, I'll jump off now.
Bye-bye.
Okay, now wait a second.
Jerry, before you go.
What's that?
Are you doing a new show tonight or is it a rerun?
I'm sorry?
Is it a new show tonight or is it a rerun?
Let me ask you something.
Does it sound like I'm hanging up?
I think I know who that was, don't I, huh?
We will continue with Ellen Reddy and her newest album, Feel So Young, right
after these messages.
This is a story.
We are back with Ellen Reddy.
Now, the guy Jerry in Tipton, Indiana, we think is Dave Letterman.
I'd put money on it.
Yeah, I think so.
You know, Dave called us for our anniversary, remember?
Do we have that on tape?
I guess it's still in New York.
But he called from the freeway and he made believe he was somebody else and
then he said
he was Dave, which is why I asked him if he had a new show or a rerun.
You know, see, this is karma.
This is karma in action.
Remember that woman?
Dave, Dave Letterman.
No, no, no, but you know that woman who said that she was his wife and kept
going out there
and staying in his house?
Yep.
You see, this is what happened.
You see, that was karmic reward.
Now, Dave, you used to close for Dave, didn't you?
That's right, yeah.
He was your opening act?
Yeah.
How was he as an opening act?
He was very good.
Well, look, you know, he's done well.
Well, yeah, I know he's done well, but that has nothing at all to do with how
good he is.
I mean, you know, he happened to be in the right place when I decided to leave,
you know?
I see.
But, no, he was a good opening act, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's a funny guy.
Yes, he is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dave Letterman calling.
Well, you know, he's out here in L.A., you know, doing the big Larry King
special.
So, you know, we get the radio phone call.
Oh, he's here in town now?
Yeah, doing the Larry King.
Do you think he's trying to take over this show?
He can have it, but not until I'm through.
Ann in the Bronx, hello.
Actually, Helen's helped a lot of up-and-coming artists.
We are back and joined from Fort Lee, New Jersey, by Bill Carter, who is the
chief television writer for the New York Times back in Manhattan and the author
of a splendid new book called The Late Shift, Letterman, Leno, and the Battle
for the Night.
Bill, thanks for coming on and welcome to this program.
Appreciate you being here.
Great to be here.
Why did you call the Tomorrow Show an eccentric talk show?
I can't imagine why.
I guess that was your reputation in those days.
Okay, anyway, let me ask you here about your own feelings after talking with
all the players involved.
I'm only three-fourths of the way through your book, and we just booked you
here this afternoon, so I haven't finished it.
But it seems to me that despite the battles behind the scenes, Letterman and
Leno in public conducted themselves as gentlemen.
There's no question about that.
They are gentlemen, and I appreciated that tremendously.
I found that, as I've had a lot of experience covering people in show business,
these are two classy individuals.
They did not in any way do anything cutthroat personally.
They didn't take any steps that I would consider to be unethical at all.
Let me ask you here about the first mistake and a long line of mistakes made by
the management at NBC that ultimately led to the departure of David Letterman.
Would you say it was the promise of the Tonight Show to Jay Leno before
consultation with Letterman that really sent this barrel over the falls?
Yes, but I think the dominoes were actually set in motion, oddly enough, by CBS,
because CBS first approached Leno.
They attempted to hire him away from NBC back in about 1990.
And at that point, NBC didn't want to lose Leno and sort of began to make more
promises to Jay that he would eventually get the Tonight Show, although there
was no overt promise at that point.
I'd also argue that their mistake with Letterman might go back a little further
because they didn't really have a relationship with the guy.
He was a gigantic star for them.
He was producing enormous revenues.
And yet, they didn't really have a relationship.
He was, you know, at odds with the management of NBC.
And I think that's a mistake when you have a star of that caliber.
You have to do your best to keep him happy.
Well, let me just fill in from a personal experience with the NBC television
network lasting better than 12 years.
There used to be a man who worked for the company named David Tebbit, whose job
was vice president for talent.
And his job was to keep us happy.
If there were a problem with Johnny Carson or with any of the NBC stars, Carson
would find out what the problem was and attempt to solve it, and most times did
so successfully.
When he left to go to Carson Productions back in the 1980s, all of a sudden,
there was nobody available to handle the kinds of problems that Letterman had
with the network in the mid-1980s.
There was nobody assigned to keep David Letterman happy.
Yes, you've cited a crucial problem because, you know, NBC, when the management
changed, when GE came in, the talent relations department was one of the things
I think that was drastically cut.
And I think that came back to haunt them eventually.
I think there was nobody who really knew how to, you know, keep those people
happy.
And it's not because they had big egos or whatever, but people who are on the
air who are stars, they do have certain needs, and I think you have to pay
attention to them.
And they fell down on that badly, I think.
Okay, we have Don in Kokomo, Indiana.
Hello, Don.
You're on.
Hey, Tom.
How are you doing, buddy?
I'm doing fine, Don.
How are you tonight?
I'm driving, man.
Uh-oh.
Be careful now, Donnie.
I'm on 465.
It circles Indianapolis.
It's an access road.
Yeah, gotcha.
And I got the cruise control hooked up.
I'm doing 95 miles an hour.
Geez, Don.
I got the lights off.
How are you doing, buddy?
I'm okay, buddy.
How are you?
Hi.
Are you a big man, Tom?
Uh, six feet four, Don.
Yeah, I'm big myself.
I'm 5'10", 2'90".
Hey, Tom.
Yeah, Don.
You know, though, they're not used, talking about them, uh, model trains.
Yeah.
And, uh, here's something you might enjoy.
I bought me an actual train myself.
I got a 46, uh, 680 Vincent diesel.
Oh, hell of a locomotive.
Hell of a loc.
80,000 pounds.
Yeah.
And, uh, it's in parts.
Now I'm putting her together.
And, uh, I'm gonna run it around the yard in the spring.
Hey, Don, before we go ahead here, did you want to ask this guy from the New
York Times
anything, or should we just have him sit here?
Who's your guest, Tom?
This guy's named Bill Carter, uh, Don.
He's with the New York Times.
You know, I, I didn't vote for him, but I thought...
Hey, hey, Tom?
Yeah, Don.
You know who you ought to get on that show?
Who's that?
You know, uh, uh, uh, Lee Armstrong, first, uh, man on the moon?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon.
Listen, a buddy of mine that works at the county says, uh, when he landed, he
had a deal with
a, uh, uh, Japanese thermos company, and he stepped out on the moon and started
drinking soup, and they run that commercial in Japan, and, uh, Armstrong makes
$2 million a year off it.
Is that right?
Well, you know what they say about the thermos, Don?
Huh?
You know what they say about the thermos?
No.
Yeah, well, it keeps hot things hot and cold things cold, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, but how do it know?
Hey, Tom?
Yeah, Don?
Uh, did you see the Super Bowl?
Yeah, I did.
You know...
Just a second, hold on.
What?
Uh, let me, let me just have Bill Carter say hi. Just say hi to Don in Kokomo,
Bill.
Don, how you doing?
Who is this?
This, this is Bill, Don. He's my buddy. He's the guest on the show tonight.
Hey, how you doing?
I'm doing good. How about you?
What do you, what do you do for a living?
Uh, I write for a newspaper.
I'm in sand and gravel.
I work out at Johnson County Sand and Gravel.
What?
Hello?
Hello?
Yeah, yeah, you're on, Don. Go ahead.
And, uh, when the sand and gravel comes in, they gotta have a man tell you what's
sand, what's gravel. That's me.
Gotcha.
In other words, you pick the sand from the gravel.
Well, not actually pick it. I have a trained eye.
I know, I know.
But in other words, you, you, you identify the sand and you identify the gravel,
right?
Yeah.
But, but, but, but Don, like the thermos, how do you know?
Yeah, that's a good on