Name: David Letterman v. Phone Collection, 1984-2010
Uploaded: 2018-06-08T20:26:32.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman v. Phone Collection, 1984-2010' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-06-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman v. Phone Collection, 1984-2010' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-06-08. Transcript available.

David Letterman v. Phone Collection, 1984-2010

Do we have time to do this now, or have we blown the time here?
From time to time, we like to keep you abreast of new dial-it services being
offered by,
is it the telephone company or all of these other companies?
Whoever offers these, you know, like Dial the Weather, Dial a Joke, Dial a Horoscope,
we have brand new ones here that will soon be in your area,
so check your local paper for time and listing.
Now, here's a unique way to find out the time.
It's Dial the Ugliest Time Lady in the World.
Just a hunch here, but I'm guessing we may have an equipment problem.
It's just a hunch.
Should I go ahead and do it anyway?
Give it a try.
Okay.
All right.
Dial, what is it?
Dial the Ugliest Time Lady in the World.
Dial the Ugliest Time Lady in the World.
See what happens.
I don't know if we have that equipment problem.
At the tone, the time will be 8 o'clock and 10 seconds.
At the tone, the time will be 8 o'clock and 10 seconds.
At the tone, the time will be 8 o'clock and 10 seconds.
At the tone, the time will be 8 o'clock and 10 seconds.
Okay.
See, she was so ugly that her face would stop a clock.
See?
That was number one.
Here's number two.
This is, um...
This won't bother you if this is not hooked up, will it?
Okay.
Uh, here's number two.
This is one of the most dramatic now being offered.
It's dial a last-minute reprieve.
Dial a last-minute reprieve.
Here we are.
Dial...
Hello?
Uh, yes.
This is Dave Letterman from New York.
Sorry, Dutch.
It's not the governor.
Throw the switch.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Uh, who knew that this was purely for decorative purposes?
All these years, I thought it had something to do with the phone.
Well, uh, you might not want to call this number too often, but when you do, it's
good to know it's there.
Dial a really mean guy.
Dial a really mean guy.
Hello?
Excuse me.
I think I hear somebody snoring.
Hold on a sec while I shoot him.
Okay, what can I do for you?
Okay, that's the really mean guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right.
For companies that think an Olympic tie-in would be just the thing for their
marketing plans,
there's, this is the new reference service, the Olympic Sponsorship Hotline.
Start posting rehearsal times.
All right.
Thank you for calling.
Sponsorships are still available for the official grout of the Olympics,
The official rubber tubing of the Olympics,
the official carbon paper of the Olympics,
the official hollow point ammunition of the Olympics,
the official neoprene gloves of the Olympics,
the official plywood of the Olympics,
the official...
Okay.
Those are some things you can still sign up for.
I don't even think we need this.
And, you know, I'm not sure we need this either.
Let's, um, let's just see.
I know Alexander Graham Bell did some work in this area,
but it was never completed,
so let's see if we can't continue that tonight.
Here's a service for insomniacs who haven't been able to sleep for a while
and have forgotten what a nightmare is really like.
This is Dial a Nightmare.
Dial a Nightmare.
Hi, it's Bea Arthur.
Conrad Bain and I are at the airport.
We'll grab a cab to your place.
Unfortunately, we can only stay two weeks.
Okay.
Dial a Nightmare.
Now, here's one that sounds like it might be kind of soothing.
Dial the last thing you hear before falling asleep in the summer.
The last thing you hear before you fall asleep in the summer.
This one is a little longer call.
There's the pitch and another foul tip.
And that's seven in a row and the catcher's coming out of the mound again.
You know, the Mets dropped the first game with this doubleheader,
11-3 with the Cubs.
They need a quick eight runs to get back in this contest.
So if they split today, they're 38 games out of first place.
Okay.
We're all set.
The wind up.
The pitch.
And another foul tip.
Do one more?
There's no way we can go to the last one.
We just do whatever one is next.
We have here the last one.
This one's always a lot of fun.
Dial the most gullible operator at the telephone company.
This is the most gullible operator at the telephone company.
So much easier.
You don't have to do this.
This would be the most...
Excuse me.
Yes.
Is this the most...
Cliff Robertson?
Okay, well...
We'll be right back with Danny DeVito.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
And let me tell you who's going to be on the program in the next half hour.
Julie Krohn, a fantastically successful jockey, will be with us.
And she's like 24 years old, Paul.
How successful?
Well, we're going to find out when she comes out here.
Did you get that lotion, by the way?
Also, storyteller Pearl Burnett, and she's going to come out and tell us all a
lovely story.
Ah, storyteller.
That's right.
And tomorrow on the program, Brother Theodore will be with us.
And musician slash actor Branford Marsalis.
And actor Matt Frewer.
That'll be tomorrow night on the program.
You know, since we've been on the air here at CBS, we have placed...
NBC.
It's NBC.
We have placed...
How many calls, Paul, do you think we've made?
Oh, countless calls.
Maybe 60, 70, 100 phone calls since we've been on the air?
100,000 phone calls, at least.
And out of all of those phone calls, how many would you say have been completed
successfully?
Not many.
Not too many.
No, not many.
We have a lot of trouble, and it seems like here lately we just can't really
get a call to work properly.
Either something's wrong with me, something's wrong with the phone, something's
wrong with the person we call.
Something always happens, and it ruins a lot of good, clean fun for you, the
American viewing public.
So we thought what we would do tonight is get a phone call for you that would
work sure fire,
and we would also take great caution to make sure that nothing could go wrong.
So here's what we're going to do tonight.
We're going to place a phone call in a minute.
We just want to get one solid phone call under our belt.
Now, we're going to call my parking garage here in Midtown Manhattan.
There it is, over on 48th Street.
There, I think you can see the phone.
It should be...
There it is.
And I'm going to ask them if it's all right if I pick my car up at 8 o'clock.
So that's the phone call.
Now, let me tell you what we're going to do to make sure nothing can possibly
go wrong.
Sometimes the phone doesn't work, as I mentioned.
So to ensure that that doesn't happen here tonight,
we have a gentleman who is a qualified telephone technician, John Keaveney.
John, can you come out here for us, please?
John Keaveney will come out and make sure...
Hi, John. How are you?
There's the phone, John.
Do you work for NBC, for AT&T?
Who do you work for?
I'm with NBC.
You're with NBC, and you know everything there is to know about phones, don't
you?
Right.
Okay, this is the man, Paul, that will tell us if the equipment is ready to go.
It's ready to go, sir.
Perfect working order.
Ready to go.
Okay, good. Thank you very much, John.
Now, sometimes because I'm trying to talk while I dial,
and I've got several things on my mind, I will dial the wrong number.
Now, to prevent that tonight, we have someone here to dial the number for me.
This is Joe Fury. He is the man at our reception desk.
He handles all of our incoming and outgoing telephone calls.
Hi, Joe.
How are you?
Would you consider yourself to be an above-average dialer?
Yes.
Okay, Joe.
That's the number we're going to be calling in a couple of minutes.
Familiarize yourself with that.
Sometimes, in the heat of the program, when I talk to the people on the
telephone, I will frighten them because I'm pretty excited about the whole
thing.
So, to make sure that doesn't happen tonight, we've asked our production
assistant, Barbara Sheehan, to come out.
Barbara, come on out.
And she will actually be doing the initial talking.
Hi, Barbara.
What's the matter?
Nice to see you.
And, Barbara, we don't want to frighten the person off the phone.
Would it be safe to describe you as a soft-spoken person?
Sure.
I'm sorry?
Yes.
Okay, good.
Now, the other aspect of this is you must get the permission of the person you're
calling to use their voice on the air.
And to make sure we live up to that obligation in no uncertain terms is NBC
attorney Drew Kastner.
He was here tonight.
Drew?
Nice to see you, Drew.
You'll be able to listen to what they say to make sure they've given their okay
to use their voice on the air.
That's right.
We're all hooked up here.
Okay.
Now, the other problem we get when we place phone calls is sometimes there will
be nobody home.
So, to ensure that that has not happened, we've sent staff runner Dave Rogalski
over to the parking garage.
And he's here now to tell us if, in fact, there is somebody.
Hi, Dave.
How are you doing?
Nice job.
Dave, is there somebody at the parking garage now?
Yeah, I saw him there.
You saw somebody there.
Yeah.
And you saw the telephone.
Yeah.
So, you're under the impression we will get a response.
Sure.
Okay.
And in case of fire or explosion or perhaps releasing of dangerous fumes,
we have from the New York City Fire Department, Captain John Serrato.
John, are you...
Good to see you, John.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Have I covered everything?
All right.
Here we go.
We're going to try now.
We're going to call my garage, ask them, can I pick up my car at 8?
I'll turn the phone over to Joe Fury, our receptionist.
He will do the dialing.
He'll then hand it to Barbara Sheehan, who will ask to speak with them.
Drew Kastner will make sure they've given the necessary approval.
And then I'll ask them if I can pick it up at 8 o'clock.
Nicely done, Joe.
That seemed to go pretty smoothly.
That's ringing.
All right.
Should be Barbara Sheehan now, asking.
Hi, this is Barbara Sheehan calling from The Letterman Show.
Dave wants to talk...
Hello?
Oh, no.
This is Barbara Sheehan from The Letterman Show.
Oh, no.
Hello?
Oh, now what?
Hello?
This is Barbara Sheehan from The Letterman Show.
Dave wants to talk to you.
Can I put your voice on the air?
Yes, but I can't hear you.
Okay.
All right.
He can't hear us, but what do we care if he can hear us or not?
It's okay.
Legally, Drew, it's all right.
Clear.
Thank you very much.
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
John, let me borrow your accent.
Everyone stand back.
Everyone...
All right.
Thank you.
See, you know, part of the problem, this studio is built on an old Indian
burial ground.
Our next guest, see, we're going to have a big celebration when the call was
successfully
completed.
But it was not.
It was not successfully completed, no.
He couldn't hear us after all of that.
I'm sorry.
Drop your watch.
That's all right.
Yeah, we did check out the phone with a...
Yeah, we had a technician, an expert, who said it was working perfectly.
He assured us it was working perfectly.
Perfectly perfect.
Be careful with that complicated equipment.
All right.
Did you get an owner's manual of that stuff?
Just got away from him, I guess.
Just got away from him, I guess.
Oh, hi.
Welcome back to Dave's Workshop.
Coming up on the big program tonight, we have all of these wonderful toys.
And we have this huge, like a rubber band machine gun, similar to these.
Rubber band machine gun.
Yeah, and it shoots like thousands of rubber bands.
So that'll be a little bit later.
Also, oh, Stevie Ray Framstein will be joining the program.
And tomorrow on the broadcast, Fred Savage will be here.
Huh?
What?
76-year-old surfer Whitey Harrison.
Is that right, Morty?
Is he the oldest surfer in the world?
He's one of the oldest surfer.
One of the oldest, all right.
And a lovely man.
And a lovely...
I'm sure he is a lovely man.
Did I say he wasn't a lovely man?
One of the oldest surfers.
Yeah.
Are there any, like, 26-year-old surfers?
He's much more interesting.
Yeah, I'm sure he is.
Also, Jake Johansson.
Do we have an age on him, Morty?
He's about 29.
He's about 29.
Okay, that's the big roundup for tomorrow.
Now, what are we going to do, huh?
What?
Oh, yeah, we have a little quiz all about New York City.
Paul, do you have music for t