Name: Carol Merrill on Letterman, September 28, 1982
Uploaded: 2017-11-23T04:14:10.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Carol Merrill on Letterman, September 28, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-11-23. Transcript available. Best known as the model on "Let's Make a Deal."

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Carol Merrill on Letterman, September 28, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-11-23. Transcript available. Best known as the model on "Let's Make a Deal."

Welcome back to the program.
In addition to all the other usually scheduled fun here, it's safety day on the
program.
Now, if you're an avid television viewer, my next guest's name and face should
be quite familiar to you.
She's Carol Merrill, and these photos are typical of the scenes you've seen her
in over the years.
Here she is, yes, along with cohorts Jay Stewart and, of course, the host of
the show, Monty Hall.
She has been seen in over 3,000 episodes of Let's Make a Deal, a legend in the
field of game show modeling and prize pointing.
I've always been a big fan of hers.
Please welcome Carol Merrill.
Boy, that's very exciting.
I'm glad you could be here tonight, especially on safety day.
Yes, am I safe here?
I think you'll be safe for the time being.
3,000 episodes, did you ever speak or actually say anything on the show?
Actually, I did one time for the 25th, 100th show.
The writers had decided it was time that I talked.
We did get letters on occasion asking if I could talk because they weren't sure
about me.
Speculation that perhaps you couldn't.
Possibly.
And so they went ahead and wrote a script for me, and I was to start, Monty
asked me a couple
of questions, and I started talking and talking and talking, and finally I
talked until they
had to cut away for a commercial.
This was, of course, written this way.
And they cut away for the commercial and came back, and I was still talking.
And, you know, it worked.
That was the joke.
People liked it, yes.
What was it like to work with these two gentlemen here?
Is this, these photos in the right order?
This is, of course, of Mr. Hall.
Yes.
Monty is, he's really one of my very closest friends.
Uh-huh.
Yes.
And what else do we have here?
Jay Stewart.
This is Jay Stewart.
Yes.
Oh, and that was when we were celebrating the 25th hundredth show.
How long was the show actually in production?
We were on the air 14 years, first run, and then we went into reruns for a year
and a half.
Uh, did you ever get bored?
Just, I mean, I used to watch the show all the time when I was a kid, and it
was, uh...
I don't, no, I don't mean it that way.
I don't know about that one, David.
When I was, well...
You said it would be safe here.
No, I didn't, you know what I mean?
Well, when I was, uh, when I was younger.
Oh, okay.
And in prison, we had nothing else to do, so we didn't know.
Uh, no, I had a job at a TV station, and we would watch the show every day when
I was a kid.
Now, uh, did, but all you ever did really was point, except that one time you
spoke.
Didn't that bore you after a while, pointing to stuff?
Uh, I actually did some other things besides pointing.
I did model furs, and, and, you know, I did...
On the show, yeah, sure.
Yeah, uh-huh.
And, no, it did, it really didn't bore me.
It was, uh, you know, I worked with a very good group of people, and let's face
it, it was a wonderful job.
I mean, 14 years, five, you know, and we, and it didn't always mean working
five nights a week, either.
We'd sometimes, uh, do shows in reserve, put, maybe do two months' worth of
shows, and then we could take off for two months, so it wasn't, uh, demanding
time-wise, and it was a really terrific experience.
Anything, uh, well, okay, uh, we have a little demonstration that you've been,
uh, kind enough to do for us tonight.
This is, uh, um...
I, do we need to go to a commercial first?
We're gonna do this right now?
All right.
Carol Merrill, along with, uh, our own Bill Wendell, are going to demonstrate
for us now the fine art of gesturing toward a game show paraphernalia.
Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Carol Merrill.
It's the beautiful new Pure Plex Chromium Iron with deluxe two heat settings
and the patented no-starch drying cycle.
Retail value, $75.48.
But that's not all.
Yes, it's a year's supply of Duracoat paint in green, emerald, and salmon.
The favorite colors of people who like paint.
Retail value, $110.48.
And last but not least, it's the Electro-Type Toaster Oven Broiler with the
easy opening draw.
Not just a toaster or an oven or a broiler.
It's a toaster oven broiler.
Retail value, $89.48.
Bringing the value of your big deal to a grand total of $1,450.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Very impressive. Very nice.
We're going to pause for the commercial.
We'll be back tomorrow with Carol Merrill.
Very nice.
Hi there. We're back here with Safety Day and, of course, Carol Merrill.
That was very nice of you. It was a very good sport of you to do that.
Thank you.
What are you doing presently?
I am now managing a restaurant in Malibu.
I just took it over two months ago, and I'm actually half-owner.
And it's the Whale Watch Restaurant in Malibu.
For all of you out there that like terrific seafood.
It's the old neighborhood.
Yes, I understand you live right around the corner.
In all of the years, 3,000 shows that you were doing,
anything really peculiar happened on Let's Make a Deal
because it was a lot of logistical things coming in,
things going out, a lot of money, prizes, and so forth.
Yes, there's one that comes to mind.
On the show, I wore false fingernails
because I just don't happen to have long, gorgeous nails.
And I was modeling a fur coat,
and oftentimes they would put special lining in the coats.
And as I was turning, I had my back to camera,
and I was putting the coat on,
and all of a sudden my nails got stuck in the lining of the sleeves.
And I mean, my hands were up here.
So here I was with my back to camera
and knowing I had to turn around
and expecting that sometimes someone would say,
someone would say it's time, you know, cut,
and no one said anything.
And finally, I had to turn around.
So I turned around to camera.
I had my little hands up here like this.
And of course, you couldn't see them
because the coat was like this.
And this is the way I was to camera.
And so, of course, we finished the deal,
and I ran to change clothes for the next deal,
waited after the show for the director to tell me
it's time for a pickup shot.
So I went back and I said,
by the way, when are we going to do the pickup shot?
And I said, what pickup shot?
I said, you know, no one ever even noticed it.
And of course, here I was.
It's because you yourself were distracted from the prizes.
You're a stunning female, and nobody would care.
Just as long as you were out there
pointing to the toaster oven,
that's all they cared about.
You also worked with a lot of animals.
We have some slides.
Are these of the animals, things that you used to do, Carol?
Oh, yes, indeed.
Yes, that's an animal actor.
We actually, there's a company that has an agency
that has, and that, let's see, what is it?
Is that a bear?
That's a large, some kind of poultry, I think, Carol.
Poultry?
It looks like it might be a large, a capon or something.
Now, wouldn't this, if you had one of these things
behind a curtain, wouldn't that tip off the dealer
that not to pick the curtain because of...
Especially if they were verbal, and at times they were.
The turkeys would sometimes let loose
with the, you know, the gobble, gobble, gobble,
and the pigs, and the real problems were the donkeys
because it, you know, it was, it's kind of hard
to conceal that, and, you know, you can only,
Monty could only speak so loud,
and pretty soon, of course, the trader would automatically
decide not to go for that curtain.
There was a lot of valuable merchandise
that you were almost, it looked like you were responsible for.
Any of this ever turn up missing, or?
We had, I'm sure some of our viewers recall, the bucket of chicken
that was on Jay's tray, that underneath the wing
was to be this gorgeous watch with diamonds and all that,
and the trader had held on to this bucket of chicken
throughout the whole show.
I mean, he was offered hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise and money,
held on and held on, and of course, Monty and Jay actually starts looking and
said,
"Oh, well, now it's time to reveal what's in the bucket."
Went for the chicken, and there was nothing under the chicken.
The watch that was supposed to have been, there had been stolen,
between rehearsal and show, and Monty very cleverly covered it and said,
"Somehow it must have been left in the safe," and that's how it was.
Oh, yes, yes. Left in the safe. Did they ever find out who did it?
No, as a matter of fact.
How much, how much of a loss was that?
It was about $1,800 won.
$1,800, good heavens.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm, it's been a delight meeting you.
Thank you very much for journeying all this way to be here.
Ladies and gentlemen, the television legend, Carol Merrill.
We'll be right back with a safety message from Paul Schaefer.
Thank you very much.