Name: Merrill Markoe on Later with Bob Costas, August 30, 1993
Uploaded: 2017-08-05T17:05:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Merrill Markoe on Later with Bob Costas, August 30, 1993' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-08-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Merrill Markoe on Later with Bob Costas, August 30, 1993' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-08-05. Transcript available.

Merrill Markoe on Later with Bob Costas, August 30, 1993

Good evening, and thank you for staying up later.
My name's Chris Connolly, Bob Costas is off tonight.
While asked by the LA Times to describe herself, Meryl Marko once said, "Just
call me a buxom
blue-eyed blonde, a leggy blue-eyed blonde, or something with the word vixen in
it would
be nice."
Well the careers that she's considered include stun gun salesman, hypnotist,
and professor
of drawing at the University of Southern California.
Instead, happily, she became a writer most notably for "Late Night with David
Letterman,"
for which she won four Emmys, and the gratitude of all Americans for inventing
stupid pet tricks.
Since leaving the show, she's hosted a number of cable specials, and has
written a column
for the late lamented magazine New York Woman.
Her current book is entitled "What the Dogs Taught Me."
Tonight on Later, the buxom, leggy, blue-eyed blonde vixen, Meryl Marko.
I was thinking of you as I was reading your book the other day, because I
actually took
my first trip to Las Vegas not long ago, and you, how many excursions?
It was your very first trip?
I've never gone before, and it was, it was...
Well I've actually only taken one trip myself.
Is that right?
That was the trip I wrote about in my book.
Yeah.
I just found it to be totally entertaining though, didn't you?
Yeah, I did.
I found it a lot less debauched than I kind of expected.
Well, I think there's the debauchery there, but what I thought was great was
just the wacky
Americana.
I mean, it's such, if you're looking for wacky Americana, you need look no
further.
I mean, there it is.
It's like, I love dopey historical recreations, and Caesar's Palace is just
great for that,
I think.
Did you go to Caesar's Palace?
No, I didn't.
I didn't even see a show.
Did you catch one of the shows, like Wayne Newton or something?
Did I ever.
Well, I figured you want to go to the dopey show there, I went to Nudes on Ice,
which is
great, because it has like, they give you a program and it has the different
plot lines
and so forth, and the part I liked was called the Russian Fantasy, where I
guess it was that
period of Russian history, I get this a little foggy, where something with the
Tsar or whatever
and there was a crop shortage and a lot of the women had to go without clothes.
Yeah.
Terrible, really.
And I learned from my experience at the Nudes on Ice, the more breasts you
expose, the less
skating required.
That's basically true in all walks of life.
Yeah, I guess so.
Good for you here.
I guess I'll remember that, you know, you should, you know, maybe Rockefeller
Center could take
a little lesson from that downstairs.
I think they have.
During the Christmas season, yeah.
Now recently, for Vanity Fair, in fact, you did one of your occasional
experiments in
alternate lifestyles, at least as taught by various people.
You took a course from a dominatrix.
This was a learning annex class, and it was dominatrix 101 is what it was
called.
It said, "Be a dominatrix for fun, love, or profit."
And I didn't really know which of those three I was headed for exactly.
But I was like 80 different women turned up at this thing.
And it was...
Eighty women?
Yeah.
And I didn't know if any of them were there.
It was hard to tell.
I mean, it was really a mixed group of women.
It was pretty interesting that way.
And let's see.
Well, it was held at that institution of higher learning, my favorite
institution of higher
learning, the Hyatt Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in the penthouse.
And early in, it was sort of Q&A with the dominatrix who came in, and that was
kind of...
Thank God it was Q&A.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
That's an important distinction.
I think so, yeah.
But I guess the highlight of the thing was sort of midway into the class where
a guy...
Well, a lot of guys were trying to crash the class.
It was a women-only class.
A lot of guys were trying to get in to take the course, or...
No, they were just trying to come...
In fact, this is true.
A guy...
Before she started the class, a guy was hanging around, and she said, "Okay,
this is a women-only
class, but I told this guy he could talk to the class for a minute, and he just
wanted
to give out his business card in case anyone needed someone to practice on."
True.
That happened a number of times throughout the class.
It was really pretty amazing.
But the highlight for me was midway, a guy drove up for three hours from San
Diego, a guy
who claimed to have been in the Navy SEALs for 30 years.
30 years in the Navy SEALs.
Something the Navy SEALs are going to be really proud of when I tell this story.
This guy, first he gets up and he's talking to us about how...
He wants a detail for us how he was chasing bad guys all over the world.
All this stuff that he did with Manly Danger.
He's going on and on about how he detonated weapons, and how he jumps out of
planes, and
he goes deep beneath the ocean, and all this kind of stuff, as a way of
building up to
the fact that it was that extra measure of stress that causes him to need to
wear women's
underwear.
You know, I never really fully understood that, quite frankly, because I wear
women's underwear,
and it isn't making me any less stressed out, let me tell you.
Anyway, so then he took his pants off to show that he had on a garter belt and
nylons,
which I thought would be a really nice picture for the brochure for the Navy SEALs.
So he's sitting there at the front of this class like this, and then the dominatrix
tells
us we're supposed to practice on him, do things to practice on him.
So different women are getting up.
I, myself, was just taking notes.
I had no practicing.
I wanted to do it.
You're auditing.
Right.
That's right.
You're trying to place into dominatrix 201.
I was auditing.
That's right.
The advanced course, yeah.
And people are getting up and doing things to him and, like, learning whipping
technique.
Like, I did learn an interesting little whipping technique pointer, which is
that when you
are whipping, you want to head for the shoulders and the back of the legs, you
don't want to
injure the kidneys.
Oh.
You don't want to go to them.
And, um...
I don't think injury was kind of part of the game.
Yeah, wouldn't you think?
Yeah.
Injuring the kidneys, you could probably get paid more.
Yeah, well, maybe learn that in 201.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Anyway, finally, this one woman got up.
I thought this was the highlight of the, of the, um, trying things on the Navy
SEAL section.
This woman got up and she's, uh, first the dominatrix put an assortment of kind
of stuff
around, uh, dog collars and whips and so forth.
And then this woman said to the guy, uh, get down on your knees and beg like
the dog that
you are.
And this guy did, which I guess 'cause he's worried about his GPA, you know.
I was really amazed by it.
And then she put a leash on him and she led him around.
And that was the point at which I decided to get out of there 'cause I have
four dogs.
And not one of them was as good on the leash as this guy.
He was.
I put him all through that expensive training.
They all pull on the leash.
This guy was perfect right off the bat.
I was angry.
Amazing.
I left.
A bitter woman.
You're up to four dogs now?
I am.
Really?
Yeah.
Way too many dogs.
Way too many.
I don't recommend four.
Really?
Why not?
What's wrong with four?
Well, just the hair factor alone.
In my house right now, it looks like the old prairie.
It's really...
I'm not kidding.
It's like the hair equivalent of tumbleweed is blowing around my house.
Just these...
It's like a toupee in every corner.
Do you have one of those dogs who, like, when you come to the door, like, gets
all excited?
Well, my...
I have...
Well, I have four of those dogs.
And when you come to the door...
I don't have people over much anymore.
It's kind of a trade-off.
Yeah, well, my one dog has a greeting disorder.
My one big dog...
Just isn't happy until he just slams you down.
You have, obviously, two relatively famous, but sadly, deceased dogs, right?
Well, but I don't think of having them anymore.
Yeah, I have my two dead dogs.
My four live dogs.
My two dead dogs.
How do you...
How do you sort of...
I'm kind of curious how you sort of appropriately mourn the passing of a
beloved dog.
Do you have, like, a shrine to him?
Do you have, like, pictures up?
Do you, you know, remember him every now and then?
Uh...
No, I...
I don't.
I think I appropriately mourned them by replacing them.
I guess that's not very...
I see.
How did your dog...
I don't mean that in a cruel way.
I just...
I guess that is what I did.
I mean, I...
I liked them so well, I went ahead and got more.
Signed up for more.
That's nice.
That's kind of like a Brady Bunch thing.
How did your dog Stan die, by the way?
Oh, my more dog Stan.
Well, this is...
I know this is gonna sound funny, and it's really not.
He had an overdose of ham.
It was actually that fancy-schmancy kind of ham, too.
Well, it wasn't a bit funny at the time, believe me.
I mean, I realized telling people later that it turns out to sound sort of
funny, but...
But, um...
I left him with a dog sitter, and...
And the dog sitter left a big plate of ham out, and my dog ate, like, half a
ham.
And they...
It's sort of interesting to know that ham can kill you.
It...
He was a 75-pound German Shepherd.
I mean, the fat content stopped his liver, his kidneys, and his pancreas.
That's pretty funny, huh?
I think.
Woo!
Huh!
Obviously, you're very much associated with sort of late-night television, and
late-night television on this particular...
And so are you now!
I guess, yeah.
You know, on late-night television on this particular network.
In fact, you appeared on Tom Snyder's show, didn't you, at some point?
The Tomorrow program?
I did.
I think of that as being who took the wrong turn at the power vortex.
I was on Tom Snyder's show with Robin Williams, David Letterman, Billy Crystal,
and me.
It was four rising stand-up comedians.
Thank you!
Thank you!
Who didn't rise quite as far as the others?
Was this before or after you were, or during the time where you were involved
with David professionally?
I was already involved with David professionally and otherwise.
Mm-hmm.
It was actually a particularly embarrassing show because friends of mine
decided it would be really funny to send me a singing telegram
that was, while full of, like, double entendres about me and Dave to my
dressing room.
And then Tom Snyder, having no idea what the content of this singing telegram
might be,
thought it would be funny to have it on the air.
So I was sitting there listening to this just, and it was the first time I'd
ever been on TV just melting, just dying.
Telegram for Meryl Marco!
This is a real surprise, yes?
I have a singing telegram for you.
Let's get it.
From a couple of your friends.
The homo and the hetero.
Does it ring a bell?
Yeah.
You know them.
Okay, and these are original words for you tonight.
Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night.
Tonight, we'll see a new rising star.
Tonight, tonight, we'll see Marco tonight.
And our hearts, they will stop where they are.
Today, she's saying things so stupid.
But thanks to Mr. Cupid, we know she'll be all right.
So just relax, and don't plan every word that you'll see on tomorrow.
That's it.
Get her out of here.
Congratulations.
I guess it's sort of become kind of incorporated into our culture.
But at the time, the kind of comedy you were doing, first in the morning show
and then, of course, on late night, was different from what was sort of out
there in the zeitgeist.
How did you, how did you come up with it?
And what made it different from the other stuff that was out there?
Well, this becomes a little more difficult because I can't remember how it was
that different from what was out there.
It was coming out of my head, and out of Dave's head, so it was all of the
things that we thought were interesting and original.
I was really anxious by the time we hit the night show.
The morning show, the rules were a little different.
We were just struggling to surviv