Name: Buddy Hackett on Letterman, May 8, 1984
Uploaded: 2017-05-28T04:12:15.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Buddy Hackett on Letterman, May 8, 1984' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-05-28. Transcript available. Buddy's first scheduled Late Night guest appearance.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Buddy Hackett on Letterman, May 8, 1984' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-05-28. Transcript available. Buddy's first scheduled Late Night guest appearance.

Thank you, Paul.
Thank you, folks.
My first guest tonight has just been named official spokesman for Caesars
Atlantic City Hotel and Casino.
He also earns a living as a comedian.
Please welcome one of the funniest, Mr. Buddy Hackett.
Hi, buddy. Nice to see you, sir.
Buddy, did you see that guy jump into that thing of water?
Yeah, I did.
Have you ever seen anything like that before?
Not without a lifeguard.
No. That's very peculiar.
Congratulations on your being appointed spokesman. You must be thrilled about
that, huh?
Well, I think the way he did it was probably the...
When he went off the edge of the table, you can't take that fall right on your
head because you'll break your neck.
Yeah.
He probably caught it on his hands and then kind of dipped his head.
It's an old Jewish trick, but it's done with chicken soup.
It's never been done with just...
Who would do it with water?
You couldn't talk anyone into...
Hey, dive off into water?
Put some soup.
You'll see diving.
It feels great to be appointed spokesman.
So you...
So you speculate that it's the head dip.
That's what it is.
Yeah, the head dip.
He caught that...
That guy must weigh 158 pounds anywhere between 158, 159 and a half, somewhere
in there.
And you take that, you know, you could whiplash yourself.
Yeah.
Or sometimes he could drive the base of his spine right out of his ass and have
a hook to hang his pants up.
And have a what?
And have a what there?
He'd have a hook to hang his pants up.
I have a hook to hang his pants up.
Yeah.
That's what I thought.
A hook.
You know what I find interesting?
Sir?
Nice looking man, reasonably dressed.
He found his way down here from Massachusetts.
He teaches school, probably voted in the last election, and here he's diving
off tables like that.
Everybody wants to be in show business.
That's right, that's right.
People will do anything to get into show business.
All right, now back to Atlantic City.
So you're happy about that.
What are you going to do as the spokesman?
What do you do over there?
Well, we're going to do some commercials.
They're going to dress me up like Caesar with a toga, and then we're going to
do stuff about, you know, ancient Rome and the modern-day Caesar's Boardwalk
Hotel,
and how you can have all the fun and everything.
And I ain't going to do the scene with the lion.
That's all.
I'm telling you now.
Because I know when lions, they don't get along good with you.
Now, is this a lucrative deal for you?
Big dough?
My God, what the hell?
Not without soup.
Well, it's all tied up into one package.
I'm going to be working 18 days a year, one six-day stint, and four three-day
stints, plus doing the commercials.
I guess it runs around $600,000 for the 18 days.
I don't get as much as I used to.
No, I see.
We're all taking a cut nowadays.
Just the people.
It's tough.
How do you like working in Atlantic City compared to Las Vegas?
Any difference for you there?
The sand is much wetter in Atlantic City than in Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas, you get dry sand.
Uh-huh.
And when the wind blows, it hits your face, but it don't paste on.
Right.
Now, you get a stiff breeze off of the ocean, and that wet sand starts, whack.
Yeah.
Not without soup.
And that wet sand starts, that'll take your skin right down to the bone, and
you'll go around porous.
Now, do you, in your career, you've been working for casinos.
You told me before the show, this is your 25th year.
35.
35th year.
I opened November 22nd, 1952, at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and I've had a
contract with one gambling casino or another, whether I wanted to or not.
I remember one, there was one casino where a guy, Mario, called up.
I said, we want you to sign for three years.
So I said, what, what?
He says, whatever we tell you.
I said, you don't frighten me.
So I had a pet clam, you know.
They're neat.
They don't make dirt or nothing, and you don't have to feed them.
I used to keep the clam next to me on his shell.
And at night, I say, good night, and his little shell.
And I went to sleep one night.
I woke up in the morning.
The shell was empty.
And the clam's head was on my pillow.
Oh, my God.
Either that, or I ate the clam in my sleep and sneezed on my pillow, one or the
other, you know.
And the next day, I signed with the Hotel Mario for three years.
Did you, now, I've heard stories about performers who work in Las Vegas or Reno
or Atlantic City.
And they have a lot of free time during the day, so they get themselves into
trouble at the tables.
Did you ever have gambling problems that way?
I gambled once.
In all the years I was there, I was there about, well, 1963.
So I was there 11 years.
And Buddy Greco says to me, let's put $50 a piece.
We go to the table and make a bet.
Yeah.
So I said, Greco, I don't want to gamble.
He says, hey, don't be cheap.
I said, hey, here's the $50.
You don't even owe it to me.
Come with me.
So I give him my $50.
He's got his $50, right?
And he walks up to the crap table.
And in those days, there was blue chips for his $5.
I thought he'd give him the $100.
He'd get 20 chips and he'd start to play, right?
Yeah.
He says, $200 on the line, you owe me another $50.
We didn't bet yet.
That guy says, $8.8 to shoot him, $8.8.
He said, I want the odds for $200.
He says, you have no credit, Mr. Greco.
He says, how's Hackett?
He's my partner.
He says, he's all right.
He says, give him a marker for $1,000.
I said, I don't want no marker for no $1,000.
Now he's got $200.
He says, $800 change.
I says, give me the $800.
It's my marker, right?
Greco says, $4, $5, $9, $10, $200 each.
Now I've got $1,100 there.
I don't even know how to play and I didn't want to be playing.
And I really was very, very nervous.
Well, he kept betting and I said, stop.
What I owe, this is $3,400.
I went to the cage.
I wrote a check for $3,400.
That was my only experience with gambling.
Oh, boy.
Well, you get off lucky.
Yeah.
All right.
Now listen.
Greco says, I never lose.
I said, how are you going to lose?
You play with my money.
You can't.
We've got to go with station identification.
Oh, OK.
We'll be back, though, with Buddy Hackett.
I'll show you tomorrow night.
OK.
Laurie Anderson will be here later tonight.
Tomorrow on this program, Diane Cannon.
Have you ever worked with her?
No, I just know her real well.
You do?
Is she a nice lady?
She's a terrific person.
Yeah, she'll be here tomorrow night.
Also, musician Toots Thielmans.
I know you haven't worked with him.
I don't know who it was.
He's a whistler and plays harmonica and stuff.
Nice man.
Well, I'm sure he is.
Otherwise, why would you hang out with him?
I said, well, I didn't say we hung out.
I said, he'll be here on the show.
Well, that means the same thing.
Oh, does it?
Yeah.
What do you mean?
You're going to put a wall here or what?
No.
But I mean, you hang out like he's coming out to the place or something
afterwards.
No, I don't even know where the place is.
No, I don't.
Also tomorrow, oh, we have a child genius, Sasha Segan.
And how old is Sasha?
Nine years old?
Nine years old.
Is it a boy or a girl?
Boy.
Boy.
Very, very bright.
Well, of course bright.
He's a genius.
He would be bright.
He's one of the slowest genius kids you've ever seen.
Buddy, I have here a copy of your biography from NBC, this very television
network, dated
August 31st, 1956, you were getting ready to star in your own series called
Stanley.
Yeah.
And it says here, Hackett was one of the first comedians to appear on
television.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Do you have any idea where that was?
It was a show called Laugh Time.
That's right.
October 10th, 1945.
Yeah.
Yep.
CBS.
What did you do on that show?
We did a burlesque sketch called Flugel Street.
How did that go?
Not too good.
I was one of the few times I was beat up by an audience.
Really?
And they got in free.
I don't know what they were mad at.
How old were you then?
21.
Now, this must have been quite a thrill for you.
All of a sudden, you're doing a network television show, huh?
That was a network.
I mean, in 1945.
Oh, it just says TV debut.
Yeah, there was only seven or eight sets around.
Yeah.
You know, six of them were still in the store.
Do you know what you got paid for that appearance?
Well, whatever it says there, I probably boosted it up.
What does it say?
It says you're 25 bucks for a 10-minute performance.
Yeah, I probably got $10 for a 25-minute performance.
And you also worked at a nightclub, a Brooklyn Bistro called The Pink Elephant.
Oh, yeah.
I did.
Was that a good place, bad place?
Ah, they were so nice to me, I can't tell you.
First of all, there was a guy named Heshy Schneider.
He booked me there.
He was not an agent or anything.
He just, well, there was no business.
I only did, I was there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I got $10 a night,
two shows a night.
But I only remember going on once, and the rest of the time, I was sleeping in
the car in the backyard or something.
But there was no people or anything, and everybody was having a wonderful time.
The guys who owned it like, and Heshy, and I didn't know what was going on.
Now, of course, years later, I figured out it must have been a book joint or
some horse room or something,
and it had nothing to do with the show.
They just put an ad in the paper.
There wasn't even a nightclub.
You just got up wherever you were standing and said, showtime, and you just,
you could have been in the bathroom.
It didn't make no difference where you were.
You just did it.
Did you, in the beginning, if they wanted you to do like three or four shows,
and maybe you didn't have enough material for three and four shows,
and the audience stayed from the first show right through?
Now, what do you do the second show when you look down and it's the same folks
and you're out of material?
You yell fire and they run out.
No, what I did, if I went, I was working a place in Connecticut, a guy named
Bill Marino, Mama Marino's Lodge.
And the same people came every night.
Right.
And it was only, I think they had Blue Laws then, you didn't work Sunday.
So it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
And two shows a night.
And I would go to movies in the afternoon.
And at night I'd come and act out the movie for them.
Oh, that's good.
And anything happened during the day, I'd look in the paper and see jobs.
You know, like people want a job.
I'd go apply for jobs.
Then I'd try to remember what happened and I'd tell the people the most
ridiculous things and see if they would hire me anyway.
And they would hire you anyway.
Yeah.
I'd tell them I'd just got out of prison because I boiled a person.
But I'd been reformed.
And they'd say, oh, but do you know how to sweep?
Yeah, I'd sweat myself.
And then at night I'd tell the people what I did during the day.
They like it?
And one guy said, that's right.
I wondered why you didn't take the job today.
The guy was there at night.
Yeah, it's tough.
It's tough.
This man has just been named official spokesman for Caesar's Atlantic City
Hotel and Casino.
35 years you've been doing this kind of work, huh?
Well, 35 years just in casinos.
Before that, I didn't have that good a job.
Yeah.
I was on the road with Call Me Mister in 1946.
Carl Reiner was the leading man.
Bob Fosse was the boy dancer.
William Warfield was the baritone.
Betty Keene was the leading lady.
I was the number two banana.
Can you come back and see us another night?
Am I finished?
Yeah.
Yeah, you're done.
Just starting to relax.
You're on the fire.
I'll be delighted.
Thank you very much, buddy.
Thank you very much.
Nice to see you.
Welcome back.
I'm Laurie Anderson.
Did you see this?