Name: Garry Marshall on Letterman, February 24, 1993
Uploaded: 2017-04-13T22:39:24.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Garry Marshall on Letterman, February 24, 1993' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-04-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Garry Marshall on Letterman, February 24, 1993' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-04-13. Transcript available.

Ladies and gentlemen, our next guest is responsible for some of the biggest
hits in film and television, including Happy Days and Pretty Woman.
His newest play, Wrong Turn at Lungfish, opened here in New York City, off-Broadway
Sunday night.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back to the program writer-director, Gary
Marshall.
Gary!
Gary, let me ask you something. Do you ever kill a guy?
No.
No, I don't do those kind of shows.
Well, you know who we had on the program last night was your co-star.
You're the lovely...
Jamie Girtz.
That's right. Exactly, yeah.
What is it like for you directing George C. Scott, Jamie Girtz, and Tony Danza?
Well, George C. Scott has done 75 plays, so he likes you to refer to him as
General Patton.
He's walked over here, General.
But he's done so many plays that, you know, he's done it all.
He was telling me a story. He once closed a play during intermission.
Really, he was...
True.
He was directing the play, and it wasn't going well, and he was in it, and the
audience was booing, and they were walking out.
And he came out at intermission. He said, "Folks, this is not going well. I'm
closing the play."
And that was in closing. I came close. I closed one after three nights in 19...
Oh, what a heartbreak. Three nights.
Yeah, well, you've got to do that many nights, I think, sometime for the
insurance or something.
But it was called The Roast, and...
I remember The Roast. It was like in the early '80s, right?
A trivia question.
Yes, a trivia question. We closed, and a new play came in, and we went, "Ha ha,
look at this one."
Yeah.
It was called Cats, about pussycats, too, to be honest.
It will never last.
We were the play before Cats. Cats is now still playing. I'm in here with Lungfish.
So it's a circle. A circle.
Cats is everybody's favorite Broadway play, isn't it?
About pussycats, yes. It has a little bit about T.S. Eliot, too, so in my plays,
also a little bit about T.S. Eliot.
I followed the pattern.
When you're directing, whether it's movies or whether it's a stage, or, you
know, whether you're just ordering lunch,
do you ever get angry to ever lose your temper? It seems to me like it would be
impossible not to.
Well, if you lose your temper these days, you see lawyers show up like that.
Sure, right.
So you've got to be careful. Well, I don't lose it too much on the set.
I must say once in a while I lose it in my personal life.
The last time I really lost it, you want to know the truth, was at Disneyland.
That's the last time I saw it.
How on earth?
It was a bad day.
Yeah.
We went there. I have three kids. We went there at 110 degrees heat, and my
wife brought her sister, a very sexy 19-year-old.
Now, you know, when you walk around Disneyland, there's those characters.
Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, the Seven Dwarfs.
Pauly Shore.
Pauly Shore.
Well, you know, they've got those characters. It's not really them.
That's right.
It's not really the Dwarfs. It's college kids in their costumes, right?
Yeah.
So we're walking around. So the guy in Donald Duck, the Donald Duck guy, took a
liking to my sister-in-law, right?
True. So he's, like, maneuvering around. He's, like, pinning her against fences.
And my wife is saying, "Do you see what the duck is doing to the area when you're
watching this? Go talk to him."
So now I'm walking over the wedding to talk to the duck, and it's -- they're
short, but so the kids -- the college -- this is true.
The college kid's face is in the hat, so you've got to talk to the hat on the
duck.
So I said, "Hello, mister." I was being polite. "Listen, you want to leave her
alone?"
He said, "Get away from me, you jerks."
Yeah.
Not nice language from a duck.
This is a pleasant thing. So I said, "Come on. Come on." You know, I cool. I
was trying to be cool.
Don't leave her alone. And he says, "Come on. Get out of my way." I think --
who knows? Maybe the heat got to him.
So he says, "No. Get out of my way." And he took one of his -- you know, they
don't have arms. They have two things.
No, they have wings. Yeah.
They do. Took one of his -- he went like this. He hit me like -- he gave me a
shot.
So reflex, I pushed him. I gave him a push. Well, out of the woods came the
seven dwarfs. They all -- everybody ran.
It was terrible. Snow White called me a moron. I mean, this is not a --
I know.
And everybody got mad. Kids said, "That man hit Donald Duck. They took me away."
Too sorry I went to the office. Years later -- that's how I got even -- years
later, at Disney, I made "Pretty Woman," the highest grossing picture at Disney.
And somewhere, Walt is rolling over saying, "My highest grossing picture is
about a prostitute." This is what -- this is how I made friends with them. No,
but that's true. That's what I -- I lost it with a duck.
Did they take you to the office someplace and shake you down or throw you off a
ladder?
Well, they took me. Now, my three kids are watching like this. Look, they're
taking Daddy. Hit Donald Duck. There goes Daddy.
I'm kicking a fight with a duck.
I'm kicking a fight with a duck.
And they said, "What are you causing trouble for, sir?" And I said, "Well, I
worked -- I didn't want to say my name, to be honest."
You know, you've had an amazing career, and it's a wonder you haven't done time
after that episode.
But, I mean, the television shows that you've been involved with -- I mean, of
course, "The Odd Couple," "Happy Days," "Laverne and Shirley," on and on and on
and on.
And then also, now, this is the later, more recent part of your career, these
unbelievably successful motion pictures.
And I guess the TV shows will be on forever.
Well, they run good. They run all over the world. And, you know, I get cards
from people.
But, you know, when they run around the world, they get different. They adjust
to the country they're in.
They adapt to the culture somehow?
Yes. My favorite story about "Laverne and Shirley" is "Laverne and Shirley" is
all over.
When it went to Thailand, right, they don't like, in that country, girls to go
out and get their own apartment, which "Laverne and Shirley" had.
Well, I'm not crazy about it, either, frankly, to see that.
Because the next thing you know, ducks are bothering them.
They don't like girls who talk fresh, like "Laverne and Shirley" did.
But they loved the show. So, in Thailand, the show played, like any normal show,
but there was a disclaimer at the beginning.
It said, "These two girls are from the insane asylum."
This is what they wrote. They went right across the bottom of the screen.
That way, they figured none of their women would copy.
Who wants to copy them? They're from the insane asylum, you know.
So, this is a cultural adjustment. Amen. True story.
And the show's very successful there.
It was very good in Thailand.
Ah, that's goofy. That really is. Let us do a commercial. We'll be back here
with Gary Marshall.
That's good. That's very good.
That's very good.
Thank you.
It's a real treat to have you on the program.
You're a delightful and very, very funny man.
And congratulations.
I understand you have a wedding anniversary coming up.
30 years, yes.
Congratulations to you, sir.
Continued success with everything you do,
and good luck with the play over there.
Right fish, wrong turn.
Wrong turn at lungfish.
An animal that catches nothing in its mouth.
My thanks also to Pauly Shore and, of course, Mr. Zoo at Jack Hanna.
We'll see you tomorrow night, folks.
Thank you very much.
Bye very much.
Bye.