Name: Dave's Hot Lunch Program on Letterman, February 1985
Uploaded: 2016-06-05T20:36:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's Hot Lunch Program on Letterman, February 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-06-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dave's Hot Lunch Program on Letterman, February 1985' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-06-05. Transcript available.

Letter number three begins,
Dear Dave, I turned around to see Paul Schaefer, your bandleader.
Apparently somebody saw Paul on the streets of New York.
As I approached him to shake his hand, he was utterly amazed
that someone had recognized him.
After shaking hands and congratulating him on how well he plays on the show,
he stood there in the same state of amazement.
Doesn't he realize that he's a celebrity?
Sincerely, Steve T.
Paul, what about this? Don't you realize that you're a celebrity?
Well, of course, Dave, I know that I'm a celebrity,
but the little people, the people who toil away at their pathetic jobs
outside of the industry, of our industry,
and by the industry, of course, I just mean the business.
Those other people, the little people, love that whole humble routine.
That's what I had to say.
It's the kind of thing you'll be hearing on Paul's radio show every Friday
morning.
Now, he's joking. Aren't you joking, Paul? Tell him you're joking.
You don't mean a word of that, do you?
It's a written sketch that I read off a cue card.
Yeah.
It has nothing to do with myself.
No, you're a very nice man.
I am nice, and I love when people speak to me in the street.
And you appreciate every good thing that's come your way.
Wait a minute, wait a minute. What's going on here?
Speaking of that, you know, we get free lunch today.
Yeah, thank you. People applauding for free lunch.
From that play?
I think this is a good policy.
A couple of weeks ago, we had trouble with the people who normally delivered
our lunch.
They said, no more. We're not coming up to your offices.
So, somebody, a restaurant here in the city.
Can I mention the restaurant?
Beanstalk. Was it the Beanstalk?
Beanstalk.
And so, they sent over free lunch, and I think that's a great thing.
In fact, if you own a restaurant, I guess it should pretty much be in the area.
And if you want to send us lunch for free, fine, and we'll see if we can't
mention your name on the air.
Where are we, Hal? What letter are we up to here?
Letter number four.
Letter number four. That's our director, Mr. Hal Gertner. Thank you, Hal.
Gertner, Dave.
All right.
Dear Dave.
I had a doctor's appointment.
You did?
Yeah.
You know, have you ever noticed this?
A guy, just to check on a sore throat, he's looking down my throat, and I'm
very close to the man,
and I can see he's wearing eyeliner.
Oh.
Just like a little, just kind of highlight, just under...
Interesting.
Yeah.
You know who else had eyeliner?
Baron Longfellow.
Did he?
Yeah, I think he wears a little bit.
But we know him as Andy Kim.
We know him as Andy Kim.
By the way, a couple of weeks ago, we started the
late night free hot lunch program, and it's going very well.
Here's how this works.
You send us free lunch, and I mention the name of your restaurant on the air.
And so far, the participating restaurants have been the Beanstalk here in
Manhattan,
and today we had a lovely Mexican meal from Lily Langtree.
It's a restaurant at 36th and 3rd.
Not only did we get lunch, they sent up three attendants to serve it to us.
So, yeah, we're doing quite well.
I know somebody who's dying to send up lunch, as a matter of fact.
Yeah, we have a list of restaurants here, as a matter of fact.
We're going to start with the four-star restaurants and work our way down to
we'll accept two-star restaurants, but we'd like really to keep it up there
in the four- and three-star.
And as they come in, we'll be mentioning them on the show,
but I thought that was darn nice of them.
Fabulous.
You know, many words in the English language.
We have, I think, a really good show tonight.
Jane Badler will be here from the television show V.
I keep wanting to say Z, but it's V.
Also, there was some trouble with the Al Frisch Millionaire Weekend in Paris
giveaway
we performed last Tuesday, so we'll clear that all up.
And Richard Belzer is here, Dr. Richard Brand.
It should be a fun show.
Did you have a nice evening, Paul?
Yes, I did.
Tell me, Dave, let me ask you this.
What's happening with the hot lunch program?
Is there an update on that?
See, it's a long story, and I'm a little sad about it.
A few weeks ago, the place we were getting our lunch decided they were not
coming to our office anymore
for reasons too lengthy to go into here.
So we opened up the hot lunch program and how that works.
Any restaurant in Manhattan who wanted to deliver us free hot lunch every day,
then I would mention the name of the restaurant on the air.
And it was working out just great.
Let me show you the little hot lunch club chart we have made up here.
As you can see, the first day we had food from a place called Beanstalk,
and it was vegetarian food, very nice extras.
We got to keep the trays, and so we gave them three smiling faces there.
And then the next day it was Lily Langtree's.
It was a Mexican restaurant.
They actually sent up three attendants, three people to serve the food, so that
was very nice.
Today, we came in and heard that we were getting Japanese food
from a four-star Japanese restaurant, this Hatsuhana.
And the food was very good, but look, we had to give them only a half one of
these smiling things
because they gave the insulting proportion.
Or the insulting portion.
Let me show you what they sent up here.
It was just this.
And see, the deal is we need food for 30 people.
So, it was really good.
I mean, it was wonderful food, but it was for like two people.
So, you know, you're either in the hot lunch program or you're not.
So, it's got to be for 30...
For example, Connie Chung dropped by for lunch, and there was nothing for her.
So, you know, who's embarrassed?
You know, of course, it's the restaurant.
So, but anyway, now it looks like we can't even continue because NBC says it's
illegal.
They were using terms like payola, federal prison.
So, I think we may have seen the last of the hot lunch club.
There were some more tentative dates, though.
Yeah, now here's what I wanted to say.
Monday, we were going to have a very big meal, a very big dinner sent up.
So, what we needed Monday afternoon was a light lunch.
And then Friday, we have an Italian lunch coming up.
But I think all of these have to go now because NBC says, stop it.
At least the Monday, though, when we should go through with the full dinner.
Yeah, but see, if they send up the food now, we can't really say who they were.
Who were they, though?
Well, we can't say.
Can't say who they were?
You said who those people were.
Yeah, but that's because they've already sent the food up.
Oh, I see.
It was Sammy's.
And we are, we do still need kind of a light lunch for that day, so.
But that's it.
We're all, we're all done.
Do we have time for the lucky number or not?
Sure.
All right.
Now, I have to spend here just a second talking about this nonsense with the
hot lunch program.
We got in a lot of trouble because people would bring us up lunch for 30,
and then I would mention them on the air, mention their name on the air.
And the network said it was illegal, and so we had to stop.
Well, the hot lunch program is dead, but still people keep sending us food.
We can't stop it, but we love it.
It was, it was great while it lasted, but we really can't mention the name of
your restaurant on the air because it's, it's illegal.
By the way, that Japanese place last week, they sent me a snippy little note.
They were whining about something, so.
Anyway, once again, if you have a restaurant, forget lunch for 40 people.
We can't do it anymore.
The network was, was quite upset, and that, that's really alarming because
tonight, right
after the show, there's a huge meal being sent up here by a restaurant, a very
well-known
restaurant here in, in Manhattan.
We're all looking forward to it, but again, I'm sorry, we can't mention your
name, so please
bear with us, and, and I'm going to have to ask you to forget it.
Uh, now, Paul, we also have to take a look at here at a list of stuff we're
going to do
after the show.
Uh, I, I put them on this card so we'd, uh, be able to go over them point by
point.
And, uh, the first one here.
Sign up to give blood.
Yeah, the first one is.
You've got a whole list of things there.
Yeah, there's what, a half a dozen things.
How, uh, I don't see how we'll ever remember to get all those things done.
Well, I was worried about that, so I prepared a simple little code here.
Uh, sign up to give blood.
S.
Yeah.
Next, we've got to answer our fan mail.
A, yeah.
A.
Uh, make sure we have enough collapsible cups.
Measure carpet for our new smoking lounge.
Uh, oh yeah, that Yule Brenner tribute.
We have to.
And we have to savor the last few hours of President's Day, so, there.
That's, that's how we'll remember it.
Oh, damn.
How interesting.
Isn't that interesting that, uh, no, it's interesting that it makes a sort of a,
what is that called,
a mnemonic or something?
Yeah, it's kind of a mnemonic device.
Yeah, you can just remember it by thinking of Sammies.
Oh yeah, look, it spells out the name Sammies.
Sammies, yeah.
Sammies, yeah.
So we'll be able to remember that stuff after all.
Yeah, I'm really concerned about that Yule Brenner tribute.
But we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get that.
Okay.
So that's good.
Sammies, we'll get that.
Now, and I'm sorry, our own Ed Hall here, by the way, prepared us a very nice
lunch today.
And, uh, see, that's what it's come to.
We have to fix our own lunch now.
Excuse me, Jay.
Yes, Hal.
Let me get this straight.
How am I going to remember everything we have to do after the show tonight?
Hal, just think of the name Sammy's.
Sammy's.
Just like the name of a guy or the name of a restaurant or something.
Okay.
Well, I'm, I'm glad we got that messiness cleared up.
Uh, my next guest, uh, what are we doing tonight?
Oh, you know what?
I, I hate to, uh, keep bothering people with this, but it's really gotten out
of hand.
Uh, a couple of months ago, we started the, the hot lunch program here and it
worked great
because, uh, what was happening, we couldn't get lunch here.
So restaurants all over Manhattan were bringing us free, hot food every day.
And then in return for that, we would mention the name of the restaurant on the
air.
And it was working like clockwork.
I mean, one day it would be Chinese food, the next day Japanese food, and then
steak dinners,
Italian food.
And, uh, uh, we really appreciated it, but it turned out it was terribly
illegal to do this.
Uh, so NBC has asked us not to do it anymore.
And I have to, in turn, ask you people, you restauranteurs, not to do it for us
as much
as we would love to have your participation.
For example, today, uh, there was a restaurant here in the city that brought us
this unbelievable
lunch.
We had several, about at least a half a dozen different choices for a main
course.
We had beverages, we had desserts, and this is for 40 people.
We had desserts.
In addition to the desserts, they had two people serving the food, but that's
not all.
They also gave us, everybody on the staff received their own little favor, a
little gift favor
in a nice little box.
And it was, it was a wonderful meal, and, but again, there's nothing we can do
by way
of mentioning the place on the air because of this, this rule here at NBC.
So I'm, I'm terribly sorry, and, and I want to thank everybody who helped make
the hot lunch
program such a success, but, but it's over, and, and that's it.
So, no, no more, and that's all.
Now, tonight on the show, what we're going to do, we did this once before, we're
taking phone
calls from, pie in the sky, pie in the sky, chicken curry, our specialty, Lower
East Side,
Manhattan, 12 varieties of hot baked homemade rolls, weekend brunch with
special omelets,
pie in the sky, pie in the sky, weekend brunch with special omelets, chicken
curry.
I don't know, the, the rantings of some deranged lunatic, and I'm sorry you had
to see that,
but here in a city of, what, eight million, you're going to get a couple of dim
bulbs every
now and then, and, and, and my apologies for that.
Yes, Hal, yes.
I wasn't paying attention for a second.
Let me get this straight.
That crazy guy was battling pie in the sky.
That's right.
Pie, P-I-E-N-I-N-V-T-H-E-S-K-Y.
Pie in the sky.
You would spell it like this, then.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it.
Pie in the sky.
That's it, Hal.
Yeah.
Excuse me, did he mention the dill carrots vinaigrette?
Jeez, I don't know, Hal, if he mentioned dill carrots vinaigrette.
Okay, thank you, Hal.
Now, um.

Dave's Hot Lunch Program on Letterman, February 1985

Letter number three begins,
Dear Dave, I turned around to see Paul Schaefer, your bandleader.
Apparently somebody saw Paul on the streets of New York.
As I approached him to shake his hand, he was utterly amazed
that someone had recognized him.
After shaking hands and congratulating him on how well he plays on the show,
he stood there in the same state of amazement.
Doesn't he realize that he's a celebrity?
Sincerely, Steve T.
Paul, what about this? Don't you realize that you're a celebrity?
Well, of course, Dave, I know that I'm a celebrity,
but the little people, the people who toil away at their pathetic jobs
outside of the industry, of our industry,
and by the industry, of course, I just mean the business.
Those other people, the little people, love that whole humble routine.
That's what I had to say.
It's the kind of thing you'll be hearing on Paul's radio show every Friday
morning.
Now, he's joking. Aren't you joking, Paul? Tell him you're joking.
You don't mean a word of that, do you?
It's a written sketch that I read off a cue card.
Yeah.
It has nothing to do with myself.
No, you're a very nice man.
I am nice, and I love when people speak to me in the street.
And you appreciate every good thing that's come your way.
Wait a minute, wait a minute. What's going on here?
Speaking of that, you know, we get free lunch today.
Yeah, thank you. People applauding for free lunch.
From that play?
I think this is a good policy.
A couple of weeks ago, we had trouble with the people who normally delivered
our lunch.
They said, no more. We're not coming up to your offices.
So, somebody, a restaurant here in the city.
Can I mention the restaurant?
Beanstalk. Was it the Beanstalk?
Beanstalk.
And so, they sent over free lunch, and I think that's a great thing.
In fact, if you own a restaurant, I guess it should pretty much be in the area.
And if you want to send us lunch for free, fine, and we'll see if we can't
mention your name on the air.
Where are we, Hal? What letter are we up to here?
Letter number four.
Letter number four. That's our director, Mr. Hal Gertner. Thank you, Hal.
Gertner, Dave.
All right.
Dear Dave.
I had a doctor's appointment.
You did?
Yeah.
You know, have you ever noticed this?
A guy, just to check on a sore throat, he's looking down my throat, and I'm
very close to the man,
and I can see he's wearing eyeliner.
Oh.
Just like a little, just kind of highlight, just under...
Interesting.
Yeah.
You know who else had eyeliner?
Baron Longfellow.
Did he?
Yeah, I think he wears a little bit.
But we know him as Andy Kim.
We know him as Andy Kim.
By the way, a couple of weeks ago, we started the
late night free hot lunch program, and it's going very well.
Here's how this works.
You send us free lunch, and I mention the name of your restaurant on the air.
And so far, the participating restaurants have been the Beanstalk here in
Manhattan,
and today we had a lovely Mexican meal from Lily Langtree.
It's a restaurant at 36th and 3rd.
Not only did we get lunch, they sent up three attendants to serve it to us.
So, yeah, we're doing quite well.
I know somebody who's dying to send up lunch, as a matter of fact.
Yeah, we have a list of restaurants here, as a matter of fact.
We're going to start with the four-star restaurants and work our way down to
we'll accept two-star restaurants, but we'd like really to keep it up there
in the four- and three-star.
And as they come in, we'll be mentioning them on the show,
but I thought that was darn nice of them.
Fabulous.
You know, many words in the English language.
We have, I think, a really good show tonight.
Jane Badler will be here from the television show V.
I keep wanting to say Z, but it's V.
Also, there was some trouble with the Al Frisch Millionaire Weekend in Paris
giveaway
we performed last Tuesday, so we'll clear that all up.
And Richard Belzer is here, Dr. Richard Brand.
It should be a fun show.
Did you have a nice evening, Paul?
Yes, I did.
Tell me, Dave, let me ask you this.
What's happening with the hot lunch program?
Is there an update on that?
See, it's a long story, and I'm a little sad about it.
A few weeks ago, the place we were getting our lunch decided they were not
coming to our office anymore
for reasons too lengthy to go into here.
So we opened up the hot lunch program and how that works.
Any restaurant in Manhattan who wanted to deliver us free hot lunch every day,
then I would mention the name of the restaurant on the air.
And it was working out just great.
Let me show you the little hot lunch club chart we have made up here.
As you can see, the first day we had food from a place called Beanstalk,
and it was vegetarian food, very nice extras.
We got to keep the trays, and so we gave them three smiling faces there.
And then the next day it was Lily Langtree's.
It was a Mexican restaurant.
They actually sent up three attendants, three people to serve the food, so that
was very nice.
Today, we came in and heard that we were getting Japanese food
from a four-star Japanese restaurant, this Hatsuhana.
And the food was very good, but look, we had to give them only a half one of
these smiling things
because they gave the insulting proportion.
Or the insulting portion.
Let me show you what they sent up here.
It was just this.
And see, the deal is we need food for 30 people.
So, it was really good.
I mean, it was wonderful food, but it was for like two people.
So, you know, you're either in the hot lunch program or you're not.
So, it's got to be for 30...
For example, Connie Chung dropped by for lunch, and there was nothing for her.
So, you know, who's embarrassed?
You know, of course, it's the restaurant.
So, but anyway, now it looks like we can't even continue because NBC says it's
illegal.
They were using terms like payola, federal prison.
So, I think we may have seen the last of the hot lunch club.
There were some more tentative dates, though.
Yeah, now here's what I wanted to say.
Monday, we were going to have a very big meal, a very big dinner sent up.
So, what we needed Monday afternoon was a light lunch.
And then Friday, we have an Italian lunch coming up.
But I think all of these have to go now because NBC says, stop it.
At least the Monday, though, when we should go through with the full dinner.
Yeah, but see, if they send up the food now, we can't really say who they were.
Who were they, though?
Well, we can't say.
Can't say who they were?
You said who those people were.
Yeah, but that's because they've already sent the food up.
Oh, I see.
It was Sammy's.
And we are, we do still need kind of a light lunch for that day, so.
But that's it.
We're all, we're all done.
Do we have time for the lucky number or not?
Sure.
All right.
Now, I have to spend here just a second talking about this nonsense with the
hot lunch program.
We got in a lot of trouble because people would bring us up lunch for 30,
and then I would mention them on the air, mention their name on the air.
And the network said it was illegal, and so we had to stop.
Well, the hot lunch program is dead, but still people keep sending us food.
We can't stop it, but we love it.
It was, it was great while it lasted, but we really can't mention the name of
your restaurant on the air because it's, it's illegal.
By the way, that Japanese place last week, they sent me a snippy little note.
They were whining about something, so.
Anyway, once again, if you have a restaurant, forget lunch for 40 people.
We can't do it anymore.
The network was, was quite upset, and that, that's really alarming because
tonight, right
after the show, there's a huge meal being sent up here by a restaurant, a very
well-known
restaurant here in, in Manhattan.
We're all looking forward to it, but again, I'm sorry, we can't mention your
name, so please
bear with us, and, and I'm going to have to ask you to forget it.
Uh, now, Paul, we also have to take a look at here at a list of stuff we're
going to do
after the show.
Uh, I, I put them on this card so we'd, uh, be able to go over them point by
point.
And, uh, the first one here.
Sign up to give blood.
Yeah, the first one is.
You've got a whole list of things there.
Yeah, there's what, a half a dozen things.
How, uh, I don't see how we'll ever remember to get all those things done.
Well, I was worried about that, so I prepared a simple little code here.
Uh, sign up to give blood.
S.
Yeah.
Next, we've got to answer our fan mail.
A, yeah.
A.
Uh, make sure we have enough collapsible cups.
Measure carpet for our new smoking lounge.
Uh, oh yeah, that Yule Brenner tribute.
We have to.
And we have to savor the last few hours of President's Day, so, there.
That's, that's how we'll remember it.
Oh, damn.
How interesting.
Isn't that interesting that, uh, no, it's interesting that it makes a sort of a,
what is that called,
a mnemonic or something?
Yeah, it's kind of a mnemonic device.
Yeah, you can just remember it by thinking of Sammies.
Oh yeah, look, it spells out the name Sammies.
Sammies, yeah.
Sammies, yeah.
So we'll be able to remember that stuff after all.
Yeah, I'm really concerned about that Yule Brenner tribute.
But we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get that.
Okay.
So that's good.
Sammies, we'll get that.
Now, and I'm sorry, our own Ed Hall here, by the way, prepared us a very nice
lunch today.
And, uh, see, that's what it's come to.
We have to fix our own lunch now.
Excuse me, Jay.
Yes, Hal.
Let me get this straight.
How am I going to remember everything we have to do after the show tonight?
Hal, just think of the name Sammy's.
Sammy's.
Just like the name of a guy or the name of a restaurant or something.
Okay.
Well, I'm, I'm glad we got that messiness cleared up.
Uh, my next guest, uh, what are we doing tonight?
Oh, you know what?
I, I hate to, uh, keep bothering people with this, but it's really gotten out
of hand.
Uh, a couple of months ago, we started the, the hot lunch program here and it
worked great
because, uh, what was happening, we couldn't get lunch here.
So restaurants all over Manhattan were bringing us free, hot food every day.
And then in return for that, we would mention the name of the restaurant on the
air.
And it was working like clockwork.
I mean, one day it would be Chinese food, the next day Japanese food, and then
steak dinners,
Italian food.
And, uh, uh, we really appreciated it, but it turned out it was terribly
illegal to do this.
Uh, so NBC has asked us not to do it anymore.
And I have to, in turn, ask you people, you restauranteurs, not to do it for us
as much
as we would love to have your participation.
For example, today, uh, there was a restaurant here in the city that brought us
this unbelievable
lunch.
We had several, about at least a half a dozen different choices for a main
course.
We had beverages, we had desserts, and this is for 40 people.
We had desserts.
In addition to the desserts, they had two people serving the food, but that's
not all.
They also gave us, everybody on the staff received their own little favor, a
little gift favor
in a nice little box.
And it was, it was a wonderful meal, and, but again, there's nothing we can do
by way
of mentioning the place on the air because of this, this rule here at NBC.
So I'm, I'm terribly sorry, and, and I want to thank everybody who helped make
the hot lunch
program such a success, but, but it's over, and, and that's it.
So, no, no more, and that's all.
Now, tonight on the show, what we're going to do, we did this once before, we're
taking phone
calls from, pie in the sky, pie in the sky, chicken curry, our specialty, Lower
East Side,
Manhattan, 12 varieties of hot baked homemade rolls, weekend brunch with
special omelets,
pie in the sky, pie in the sky, weekend brunch with special omelets, chicken
curry.
I don't know, the, the rantings of some deranged lunatic, and I'm sorry you had
to see that,
but here in a city of, what, eight million, you're going to get a couple of dim
bulbs every
now and then, and, and, and my apologies for that.
Yes, Hal, yes.
I wasn't