Name: David Letterman on "The Smart Alecks," April? 1977
Uploaded: 2016-04-02T03:11:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman on "The Smart Alecks," April? 1977' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-04-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Letterman on "The Smart Alecks," April? 1977' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-04-02. Transcript available.

David Letterman on "The Smart Alecks," April? 1977

here come the smart alex meet the always provocative david letterman everybody's
mama
pack carol that dandy cowboy don barrett and now a man of ideas alan mutton
how are you am i glad you're here now as i was saying in the next 30 minutes we're
going to have
three enterprising guests who will bring their unique ideas before our three
smart alex here
and believe me they are smart alex but it's good to see you gang sure okay now
their job is going to
be to ask questions and make comments on the ideas that our guests have brought
to us and then they
will be up to our people panel over here who represent you the american public
to review the
ideas and award their creators up to fifteen hundred dollars the money of
course will be used to further
develop the projects i'll explain how they vote later on but now tell me have
you always heard
that people who are in love people who are very close can communicate across a
crowded room they don't
have to look at each other they just know what the other is feeling well it
works in a crowded room but
sometimes the communication breaks down when one of the parties leaves the room
well you can imagine
how excited we were when a man walked in our office the other day and told us
that he had a device
that would allow a wife to call a husband even if he were in somebody else's
room i want you to meet
that man and his device right now tony okay alan our first guest is an artist
and writer welcome don christensen
hello don now don you got a device that a wife can call her husband right right
where is it here well
first let me say that it's a his and her type gift you know the kind where
money's no object this is for a
hap a couple that has everything but a happy marriage and so the husband gets
this he does where does he put it he puts it in his ear
okay it's actually it's a hearing aid that can't hear anything unless it's ultrasonic
very high
frequency then the wife she gets this and it's a silent wife whistle with which
blows at a ultra high
high frequency so that nobody else can hear it but she can command her husband
to come and report you
know from anywhere in the house or the block even wherever he is wherever he is
whatever he's doing
he drops what he's doing okay okay all right all right smart alecks you got the
idea don christensen
here has a husband whistle a husband whistle i'll start with you pat you got a
minute
well don uh obviously this as you stated is not for people who trust each other
basically
but i'm intrigued with this high frequency uh thing uh because if it's this
high will it attract dogs
invariably invariably in other words you come with your husband you leave with
a schnauzer right
uh well now uh let me ask you a question cosmetically would husbands be
embarrassed to wear this device
oh no hearing aids are seen quite often at parties well i don't think about
going around inspecting each other's ears
yeah but the thing about this hearing aid is that it does the job of shutting
out half the noise at the party
i see and that's a big help too i think well may i ask you a question on behalf
of the husband
uh in case he gets uh the wife gets no response does he use an excuse it fell
out
you know like uh when she doesn't show up and she goes where have you been and
he doesn't show up
i mean does he say darling i'm sorry it fell out of my ear that's going to
happen but she's going to
make sure that the next time it doesn't happen once that's happened the seeds
of suspicion are planted
and this is the whole idea is to take and put them out of the marriage because
he may not be guilty of anything but she's always how long have you been in the
marriage counseling business don
you say i started just last week you said it'll put them out of the marriage
what do you clarify i meant
put the suspicions out of the doubts out of the doubts out of now don take it
from there
strange person you have here very strange uh-huh goes in his ear yeah whistles
right that's carrying
paranoia to the extremes i think so it really is you didn't marry um no no i
guess that's probably
right how much this thing cost well the cost now uh hasn't been determined but
the components are
relatively cheap the only thing about the hearing aid is that it has to have a
decade counter
that cuts the 30 000 frequency down to about 3 000 which you can stand yeah
somebody come in and
break her break her this big mama come on
i think you're pretty weird don you got another name besides don
yeah but i wouldn't tell you no i don't want to hear that
it comes in between lucia yeah that's weird what comes in between don my middle
name and you're not
going to tell his wife knows it's called whistle don whistle david letterman
don don i have you uh don let me ask you something um does this work on the
same principle as the automatic garage door opener
uh no that's electronic and uh there you've got a frequency problem too but uh
perhaps i can answer
your question best by saying that i think this truly has industrial
applications industrial applications where
you've got noise dominating everything and only a poor fellow with a beeper
trying to keep track of somebody
calling him uh he gets it through his ear now he gets what through his ear are
we talking about the same thing don yeah
so now the husband gets it through his ear apparently
some sort of biological development i was not here before aware i was i was
talking about say the lead man in an industrial assembly line or a fellow
working next to a an air hammer up on top of a dam i uh
he could be you know signal one beep two beep three beep do this do that we
started at a party and we're ending up at a dam i know
listen don take heart no matter what they say they didn't get it through the
ear now we're going to turn these people around and they're going to face our
people panel and it is the people the american public who make the final
decision so people panel i give you the smart alecks
don i know leaders are lonely folks but can you imagine following somebody in
the combat with his wife controlling everything back at home
i don't think that dog will hunt i really don't
i think that uh i think basically the situation is this don back here goes to
way too many parties that's what he can do to cut this out of parties i don't
think it'll go i really don't
i'm very happy to have broken the filibuster from the senator from texas
i happen to think that don might have a little cynicism in this but i'm glad we
got into the industrial area because i do believe that there is a certain thing
we're surrounded by noises today and anything that would cut out the other
noises would be divine
another whistle
well another opening another show what difference does it make
but i happen to think that don has a heck of an idea
however i don't want to be the gal on the end of the whistle because you never
know what you're going to bring home
thank you
thank you first of all just let me say that i've been in amusement parks all
over this great land of ours
but this ride here is perhaps the most exciting moment of my life and i have a
little time later you could all come down and write on it now
um
back to don and his particular idea i think it's a uh
well i don't know uh see what i'm worried about you get a guy maybe a brain
surgeon doing a little delicate operation somewhere all of a sudden a siren
goes off in the guy's ear
whoops well that's too bad
um
i don't know maybe for industrial purposes yeah but uh the way he's trying to
sell it now i just don't think so
okay don
let's hope they listen to pat
okay
now the people panel has heard what the smart alex have had to say and now it's
up to the members of the panel to vote as you can see them doing right now
they're deciding how much money they're going to award don for his husband
whistle
they can award up to five hundred dollars in these categories
necessity
do we need it
practicality
does it work
marketability
will it sell
so a perfect score could meet for don fifteen hundred dollars
now the people panel here is a cross section of today's studio audience
it represents you the american public
and today's panel has been chosen by computer under the supervision of mr howard
marylander
of the marylander marketing research corporation
mr maryland
yes
will you verify that this is the panel that was selected scientifically
it is mr ludden
mr marylander i love that tie
thank you
thank you mr
okay mr marylander do you have your results
yes our people panel heard your call mr christensen
they awarded you two hundred and seventy four in marketability
two hundred and sixty three in necessity
and two hundred and twenty nine in practicality
well they didn't think it was as practical as they thought you could sell a
saleable
but you've got a total of don and look at that
you got seven hundred and sixty six dollars to promote this device
and that's pretty good right
thank you
hey stick around
you're going to meet a lady in a moment
who will make president carter very happy
we'll be right back
let's go
you know on this show you have to do everything
i have some bread here david would you have a piece
absolutely thank you so much i love it
i love your parties by the way
do you cater often
as often as anybody asks
well i will be asking
okay there you go
are we going to eat this
yes of course
certainly as well
did you do this out
well i'll tell you about that in a moment
certainly as well
huh
oh you know that's really very good isn't it
oh
now i'll tell you this much about the bread you're eating
it was made with something you could find in your own backyard
now
oh well look i ate it too i want you to meet the lady who in who baked it
tony
alan she's a junior high school science teacher who holds a degree in biology
greet barbara carter
hello
hello barbara
nice to see you
thank you
hey listen i served your bread
and they all ate it and i ate it and it tastes very good
what's it made with
uh it's made with crickets alan
smart alex i give you barbara carter
i haven't swallowed yet
i give you barbara carter who just baked the bread you ate made with crickets
i don't know
don
how are you i'll give you a minute
hang on barbara
be be
uh-huh made with crickets huh did you barbara
things been tough haven't they it's been a world long
barbara how did you call this an invention was this out of necessity
um i believe it's very necessary considering the protein shortage that the
world's about to come
to
uh there is a lot of protein in insects
that's a good way to clean up the backyard
i mean you've got a couple
uh
how did you get into it
you said you were a biology teacher and uh you just studied it and knew that
cricket had a lot of protein in there
no the uh i wrote a cookbook and my co-author was a
cricket
you're right
all right jiminy crickets
jiminy crickets
jiminy crickets
jiminy crickets corn and i don't care
i was an entomology teacher and he wrote a book before on why we she didn't eat
insects and so i thought we should get together and write a book on how you fix
them
how about the side effects of these crickets crawling around in there i mean it
about the only thing you do is rub your legs together every night
you can also rub legs with somebody else
i'm sorry
whose turn is it
it's yours if you want to get it
no no it's david's
it's my turn
it's not your turn
my turn
how much uh crickets boy uh and a good friend of yours is uh where is this
friend now
oh the the my co-author
yes
sitting in the audience
is he up walking around with us
right right
oh good
um
do you just use crickets instead of flour
no no we uh there's regular flour in here it's like a regular yeast bread it's
just that we put a cup of chopped crickets in it we use them
it's an added ingredient
cup of chopped crickets huh is it tough to clean a cricket
uh no no very easy as a matter of fact
they're they're little bitty things aren't they
uh ours are about that big they're large enough to be able to pull the wings
off and the legs off
oh oka