David Letterman On "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" 02/28/94

Wow very nice you know I was really excited and thrilled and very much looking forward to the occasion until I see a guy pretending to be fat and naked running here we can't get anyone to really do it and then I said to myself well the executive talent at GE really hasn't changed much I've been fired now I love what you've done with the place by the way I chose these colors myself it's very strange for me to to be here I was actually here a couple of about six weeks ago we were shooting some silly video tape outside of the building and it was about nine o'clock in the evening and people said well let's go on upstairs to the sixth floor where you used to work and take a look around and so we came up in here and it was just like it was now except you folks weren't here well most of you were here and and then we you know looked around looked at the commissary looked at the nightly news said and then we left and then two days later in the newspaper was an article that we had broken in pushed our way past the guard and I had gone up to Bryant Gumbel's office and taken a nap what more heinous a stunt could a man who sees me I'm sleeping on this couch boys cover me I'm taking a nap you like it though you really like what we don't look good yeah the thing it doesn't look good and the thing that I liked about it when I came in here I was in the studio since 1981 we did a morning show you did the morning show here right and and it was comforting to me to see that you guys have carved out a completely new identity for yourselves and when I watched the show it was funny when I first watched the show it was a little difficult for me because they say late night and I think hey team I'll be on yeah and then then it would be Conan O'Brien Late Night with Conan and I'd say to myself and this is how stupid I am I would say to myself oh geez I wish I had a show [Applause] that's my life and then as I would watch it and the truth of it is when I first started watching a short I'd always kind of made me wince a little bit because I thought well I don't know you know it's not really me it's not my show but the more I watched the show I realized you guys do an incredible amount of comedy and and stuff that is produced that is a very high level and and the volume and the quality of the stuff just knocks me out and I think you've really done a great job to carve out a a wonderful identity for yourselves and there's nothing like the show anywhere on television and and I really really appreciate that I think you did a nice job I would say the you realize the first that was before I saw the naked guy in my say no I know I'm sorry I really am I'd say the biggest drawback we've had so far is that you had a very you had a very funny window we had a very funny window and and my window it isn't very funny yeah really look at this please do me a favor came from a show like that where there were crickets and wind blowing on tonight's show I spent the fruit you know you talk about screwing things up I'm 46 I've been in television since 1969 you would think that the simple things would be under control tonight for the first 10 minutes of my show we went down to Times Square with a live camera and there's a guy in a patrol booth a little safety the size of a phone booth and so we were gonna talk to this guy and he comes out of the booth and he introduces himself to me and for the first 10 minutes of the show I called the guy Lou that's fine the guy's name is Ray Lewis funnier than I defended naked that would have been good come on show me how it's done anyone right there and when we were done here tonight I'm gonna take a nap on your couch but nobody can stop me completely unstoppable III want to ask you something this is a question that people wouldn't expect but when I first got this job I came here to 30 rock I mean did you get this job so that was with a theme writing contest yes yes was what would I do with the talk show and I was fourth but I went up I went up and III we shot a remote in one of your offices in it was actually in your office on the 14th floor yeah you had moved out and I noticed on the windows of your office thick sheets of Plexiglas we're covering all the windows protective covering and I thought what a sick man no what is that what was that all about well first of all let me correct you it's not Plexiglas it's a product made by GE and it's it's half-inch lexan it's it's bulletproof glass it's what they use around hockey arena so guys can't bust through and shatter glass okay and it's funny when when that was put up there the guys who did the work I know they thought I was nuts like you know he's a guy you snipers oh yes snipers are after Letterman I've got to get the bulletproof glass in place Letterman thinks there's snipers but we we had been in that office for 10 or 11 years and many of the staff members at the time and people who are still with us would come up there and we would do stuff we would heave stuff around and we would take batting practice we would play soccer we would play football we would play baseball and and one day during during batting practice hey that's why the show used to be as good as it was I was you know taking full cuts uh-huh and I swung around and lost control of the bat and it shot right through one of the windows now we were on the 14th floor above the intersection of 51st and 6th Avenue yes and so the bat just wedges in the glass and is teetering on the ledge and so I thought now this is a sign maybe you kids better quit screwing around in the office but I didn't learn anything from that in a couple of years later a woman who works with us now by the name of Mary Connolly and we would come in it and we would play baseball we would heave the baseball back and forth just loosen up and she and I would kind of heat him in there you know kind of duck him under your chin and you know see who would flinch it is this music I'm pretty tough when it comes to playing ball with the gals hey I'll come to your house and take a nap on your couch that's just the kind of guts I got is this minutes before a show should you really be doing something more that can be said of any time on my day but this was in the afternoon and it was like in July early in July and it was about 2 o'clock and 6th Avenue was just crowded it was just a mass of people you know going up and down the street and there at the intersection and she and I are wing and balls back and forth and one gets away from me and I had wound up pretty good and it goes into the venetian blinds of the window and shatters the glass and drops 14 floors to the sidewalk below no so you think to yourself well you know folks are dead and it was the single worst moment of my life in this building but I summonsed up the courage and I got the guts up and I said to myself you know it's it's situations like this where a person has to be responsible for their own actions you have to answer for your behavior you have to know what is the right thing and you have to do it and it was then that I sent an intern down to see who was dead [Laughter] very nice well listen we are gonna take a quick commercial break when you tolerate that absolutely whatever you want okay we're gonna step away for one second make a lot of money for NBC and then we're gonna come back with David Letterman sir a lot of people were watching the Olympics this week then we're watching your show you sent your mom to the Olympics which I was does she have the bug now does she want to keep going you know first of all that was that was an actress well my name is Silvia Henderson and she's great and mom did audition but wasn't wasn't right yeah it's it's very strange because a mom may be the least demonstrative person I've ever been around she's very shy very soft-spoken when she speaks very soft-spoken and we just decided to send her over there and we didn't really understand what was going to happen then it turned out to be fairly nice but as far as continuing this sort of thing is I don't think she's going to Bosnia to cover the trouble there are other are other networks vying for her time for her attention any chance we'll be on the 12:30 slide well I guess anybody can get a show at 12:30 I doff my cap I drop it to you I really would but it was uh you know I my fears is that here's a woman who is my mother so you figure she got to be older than I am you know God if we were roughly the same age and it's a little yeah he's she's 73 years old and I thought oh my goodness and people are over there fallen down and busting their legs and stuff and I just thought oh I just the worst thing that could happen you know forget the press if I if she gets killed over there that would just be ugly you know that would put put an end to the whole thing right there and I I just had visions of like a bobsled going haywire oh there's Dave's mom standing a little too close because of the credentials Dave got for his mom she was able to look right over the bobsled rail and caught one in the head and but she had a great time and and the last couple of days I don't know maybe was the last week she was rooming with the Italian bobsled team so I thought I had a girl mom did you did you ever think all those years was 11 years you ever think of using her on the on the late-night show here we occasionally mom would call on the phone and we would chat with her about various things we had her one night to call up and as a as a kid she used to make these fried bologna sandwiches and because we were in about our second or third year and completely out of ideas we decided it would be fun to have mom call in and on the phone she would talk me through making a fried bologna sandwich and so I was one of those deals where I was so excited because as a kid I remember nothing being quite so flavorful as this fried bologna sandwich and I remembered it as being a lot more elaborate than the sandwich mom did for us on the air that night I thought it was like fried the Bologna and a little butter and then and then you put like mayonnaise and then you put lettuce and then you put tomato and then you put mustard and I thought maybe this you know this is you ain't like Elvis and so mom gets on the phone and she kind of takes us through it and she says are all right David now now fry the baloney okay now put it on a slice of bread all right now put on another slice of bread and I said okay yeah now now what mom and then she says enjoy my only regret was that you you didn't use her on that old show because then your mother would be the intellectual property user for all kinds of things just a thought that occurred to me I I remember a couple of years ago this is I remember how many years ago it was but well pick a number nobody cares all right I think that's what I do I just make stuff up all the time it was 1952 name is Ray I called him Lou nobody cares no one's keeping tracks that was your sense all right I remember that you did something with Carson where Carson stole your car yeah this is something it at the time I couldn't tell how much of this is fact how much of it is fiction can you straighten absolutely well from what you've said so far it's all true Johnny Carson and I I used to live in in a part of Malibu it's called Point Dume and it's just this beautiful little neighborhood and it kind of juts out into the Pacific now Johnny Carson lived in the $8,000,000 side of town and and I lived in about the hundred thousand dollar site uh-huh uh-huh and I had in those days and still do a 19-3 a 1973 Chevy pickup truck and the thing that I loved about this truck was it was just beat to hell there's like a thousand dents and because of the sea air all of these dents would rust and it really got to be quite an eyesore but the uglier had got the more pride I had in having this pickup truck parked outside of my house so one day I was a guest on Johnny's show you remember Johnny also babe and I'm 14 years old this is a clip-on tie and I saw hey you know I'm won The Tonight Show at telling my little stories and trying to get laughs and dropping my pants and whatever you get together and so Johnny I can tell it doesn't really he's not paying attention to anything I say I can see in his eyes that he's waiting to pull the pin on a grenade he can hardly wait to give this moment and so finally I wrap up my little skits my little song and dance and I'm looking around and Johnny says uh she tell me about that piece of junk you got parked out front of your house you know I don't know and you play along with cars especially in those days not so much now but in those days between you and me Conine pretty much right well yes so Carson is whining about my truck being an eyesore and he says I have to run by there every day and it's making me sick and I said I don't know what you're getting to he turns around they have like a drum roller so they open up the curtains and they're in the studio is my pickup truck and he has swiped it and brought it in to Burbank and it's sitting there and it just then serving as a huge embarrassment to me in front of the entire world so finally he returns the truck and I get to looking it over and I realized that the left red headlight is busted out so I think to myself oh man oh I'm salivating lawsuit that's so about six weeks later Johnny and I with the aid of judge Wapner I kind of filed suit against Carson for the damage suffered by my to my pickup truck and the judge Wapner comes on and Johnny and I did you do this on the show no we did it in his backyard [Laughter] [Applause] so judge Wapner is sitting there in Kherson her behind podiums and it's just like the People's Court and and and I at the beginning of it I walked over to Wapner and gave him a box of steaks I thought that was pretty slick and finally I was able to prove and I felt very proud of this that my truck had been damaged when Carson swiped it and I won a $30 settlement from Johnny Carson I am am Telling I felt a little bit like one of his ex-wives I was in heaven he did on that gravy train did all those years when you were doing the show when you were doing the show here at late-night and then you've you've since gone on to to CBS did you think that this was all going to get this much attention did you think that the whole thing was going to get this kind of it's just we don't have a lot of time left and I was just curious did you think that this was gonna happen that late-night would turn into because I'm relatively new to what I had no idea that it was that important to the media or to people in general yeah I had no idea that it was that important and NBC had no idea that it was that important I'm gonna be a squeegee and car windows tomorrow but you know it's it's easy to be flip about it and but the derivatives I love being here and I still have nothing but really strong positive memories and the the people that I dealt with and the executives and the programmers and the folks that we saw on a daily basis I I felt like we had nice good strong relationships and I and I don't hold any grudges and and I don't regret anything that has happened but I am surprised that it did get to be as sylia as it was you know I mean it's just but I don't know that's where things go well listen your tradition you're supposed to end on a big laugh I thought what I do is just thank you very much for coming we are out of time but this meant a lot to us to have you stopped by it was a it was very nice of you to come by and do that this is it goes on for about nine more minutes though anyway thanks very much I was thinking about this Conan all weekend and this by the way was my worst fear about the show I should have I should have brought the long socks but you know what see look at that is what how big we busy look at that I find it attractive it's a good luck but you know when we did our last show here and I was kind of wrapping things up it was really a quiet hope of mine that that I would be invited to come back on on your show and I didn't know if you would would do it or not I didn't know what the format would be I didn't know if you'd have any place for me it was all country music for a while and then then we got into this which seems to work I used to I used to be able to go and see Carson on The Tonight Show you know two or three times a year and I loved it mm-hmm and I realized that for one reason or another I probably wasn't going back to the Tonight Show sergej Avion so to be able to come here and I hope you'll be nice enough to invite me back it's been great fun and I think you guys do a terrific job thank you I know you have to go to the MSG for the ESPYs which is a tongue twister now you have to leave oh it's a big night for me and my socks but listen thanks that thanks again do come back and visit us and [Applause]

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Views: 455,437

Rating: 4.94275 out of 5

Keywords: David Letterman, Late Night, With, Conan O'Brien, Celebrity, Interview, First, Late Late Show, NBC, Original, Source, Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, Podcast, HD, HQ, High Quality, TBS, Team Coco

Id: D9NHDRt1_Xc

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 07 2019