Penn Jillette Talks About His 2nd Appearance On "Late Night w/ David Letterman" & The Actual Segment

I want to tell this story about why Dave is is so great first time we went out we did the handstand wrestled and we didn't set Dave up Dave didn't know tell him put a knife through my hand looked that way and I brought my hand up fast and the blood the fake blood that came out of my hand hit let him in the face and let him and does not like things touching his face right he had blood across his face with that who went to commercial and Dave flipped out and we didn't know what he was flipping out about it turned out he was flipping out because he liked us and he thought more people like I should be on the show and he went on and on about that and then he took us aside just the two of us no one else around no managers no agents and said you hit me pretty hard guys and he said kind of shift me up he said I come off as a little bit of an asshole that's kind of a problem so next time you come on hit me as hard as you can and we said what do you mean he said these mean to me as you possibly can and do not tell me in advance what you're going to do really really really make me uncomfortable make it terrible for me Wow and we said okay and we wear this our second gonna be our second appearance on Letterman and tell and I got and got in a room and said what does he mean what can we do what can we do and tell her finally said instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat let's pull cockroaches out of a hat let's pull thousands of cockroaches out of a hat and dump them on Dave and I happen to be talking to my mom on the phone a little bit after that and said here's what we're gonna do next time what Dave and she said you'll never work in show business again that was mom's analysis of when you drop cockroaches on a guy in his own show right right and so uh we called Morty who was the producer at the time Robert Morton and we said here's our pitch here's our plan when we go on Dave we're gonna dump cockroaches on him pull a rabbit out of a hat he'll say that's lame dumb cockroaches and Morty said you cannot do that we said well you know Dave tolas hit him as hard as we could to be really mean and Morty said that's right but I'm in charge and he is not comfortable with insects and it's a real kind of phobia of his and it's on his show and it's a lot of pressure and I won't let you do that and we said okay we'll come up with something else you know fine just tell Dave and the phone rang I mean really shortly after I mean I guess in the story would be five minutes but it might have been a few hours I don't know right and Morty said do it so I went to Dave and I said what Penn & Teller come up with his too intense and Dave said never mind let him do it and more he said I'm not comfortable this and he said let him do it I don't care what it is let him do it don't tell me I do not wanna be told and Morty said he are you sure Dave and they said let them do it and he called up and said I want to tell you I'm against it but Dave's the boss Dave says do it so he got there that day and we had it wasn't this isn't exactly a winning endorsement for your idea yeah your mom still might be totally right yeah exactly this point in the story exactly and we went you know worked Museum of Natural History we got cockroaches that we got a few Madagascar hissing roaches but we got American cockroaches which were too fast I'm proud to say they were too fast to get a camera shot off because we got like Brazilian cockroaches which are a little more laid back and doesn't carnivale they move in the dance and they shake their butts and we've got thousands of them and they were in body loads and they were in the Hat load and the crew guys that were working were uncomfortable cleaning up we did some one of the rehearsals we had to bring in our own crew to work it that makes sense yeah and it was winning for the rehearsal and Dave turned off his TV now which he always watches the rehearsals he didn't watch this one and he was up in his office and we did we did it and we finished the bit and we didn't do with more to be doing one of the other writers and Morty said I know I don't feel I don't feel good about this and we said well what Dave told us to do so a candy was the makeup woman now the the gist of the bit is that he's supposed to dissipated it's a rabbit that's the main bit I don't know the the main bit is we come out and Paul plays do you believe in magic ah and teller does the lamest routine - do you believe in men do you believe in magic and I sang magic magic that's all really horrible like three minute routine we came over and sat down and asked Dave to critique it and then Dave says they did it uh and at some point Dave was going to say and there was no real surprise we said oh you want real surprise you want something different and then the Hat had been sitting on his desk for the whole time we lift up the Hat and cockroaches pour out of the Hat now taught of us and everywhere all over them is that enough surprise for you Dave that was the gag and Dave was told not to touch the Hat on the desk and to be as mean to us as he could because we had to set up the reciprocation so he sat out there with Dave ripping us new assholes he was really horrible to us but I'm getting ahead of myself the story so kandi Dave's personal makeup woman watch the rehearsal and Dave can't hurt the story after Dave came in for his makeup and Dave said you see the Penn & Teller rehearsal and Kenny said oh yeah yeah and Dave said I've been told not to lift the hat don't tell me but there's something scary under the Hat what's under the Hat is it like a skunk or something and can be said to him Dave you better pray for his cook there's a lot of tension on the set yeah and we lifted up the Hat and I don't know who did but maybe it was me kind of kicked the Hat as we lifted it up and the cockroaches spilled all over Dave in his suit so Dave is on his show on TV with an audience and cockroaches are crawling in his suit and he jumps up from the desk and you could see tears of anger and rage just well up in his eyes and he throws to commercial to go to commercial and I'm standing there and I have body loads on me so I have cockroaches coming out of my suit they're all my arms and stuff and I come over and say was that okay David let's get the away from me let's get the away from me I go okay I'm making he's getting the cockroaches off him they're going through commercials gonna go back and we're kind of ushered out and our crew is all in there cleaning up the cockroaches and we kind of leave and Morty goes wow it was it was great it's really great we go what about Dave because uh Dave's pretty freaked and Dave went on and finish the show and we went leaving going well we did what he asked yeah and the next day David Letterman called us himself which he never does right and said I think was the best bit we've ever done on the show you exactly what I asked you to thank you so much you're welcome on the show and everyone you're wonderful critics have called my next guests new wave magicians they are two very talented men who are currently starring in their own off-broadway show and will soon be seen on PBS and a show called Penn & Teller go public please welcome the very bizarre Penn & Teller now help me out again your pan pan your pan all right now and you're a friend tell her it's not here we're not here he's getting set for some magic thing we're gonna do okay cuz we're I'm I'm gonna kind of ask you a favor cuz we got like you said we've got the public TV thing coming up we're going to be on Saturday Night Live and we've been doing live stuff for like 11 years but very little television and we kind of wanted to ask you a favor we've got up we've got a work-in-progress thing so this is a new illusion brand new thing huh girl it's not it's really a combination a lot of things been working on and that's hotel they're setting up and we're hoping that you could just kind of critique it you know we're gonna do it for you and then you tell us no just we want you to be honest my honest reaction but usually when you know people are performing you play with your notes and stuff and I'd like you to apparently watch the whole thing because I really want you to edge edge you'll have my animal antidote and then we're gonna kind of okay it's a it's it's illusion and it's music it's mostly telling but working me and slowly and we got we got the band okay work in progress okay we're doing for our grand sister in assault so I'll watch from I'll watch from over here okay I guess I think we're set and go okay tell her you believe in magic Oh do you believe me imagine No yeah really really learn the whole song the song I normally it'd you'd be singing there well we're going to rewrite the words oh yeah tell it got the bunny yeah you're gonna rewrite bunny okay yeah Bunny's fine that's loaf dish David that's that's the bunny loaf did okay uh see David the song is about love and young girls yeah about young nice guy love and young girls interrupt and we want to be more about flowers and and birds and things yeah so we've got some categories here we've got style execution clarity of themes relevance unity overall visual beauty and originality what you think of a style we tell us they're pencil here um well you know I I don't know that much about style of magicians but I just um you know the word lame comes to mind just hope you know just off the top of my hand I thought it'd be a little I expected something a little more dynamic from the two of you seems funny when someone comes out and what does very often and you what are you didn't you ask for my ID write down laying there okay what do we do to improve it then uh we're just a little you know cutie okay a little bit cutie why don't you execute you could you see him stealing the stuff out of his fights I saw a lot of stuff taped to the back of his suit it's not okay there's only two things safety well I guess I thought Oh case is it the rabbit we think we take blow you know I know I didn't see a rabbit but never have no on Jack in his suit it's not kind of like hydraulic things back there it wasn't I draw he's a little safety pin with a with a clarity of themes did you notice that there was a the silk at a picture of a card on it and there was a car and after that see that he had this silk was a bird and then he produced the bird new you have any idea how much that stuff costs David like under seven bucks like no no no you know I'm telling it we went to Shannon's magic store the little bird cage is $129 each one of the silks is over 20 little card castle is like $28 but I mean it should come as no surprise to you that this is the sort of thing you see at PTA functions and okay okay but the thing you know I was thinking like David Copperfield something you know whammo big stuff in gorillas or something you expect us to come on your show and vanish the Statue of Liberty at 390 well no oh but you know I mean you fellas have sort of a reputation to live up to that's all okay well what's the reputation to live up to relevance yet Phil Donahue out here and he was talking about the human animal and we have an animal here and we have we have bird we had a bird it's not a real bird a real bird no and I want you to point out also that there was animal vegetable and mineral we first produced the the flowers which were vegetable we produced the cards which are mineral and then the bird which is animal that of course low fish at the end well I'd have to say in the category of relevance non-existent just didn't seem to be in either thank you David um okay no relevance he says uh okay now unity I guess you're covered in that you didn't think the animal vegetable mineral held it together but but unity have matching suits they're pretty nice yep they were yeah okay and an overall visual beauty overall visual beauty I am you know I was it was alright alright did you notice that we started out with the drab the the black and the gold and the gray and then it kind of gets very colorful into eighties primaries and no I look like Conrad but then I then I'm bad with colors so I didn't notice that was lost on me I'm sorry but there was there was a certain amount of you know originality the originality you know I guess the thing that I missed most out of the whole deal was it just didn't seem to be an element of a real surprise there just in order to be any any surprise for the whole day you want some surprise that I did okay okay tell her I show him some surprise would you please come on now these animals bunny is eating that's it that's it these are not being hurt these insects she's not being hurt in any way where be my oh my just wanted to give you a little surprise these babies here they'll hit that yeah that's not you these these here don't you boys own any raid at your place he's a rookie yeah okay gosh it was it was nice to have you gentlemen back without you thank you very much can they look then Keller thank you

Channel: Benjamin Bartholomew

Views: 667,327

Rating: 4.7037988 out of 5

Keywords: David Letterman (Celebrity), Late-night Talk Show (TV Genre), Entertainment (TV Genre), Penn Jillette, David Letterman, cockroaches

Id: d6XDMdAoRvo

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Mon May 25 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/pseudonym1066]

Story telling much more exciting than reality

[u/jerryvo]

I remember when this was aired......at the time it was so outrageous it was the talk in offices the next day - fantastic publicity.

[u/ColtSingleActionArmy]

I don’t know man, now I sort of want to skip around.

[u/jaxridd]

Great story. Gotta love it!

[u/TheCoastalCardician]

I really enjoyed this. Thank you!

[u/savourthesea]

I think he might be conflating the cockroaches and the bees in his mind or something, because he seems to remember way more roaches.