Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Brian Teta | Letterman

hi my name is Brian teda I worked at The Late Show for 11 years I interned in 1997 as Paul shaffer's music intern I came back in 2004 and I was a talent coordinator a segment producer a producer and a supervising producer when I first started at the show the idea of booking the Super Bowl winning quarterback was a huge deal so my first year there I spent more time booking the winning quarterback of the Super Bowl and in 2004 that was Tom Brady after I had a couple of Lucky years they started running promos and saying tune in Monday for the winning quarterback from the Super Bowl and I didn't have it booked every time it was kind of like a White Knuckle Affair I'd have him on a plane they never got there on time one time I remember we kept holding the show and he was killing time by throwing passes to staff members at one point Biff caught a pass but fell off the side of the stage here now is the the replay of Biff going down and going down hard let's take a look at this oh pretty ball there's great catch there he goes apparently he's all right though oh buddy one year Jimmy Fallon was doing his show live from the Super Bowl and the Giants were in the Super Bowl they were playing the Patriots so of course everybody wanted to have Eli Manning on the show the next day and it seemed kind of touch and go whether it was going to happen amazingly the Giants come back win the Super Bowl and I run onto the field and I find Eli and I go up to him and I hold myself enough to my ear and I pretend that it's Dave on the phone and I say Eli hey it's Brian from Letterman I've got Dave on the phone he wants to know you're in tomorrow right and he just gave me a big thumbs up and said I'll see you there all right so I was a stupid pet tricks coordinator it was my first job at the show this was in the time before YouTube you would travel the country and you would hold auditions usually that involved me going to like a casino or a car dealership you'd do about five or six auditions 600 people to hope to find one great trick the best trick I ever found was a lovely woman who had a dog that could say I love you all right Odie we'll say I love you here Odie I love you I love you [Applause] I love you I love you I love you I love you so Donald Trump was somebody that we had on the show pretty often but by the time I was working there he was always kind of our last resort guest this time we had him on it was very important and no matter what question we asked him he wanted to make sure that we talked about his ties at the end but he was talking about how he was worried about China China was the scourge of the world and everything was a problem and then either I can't remember who it was but somebody backstage noticed that the ties that he was plugging were made in China so we got managed to get word to Dave he asked him and you can hear me in the clip yelling in the background China they're made in China ties were the ties these are beautiful ties they are great ties the ties are made in where China ties are made into China I occasionally made appearances on the show like most of the staff early on I had kind of one move where I would look nervous and run away apparently I was faster than I look and people enjoyed that we did a bit where I would come out and costume and Dave would just say I don't know what this is but we're not doing it so I came out as Captain America Donald Trump an Easter egg and then on the last day I came out dressed as Queen Elizabeth Dave just couldn't bear how ridiculous I looked and kind of went off script Brian you look terrible say hello to your wife just go ahead and say hello to your wife how long have you been married seven years seven years having a baby oh and you're having a baby good well say hello to your yet to be born son or daughter hi it's me Daddy hi hi it's me Daddy foreign I don't know what this is but I don't want to do it so thanks at some point when I was producing share the writers decided to put me into the bit where I was Cher's biggest fan Cher decided to play along and because she knew me a little she was game so when the moment happened and Cher walked out instead of walking to the desk she walked out to the audience and much to my surprise planted a kiss on me in the middle of the audience thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] this was I guess a success because then they continued the bit and then I became Betty White's biggest fan all right [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now stop that get him out of here that's it break it up go beat it thanks Betty no hey For the Lover [Music] get in on this for God's sake one of the great pleasures of being a second producer at Letterman was I got to work with Regis Philbin and I was producing the segment when he was retiring from uh live with Regis and Kelly lee my idea was that we would give him sort of a rascal scooter teasing him about being in retirement Dave like the idea of a scooter but he wanted to get him actually a really nice Vespa and then Dave had the idea that we should have Regis ride off at the end of the show Regis had never ridden the scooter before it soon became apparent to me that this was a horrible idea but we were counting down to being back on live and then seconds later we just went down it was not good he was okay but for a moment I was concerned that on the eve of his big retirement episode that we had killed Regis I bought it I'm ready to go first time for that love of God be careful thank you godspeed Regis Philbin there it goes [Applause] oh my God [Applause] [Music] thank you for my birthday present oh my God oh my God Jesus God I'm sorry all right we got one show left and we kill him he's all right yeah he'll sick about this whole mess one of my deep fears is that Dave decided to quit the show after I made him do this segment Sylvester Stallone was on he was on to promote the rocky Musical and in my research on the rocky musical I saw that the characters live on the show just like Rocky did in the movie would drink raw eggs and so on my pre-interview with Sylvester Stallone I said to him would you do it on the show and he goes I'll do it if Dave does it so I went to Dave and Dave said absolutely not under no circumstances am I eating raw eggs and the show starts and we don't know what's going to happen and immediately Dave calls for the eggs many do you have to eat well let me see one [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] hahaha one of the coolest things about working at the show was we had the ability to shut down 53rd Street you know we decided to shoot Ben Stiller out of a cannon I was hoping it oh this doesn't oh there he goes [Music] wow we had the globe of death on the street we had Serena Williams come out and break the front window of the hello Deli which was amazing one day we went a little too far and we had a x-game superstar Travis Pastrana on the show I ordered too much dirt for 53rd Street and the weight of the dirt apparently created severe structural problems that I believe destroyed 53rd Street for years to come and he's gonna jump over the that and uh and you know you're not saying you're not supposed to do this to a city street so Julia Roberts was one of those guests that I always got very nervous to produce because she had such a long history with Dave I was talking to her and she mentioned kind of offhand that she was annoyed at Dave because after years and years of him sending her flowers on her birthday this year he had forgotten and I said oh well maybe there's something we can do that and she said no I don't want you to tell him I'm going to keep it to myself and maybe I'll bring it up and maybe I won't so I immediately went to Dave and told him hey uh Julia Roberts seems a little upset because you didn't send flowers on her birthday they've kind of laughed to himself and said okay we're going to take care of that Letterman he has he has in 15 years [Applause] [Laughter] I please do not fire your secretary it's the holiday season no no it's it's I was I was busy I got a lot of things going on prepping for Harry's 10th birthday I'm sorry double digits is a big deal all right bring in the flowers shut up bring in the fly come on if she's gonna whine about it bring in the flowers happy birthday thanks Pat thank you very much happy birthday I feel like like uh Miss America well you've you you know come on you are Miss America now tell me why did anybody tell you that you forgot my birthday because I just mentioned it as a joke earlier and somebody told you because this wasn't no no no no no way let me just say something I I I'm very sorry about this because in in Show Business in all honesty there are very few people I care about you you would be one of the people I truly care about and for bring in the flowers bring in the flower bring them all in for God's sakes [Applause] [Music] thank you boys [Music] [Applause] you know thanks Gene nice job [Applause] [Music] when I was a kid the one thing in the world I I would have loved more than anything else was to spend the day with Indiana Jones and Han Solo Harrison Ford was everything to me and then I became a talk show producer and I realized how challenging Harrison Ford could be he's still the coolest guy in the world but he's not what you would call an anecdotal person so I would be on the phone with him for a really long time we'd be going through my research packet I'd be asking him for stories and really not getting anywhere and starting to panic he was on for Cowboys and Aliens so I said you know what we're gonna get a horse out there and you and Dave can ride the horse down 53rd Street and he liked that he said that's great I like riding horses the one thing you have to promise me is I can't just see the horse for the first time before I get on it absolutely not a problem so he goes down and we're prepping and the horses late finally the horse shows up right at the last minute Harrison walks out and I said Harrison I'm sorry you've got to get on the horse we got to do it right now and then I was lucky enough to get the Harrison Ford finger pointed in my face and then he got on the horse and it was great and it was a great segment good luck here we go [Applause] [Music] all right here we go [Music] in the end of the show as things were kind of winding down all the big stars came on and they all wanted to have a moment and George Clooney came on and he said I have this idea middle of our interview I want to pull out a pair of handcuffs and throw them on Dave and uh tell him you know he's not going anywhere let me see your wrist you see that just for a second here wait a minute what is no no okay oh wait a minute wait a minute no no no no no no no no no no no no no no he is gone you're not going anywhere I need to talk to my lawyer that's right you have the right direction you're not going anywhere David Letterman now George is this something left over from The Bachelor days then he sat through an entire interview with Tom Waits with George Clooney sitting off to the side then on the break Dave said that you know he didn't want to just come up with a key he wanted someone to cut the handcuffs but they were surprisingly sturdy these big Burly stagehands were trying to do it and nobody could cut the handcuffs Dave didn't want to hear that in fact he said I want Paul to cut the handcuffs Paul comes out with the bolt cutters I guess it's like when you know a car falls on your child and you get superhuman strength giant men could not do this Paul Shaffer snapped it in one shot oh here we go we're free Tina Fey was another one of the very last guests on the show she had called with an idea and said I need you to trust me on this but I'm gonna take my dress off and underneath it I'm gonna have a special message for Dave this kind of goes against every Instinct you have as a producer you like to know everything that's going to happen but at the end of the day you trust Tina Fey the best thing about it was she made a vow on that show that this was the last time she was ever going to wear a dress on a late night talk show and she has kept that up I watch every time she's on every single time slacks pantsuit no dress [Applause] I'm wearing a fancy dress on a talk show and conforming to gender Norms out of respect for you um I my gift too is I want to give you uh the dress so you can keep it I don't know if you can help me yeah [Applause] this is it you know it's just foreign [Music] [Applause] the last time the Regis was on the show I went to his dressing room to go over what he's going to talk about in this segment when the dressing room door opened he was naked from the waist down it was awful [Music]

Channel: Letterman

Views: 333,411

Keywords: letterman, david letterman, dave letterman, interview, letterman interview, letterman official, letterman late show, letterman late night, late night, stupid pet tricks, stupid human tricks, top ten, late show, top ten list

Id: _XxS-TnVxGY

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 06 2022