Staff Favorite Moments: Writer Steve Young | Letterman

I'm Steve Young I was a writer for Late Night  with David Letterman and Late Show with David   Letterman started in 1990 went to the end in  2015 and as you'd expect in 25 years yes there   were a few highlights and uh a lot of memories  and Vivid stories so I started with the Late   Night show in Spring of 1990. head writer Steve  O'Donnell saw something in me that he thought he   could mold in a useful way and in the long term I  guess he was proven correct but I really had not   watched the show religiously I had to ask a lot of  embarrassing questions early on in meetings like   who is this Calvert that everyone's talking about  turns out well Calvert De Forest known to the   world at the time as Larry Bud Melman but once in  a while early on I did breakthrough with something   that was at least deemed producible and uh one  early one that I do remember and I haven't seen it   in a thousand years so it may lie there with no uh  entertainment value at all now but I do remember   liking the idea and it amazingly was produced  very well okay welcome back to the show coming   up in this half hour after uh Paul did you miss  something there did I how it seems like there's   something good Dave Hal isn't there usually some  kind of Applause or something when we come out   of one of these commercial deals like that yeah  I'm not sure they have Applause usually there are   Plaza could you is there something wrong with the  Applause sign Hal let's check all right check and   see because normally we come out of there oh see  look hostile silence that would that's the problem   right there explain it Hal you've gotta you've got  the Applause sign set on the wrong place yeah see   what else you have up there okay yeah let's see  what this is this is oh gears no no no no that's let's check another selection there  Hal o cheers yeah switch it there we go   I'm shooting snow okay no no let's keep  going Hal let's just keep keep going no one piece which actually straddled the  NBC show over to CBS which I was uh   very proud of it was called the strong guy the  fat guy the genius I at one point in the room I   guess pitched uh a bit where Dave walks around  with a bodybuilder and asks people do you have   anything for the strong guy to break and Rob  Burnett the head writer at the time said hmm   there's something appealing about that let me  go in and talk to Mr Letterman about that and   see what he thinks and he went away and we all  waited to see what would happen and he came back   in a while he said well this is interesting I  think you're going to like this it's now going   to be do you have something for the strong guy  to break do you have something for the fat guy   to eat do you have a question for the genius  and we all went oh can you break that clock   do you have something for the  effect I'd eat I had a lettuce if you got the best animal  trainers in the world together   could you train a camel to ski I think the key  thing would be to get the camo out of the desert   into some place where there's snow but once that's  done I imagine it can be done it could be done at some point I think Dave saw some early   cuts of it and said you know what we need in  this piece is a theme song Rob and I kind of   sat down and put something together and hummed a  few bits and of course the way Paul and the band   would take these initial scraps of something  and turn it into something magnificent within   like what seemed like the blink of an eye was  always so impressive so suddenly we had not   only this piece but we had it the strong guy fat  guy genius song which I still occasionally have   running through my head is just one of those  perfect storms or everything lined up let's go   a strong guy the fat guy the genius God  gave them each a special gift at Birth either to solve it that's the reason  they were put up on this Earth fairly early in the CBS run we did a week  of shows in London and one idea that came up   somebody is wearing a suit covered with bird seed  and goes out to Trafalgar Square where there are   literally hundreds or thousands of pigeons the  head writer at the time said uh well hey any of   you uh writers want to be in the bird seed suit  and maybe have a lot of pigeons on you and just   everybody recoiled in horror and I said I'll do it  I don't care how bad could it be so suhum costume   designer puts together this suit she glues rice  cakes all over a suit jacket and also a helmet   puts peanut butter on the rice cakes and then  slathers bird seed on the peanut butter so   suddenly you're this walking mass of well  bird seed but also a few other components   there he is coming out of the underground he  has the protective goggles on and there the can you possibly can you possibly imagine a  more pleasant way to spend the day I I think   not I co-authored a book which came out in 2013  called everything's coming up Prophets The Golden   Age of industrial musicals and this grew out  of a bit on the Letterman show I had run the   record collection bit for many years and I started  finding in the course of gathering material for   that these strange corporate souvenir albums from  sales meetings and conventions that were musicals   Dave uh I think he was always very supportive  of staffers who had interesting outside projects   going he said oh yes we should have Steve on the  show the cherry on top of this whole thing aside   from increased Book Sales which were substantial  cbs's local affiliate in New York every uh evening   they would prepare a little tease in in their  own newscast and about what's coming up on the   Lettermen show during the the 11 pm newscast  before the show that I was going to be on and   coming up we've got of course David Letterman and  Dave's guest tonight our Hall of Fame quarterback   Steve Young And there's footage of me walking  out and waving at the beginning of my guest   segment after a commercial break they came back  and sort of red-faced um just to clarify um not   the quarterback on the Letterman show tonight  it's a different guy with the same name My Hope   Is that the other Steve Young even now sometimes  gets inquiries about did you write a book about   weird records did you were you on a documentary  then after the news on The Late Show Dave's got   a Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young and music  from light denim now just to clarify Hall of Fame   quarterback Steve Young will not be on The Late  Show right it's another guy with the same name   thanks so much for joining us tonight The Late  Show is next Dave's guests are Steve Young the   writer and music from light Denver I had an idea  one day I think it was on uh July 11th the date   7 11 and I said oh what if we have a guy come out  and pretend he's the CEO of 7-Eleven and he's got   some grandiose plan for a big promo if you walk  into 7-Eleven and say Dave Letterman sent you   you get a free slurpee or whatever so we we did  that and I think it caused a minor uproar in the   7-Eleven Corporation we did many installments with  this guide I think my favorite one in early 2013   2012 had ended without the Mayan apocalypse  taking place so I said how about Jim Keys is   now uh the head of public relations for the Mayans  did the world end no were the Mayans embarrassed   absolutely I'm here to admit that mistakes were  made and that several high-ranking Mayans have   been fired or reassigned but we know that's  not good enough for you folks you were misled   disappointed and inconvenienced that's why we're  making the following offer if within the past   1200 years you purchased one of the defective  Mayan calendars simply return it to the place of   purchase for a full refund plus a free 2013 Mayan  Joker day calendar you'll love it it's a real hoop   the Mayans are committed to making this right and  regaining your trust thanks and Happy New Year very late in the game I was starting to  get more interested in writing songs I   had this idea for a song about  the history of the Super Bowl   and the song was right at my wheelhouse of stupid  and sort of clever but so just jammed together   stupid cleverness that maybe it would work the  lyrics of the song were just the recitation of   Roman numerals so it was I I I I I I all the  way up to 48 and I think when we did it people   in the audience once they realized the premise  of it were oh no he's not gonna and then like   by the time he was in the 20s and he was actually  pulling it off it was an incredible high wire Act   of Rhythm and phrasing and pacing and by the  time the audience realized he's actually gonna   Land This Plane they were like oh my God this  and and he got all the way up to 48 and it was   a Delirious moment we don't know what we just  saw but somehow it worked you know the first   Super Bowl was played on January 15 1967 and  we've come a long way since then hit it Paul the next game V i v i i v i i i i x and x  you see x i x i i x i i i x i b and then x v   the XVI x v i i x v i i i x i x and x x  count on with me x x i x x i i x x v x   x v i x x v i i x x v i i x x i x x x x  it's easy x x x i x x x i i x x i i x x   x i v x x x v x x x v i x x x v i i x x  x v i i i x x x i x XL obviously XL i x   l i i x l i i i x l i b and XLV o x l v i  x l b i i x l b i i and that's the history so fairly late in my tenure in the late Show's  history I was getting more interested in writing   songs I very cautiously decided to see could I  combine that sphere music with my quote-unquote   day job of weird clever funny verbal whatever at  one of the very first times I tried that was uh   for Thanksgiving we had some Montage of what the  staff does on Thanksgiving when we're all together   for the show and having dinner together and I  had written a song about uh the unpleasant uh   details of turkeys being slaughtered and butchered  and prepared for consumption this is Steve Young   then the next step after the slaughter loosen the  feathers in boiling water singing a song about   turkey farming writers were sometimes put into  pieces over the years and I was not a trained   actor but I looked good in a lab coat but those  were mostly pre-tapes the the more on the edge   stuff was if you were going to do a live thing and  there was a a live bit but it involved a guy named   cliff Wentworth had written into the show with  some question and Dave said well Cliff Wentworth   what is it and some guy in the audience would  stand up and say well I'm Cliff Wentworth and   then another guy would stand up like three people  would all stand up and claim to be Cliff Wentworth   for some reason I had some neurological uh little  twist that made me have trouble remembering or   saying the name Cliff Wentworth anytime I  tried it in rehearsal it kept coming out as   Clint Wentworth somebody uh who I will not name at  the end of rehearsal said now don't actually say   Clint during the show okay I stood up and said  my name is Clint Wentworth I think on the tape   you might be able to see the moment of panic  in my eyes when I realize what I've just done   uh Dear Dave I recently received confirmation  of tickets to the taping of your show on Friday   March 1st 1991. that's today that's this  very damn day you may not readily realize   the significance of this but I am a Bonafide  GE light bulb salesman I have attached my   business card as quasi-proof of this fact  well there it is right there regards Cliff   Wentworth Memphis Tennessee this uh this  ought to be pretty interesting is there in   fact a cliff Wentworth in the audience a Mr Cliff  Wentworth there we go my name is Clint Wentworth my name is Cliff Wentworth only one of these  three gentlemen is the real Cliff Wentworth GE   light bulb salesman is it number one  no that's number two or number three   all right let's go into the control  room now to uh Pete fatovich our uh   tell us who who is the actual Cliff  Wentworth Pete oh gives a rat's ass that's that's what I call comedy that's fine we  had we had two cliff wentworths and coincidentally   enough oddly enough one Clint Wentworth isn't  that strange if we can find two guys named cliff   Wentworth and yet another guy named Clinton there  are ideas that you pitch that are just number 38   out of 100 ideas and you don't know why this one  gets chosen in particular the premise was there's   trouble during the taping and that the camera shot  starts bucking wildly and you see the cameraman   trying to hold on to this camera which runs away  under its own power bursts out the studio 6A doors   at NBC and makes a run for it somehow the sentient  camera they've enjoyed that he referred to it as   our little student film and uh also Michael Penn a  fine musician and a great singer will be out here   with uh music from his new album on Monday man  I wish that would stop making me a little queasy   um Okay Kevin Klein will what is that what is  going on there is that is that the camera is   that is everyone all right oh my God the camera's  going nuts run for your lives everyone oh my God foreign debate basically foreign you hate to see that happen  especially at the holiday time   different head writers would come and go and and  people would uh clean out the remnants of what   the old head writer had been accumulating off  to the side and I found a page of my own ideas   and I started reading oh my God this is great  I don't remember this at all but these ideas   all seem like exactly like ideas I would like  I like this and I don't know what they were but   just that sensation of myself but not me had done  something which I completely recognized as valid   to my voice and yet I had zero memory of it these  are terrific who wrote this this is wonderful foreign

Channel: Letterman

Views: 93,800

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: MRdSG0bbqx0

Length: 19min 8sec (1148 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2022