The Guy Under the Seats Collection on Letterman, 1984-1985
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- The Guy Under the Seats Collection
The complete collection of Chris Elliott's third running character on Late Night, The Guy Under the Seats. It ran for 12 episodes over six months, from October 15, 1984, until April 10, 1985, plus two unnumbered episodes that occurred during Viewer Mail and Lucky Number segments. The Fugitive Guy Under the Seats hybrid aired six months later on October 17, 1985, and, finally, "The Lost Episode" (a tribute to the Honeymooners' then-recently-aired "lost" series) on December 11, 1985.
Plus the inspiration for Chris's catch phrase.
1. October 15, 1984: Introduction and Episode 1: The Birth of The Guy Under the Seats
2. October 29, 1984: Episode 2: "Domestic Trouble"
[February 1, 1982: Bill Murray warns Dave…]
3. November 12, 1984: Episode 3: "The Cookout"
4. November 20, 1984: Episode 4: "The Bookworm"
5. November 29, 1984: Episode 5: "Disaster in Shaft 9"
6. December 5, 1984: Episode 6: "The Ski Bum"
7. January 23, 1985: Episode 7: "King of the Mole People"
8. January 30, 1985 (International Night #4): Episode 8: "The Russian Sub Crisis"
9. February 5, 1985: Episode 9: "Roosevelt - A One-Man Show"
10. February 14, 1985: Viewer Mail #4: "All in Good Fun"
11. February 20, 1985: Episode 10: "The Dead Man's Ring"
12. February 26, 1985: Lucky Number 394: "Winning Lucky Number"
13. March 27, 1985: Episode 11: "Chris & Pinky"
14. April 10, 1985: Episode 12: "The Great White Whale" and Retrospective, with a bouquet of roses presented to Chris by Late Night Production Staffer Neena Beeber.
15. October 17, 1985: The Fugitive Guy Under the Seats: "A Pinch of Salt, A Dash of Death"
16. December 11, 1985: The Lost Episode: "Miracle Under the Seats" -- "Mrs. Parker" was Chris's wife Paula Niedert; her young daughter Suzy was played by 8 1/2-year-old Sarah Michelle Geller.
Can't believe I just watched an hour of the man under the seats. Classic
Try the 90 minute Fugitive Guy collection!
Letterman, 84 to 88. Never seen a more creative talk show.
mid 90s conan was pretty good too
Chris Elliott was my favorite sketches on Letterman. I was a teenager in the 80's. I remember these sketches more than anything else from Letterman.
It must have been awesome to be a teen in the '80s.
@@Thompsongs I was a teen in the 80s, and it was the best time of my life.. no question.
Same. That's what I missed about Letterman too, all the crazy sketches and remotes but especially Chris Elliott. It was the only thing good on TV. Then there was the Simpsons, and Fox would come up with some good shows here and there. I remember when Married With Children first aired. All the promos they did leading up to it. Watching the Simpsons shorts on the Tracy Ullman show. In Living Color was good in its time as well.
Back in the days when whatever your politicial affiliation didn't matter. I'm a Democrat and watching Kimmel and Colbert constantly carrying water for the Democratic party night after night makes their shows just boring.
There will NEVER be another show like Late Night with David Letterman. Chris Elliott, Brother Theodore, Larry "Bud" Melman, Richard Simmons, Flunkie the Clown... Damn, what a show.
Noe Berengena
Holy crap, I forgot about all of them. NowI have to look for more clips, thank you.
Flunkie the Clown...Ha!
@john probst Teri Garr. Teri Garr. She was always a joy to watch. Her appearances were not to be missed.
And theres Lyle the Intern lol
@@ThrashAndBurn7 Lyle The Intern wasn't on Late Night. He was decades later on The Late Show.
The wheel of meat
As good as it gets. Elliott truly unique comedian and David recognizes it and plays off him beautifully.
This might be the greatest thing I've seen on UA-cam . . . at least in terms of how happy it made me. For years I've been typing in 'Guy Under the Seats' and maybe I've gotten one or two bits . . . now all of a sudden I could see the whole evolution of the idea, including a couple I had never seen before (a 'lost episode'???? Mind = blown). I just sat there and laughed for over an hour, and got to introduce the skits to my 18 year old, who was also cracking up. I like the Conspiracy Guy and love the Panicky Guy, but the Guy Under the Seats rules them all! Thank you, thank you, thank you for this great compilation!!!
Thanks! I've uploaded The Conspiracy Guy and Panicky Guy collections as well. Will put together more CE compilations within the next year.
@Curtis RuppSame. A year and a half old when it first starting airing and I'm crying laughing when I saw it for the first time last year.
NOTHING can beat the classic Letterman NBC shows. This series is one of many reasons why. You just never knew what would happen next and everyone was involved.
I really don't think even Dave understood Chris's humor . GRADE A ......5 STAR ........One of the funniest men alive , thanks for the post !!!!!
Thank god there’s someone who compiled all these! I lived for this show. It was THE show for the ‘80’s college crowd. Thank you Don!!!! 🙏🙏🙏
Chris Elliott is a comedy genius
Disaster in Shaft 9 is my personal favorite. So much drama for a thirty-second, one-man bit (not counting the stuntmen).
The "I know who your favorite Beatle is" was the best part.
Just popped up as a recommendation and that is the first one I thought of
This was the apotheosis of 80’s stoner college humor. To be in my twenties and lucky enough to watch/tape this show every night during the Reagan years, so glorious.
What a time to be alive.
Stoner humor? Actually, the main influence on this show was the Steve Allen show from many years before, which had comedy bits with running characters played by regulars such as Don Knotts. Very similar in concept and execution.
Me too.. then I worked there and it was magic
I was drinking Blatz at Akron u watching this wonderful show now I’m washing lettuce at Wendy’s things are looking up
Was in my twenties and now 61. What a time it was.
The best . So grateful to have grown up watching Late Nite 82- ‘92 especially .
I was in college from 85-89 and was obsessed with letterman and chris elliott like many. The guy under the seats was a favorite. Thanks so much for bringing all that back.
Thank you so much for this and the other Chris Elliott collection videos you've made. I have been waiting for the internet to finally reach its full potential.
+Brett Walsh Then you've come to the wrong place. :) (Thanks!)
OMG there is a DINTY MOORE ref by dave!!!! DINTY MOORE came up in the Get a Life construction worker show!
You're a saint for making this. And for your entire channel. Thank you!
never a dull moment with Chris Elliott
Thank you for the awesome collections you've made of an underrated comedic genius -- Chris Elliott -- during the golden years of David Letterman's run on NBC late night.
January 23, 1985: Episode 7: "King of the Mole People" was my first time watching late night I pretty much started taping the show I've been a fan of David Letterman and a huge fan of Chris Elliott ever sense.
John Mccabe - I was watching, too.
There should be a whole Chris Elliott on Letterman channel.
Thanks for making and sharing this!
Wow. Going through all the clips and shows. What a treasure trove of material. Thanks so much for all the work Don.
Thanks!
Wow. Great memories of staying up late doing my first college homework while watching Dave and Chris.
Actually, it’s “Under the Boardwalk,” which would make more sense here.
That does make sense! That song and "Save the Last Dance for Me" are virtually identical. Check out the Bob Dylan mashup of these two songs sometime. Love your work putting these up!
I missed many 8 am classes in college from watching Dave (1981-83). Wasn’t it on really late after the tonight show? I don’t remember.
The Letterman NBC years, maybe the best late-night talk show of all time. Certainly incomparably better than the unwatchable late-night garbage of today.
Ah, yes, the old guy post bemoaning today's entertainment. Certainly a classic.
@@DavianSinner Move on son, you bother me, son, you bother me...
Letterman's years on NBC were my favorite, too. So many great segments: The Guy Under the Seats, Monkey Cam, Dropping Stuff Off a 5 Story Tower, the Velcro Suit, the Rice Krispies Suit, Crushing Things With A Hydraulic Press, Crushing Things With A Steamroller, Viewer Mail, Small Town News, Supermarket Finds, Stupid Pet Tricks, Stupid Human Tricks, and on and on. It was a very creative time for the show.
Back in the military, in the 1980s, one of the best compliments I ever got was someone saying my humor reminded them of David Letterman. To me, that was high praise, as I really looked up to Dave and loved his humor.
The only other late night talk show I enjoyed as much was The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. I always enjoyed Johnny's characters and skits, too, as well as Doc, Tommy, and the band. Anyone remember the show with Bob Hope, Dean Martin, and George Gobel? That was one of my favorites.
ua-cam.com/video/IcIlVHOquWE/v-deo.htmlm30s
Conan's still on. And he might give even Dave a run for his money- he can at least respond to jokes in more ways than just awkward nervous laughter.
yeah, everything sure is terrible now. and what's great about THIS wave of "everything sucks now compared to, like, _before"_ is that it's definitely the LAST time people will say anything like it.
So great to see these appear on my algorithm some of my favorites moments of early Letterman. I love how the bit always started out friendly then Chris turned bitter and dark at the end.
Always enjoyed Chris Elliot on Letterman. great compilation.
Always been a fan of Elliott but didn't start watching Letterman until the mid-90s. Thank you so much for this. I find these segments absolutely hysterical.
Dave is maybe the best there ever was at playing "being interrupted on air." he keeps going through the interruptions much longer than most everybody else.
I get less respect than the guy under the seats, but I write amazing piano music and symphonies on my channel
Thanks for compiling these!
Oh man that was good. Watching all these back to back to back, it's really impressive how the formula could have gotten repetitive, but Chris managed to keep it really entertaining and had a few surprise twists up his sleeve for us.
far and away the best part about this whole thing is Elliot’s unflinching commitment to the post bit analysis like this was all some incredibly important and serious exploration of the human condition.
Thank you so much. His humor is subtle and makes me laugh!! As Marlon Brando..the best!
Thank you so much for making this and posting Don!!
Thanks for posting these skits, almost forgot about them, it would be A shame leaving their copyrights up to worldwide pants or whoever controls access to these skits, because we would probably never see them.
Was watching a schitt’s creek cast interview and they made mention of Chris Elliot doing the man under the stairs ..always loved him , his dad ,bob ..& Ray..he’s really good In Schiit’s creek/(everyone is)...thanks for posting this.
wendytravel1 Funny you say that. I’m watching Schitts Creek now and seeing him reminded me of his guy under the seats on letterman. Still as hilarious as first time around.
Sir.
I am deeply in your dept for this act of editing and uploading that has made my life a little better.
Thanks!
Oh sir! It is truly an honor to speak to you here in this comment section. I'm a big fan of your work. You were awesome as the dad in Beetlejuice, and your role as Ferris Bueller's principal is legendary! The evil TV Executive from "Stay Tuned" is another personal favorite, and who could forget your role in the George Lucas classic Howard the Duck. Lea Thompson amirite?? Wowie.
OMG, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Thank-you so much for this great collection!❤😃
Very very good, thank you so much for the episodes. The cookout one is where it goes off the rails.
I remember watching all of these. That was just as funny now as it was then. "Our own" Chris Elliot!
MST3K recycled this joke later with "TV's Frank."
I was just thinking about this character today, and was thrilled to find this collection - excellent work compiling them all and editing the piece! This is great. I really enjoyed Chris on Letterman. Thank you for putting this together!!
If you're taking requests, the comparison guy (?) where he drank two different liquids was also funny.
Thanks, Matt! More to come.
Matt Carpenter not only are these sketches great, but it's such a pleasure seeing television like this again, without fake laugh tracks and wooing and applauding after every damn line.
Thanks so much for this particular compilation. I recently found my book that Bob Elliot wrote along with his son Chris. They took turns on chapters. Letterman was a big Bob and Ray fan and was very into having his offspring on the show. Of course, Chris Elliot did a ton of amazing appearances on the show as various people and guises - and himself.
Outstanding. Oh, the memories!
My favourite thing about these bits were how they had Chris’s room under the seats decorated to fit the theme.
The scorched beams of "Disaster In Shaft 9," the sub bridge in "Russian Sub Crisis," the coffin in "Dead Man's Ring," and of course the mole people throne. I even feel bad about that "Daredevils Of The Clouds" poster that started it all, just to get shredded by angry Chris on episode 2.
+Truth I know right? I was thinking that too as I watched it, like I was thinking that it's only on camera for like 5 seconds tops, and all that work they put in to the set dressing. Just for those 5 little seconds. It's amazing.
@@billslocum9819 The fireplace in “The Ski Bum” is a great touch.
Very comprehensive. Even the lost episode! These videos are awesome, thanks for posting
I really appreciate this upload, great comedy
Thanks so much for these! I remember watching these very episodes so many years ago, along with Stupid Pet Tricks and Stupid Human Tricks. What about the times when Chris did different taste tests, like regular vs. light cooking oil (he really drank it), or different dog food (which he actually ate)? Miss those old days!
Thanks, Marcia; I'll put up most of these clips within the year. :)
He did really eat them I love Chris and Dave
Great job with the video and the information on the dates of the character. Basically the only time I watch late night was during that time. Well in college. We love that character
i've been meaning to go to youtube & look at this for so long. somehow a haunting memory from the 80s. love him & we loved him first, whoever saw these skits!!! . . .
This is what UA-cam was invented for
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Thanks so much for compiling and posting this Don!!! Great memories of these!!!
Thanks, Jim! There'll be more after my You Tube "strike" expires in October.
@@dongiller what did you get struck for?
@@sinicalypse I don’t recall. It was four years ago.
Chris Elliott was and is hilarious. Thx for all of the uploads.
I just want to thank you Don. You are awesome. These are the best uploads on UA-cam. Ty again
Wow. Undeserved, but thanks. :)
Very funny skits. I have forgotten how funny Chris Elliott is. The Letterman show was really ahead of it's time.
Hi Don, I've been getting real into the old-school late night shows. I think I've watched every Carson clip on YT, and now I'm getting into Late Night a lot as well! Thank you for all that you do.
+Matt Shaffer - How are you liking the old late night shows? I started watching Carson in the late 70s and Letterman in the 80s. They were two completely different shows, so I can't pick one as a favorite over the other. I loved them both. The old Letterman show on NBC was, in my opinion, waaaay funnier than his show on CBS. But, some of that may have been due to Dave getting older. I never liked Leno as a host on the Carson show and was disappointed when The Tonight Show went to Leno and not Dave. I always felt Leno was a boring host and pandered to the crowd. He was so plain vanilla. (Though, with Jimmy Fallon hosting, it's far worse.) But, seeing Leno outside the late night talk show circuit, I actually really like him. His spot on "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee" was interesting, as is his show "Jay Leno's Garage." You may also like some old episodes of "The Hollywood Palace," "The Jackie Gleason Show," "The Dean Martin Variety Show (1959-1960)," and "The Dean Martin Show (1965-1974)." There were some great shows in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
You ought to seek out some Steve Allen
I lived for Chris Elliott's appearances
Thank you for all these compilations!
I'm recalling another bit that was Guy Under the Seats related, a couple years later. Chris was doing a bit as Dave, and another writer popped up through the hatch and asked if he had any cayenne pepper.
I was 15 yrs old when I saw these things and they BLEW MY MIND. Just so effortless & spontaneous. Such a great vibe. Kind of dark & unsettling, too. The opposite of Jimmy Fallon fake bullshit. Watching it late on a school night & laughing like crazy - then the next day it all felt surreal. Thank you Chris Elliot & David Letterman.
Chris is top notch at these odd characters.
I wouldn't be surprised if Tom Green was influenced by him.
These two are so tough. So accomplished confident and beautiful. They both inspire me.
Fantastic channel and uploads, Don! Thank you so much!
I love how the first one was so simple... and how involved they become as they go. And how they dress the set underneath to match the motif of the bit.
And Chris' deadpan stare at the camera under the seat.
These are great - thanks for posting these
Tremendous compilation. Just got through reading the Letterman bio and it underlines that while Dave was a great straight man on camera, most of the ideas for this show we loved came from his writers and collaborators like Chris.
The Letterman show was the best thing ever! There were subtle little things like how the camera starts to zoom in just a little bit when Chris starts to get angry.
I was about 13 during this era and absolutely loved staying up for this show and eating taquitos. I distinctly remember this episode.
Thanks...these are awesome!!
I love the disdain Chris shows when Dave doesn’t seem to appreciate his Man Under The Seats skits. Comedic genius.
This is the best thing ever.
This is like the best thing Letterman ever did imo. The 80's were just so fun.
Great stuff!!! Thanks very much Don!!!!
Thanks!
Any chance of posting Robert Goulet singing "Supermarket Finds" theme? IT'S A MAGIC NIGHT!
This is unbelievable how there's like every single bit here. As a kid I just saw bits and pieces of this. Just for the record, years ago I searched out this bit and there were only a few individual bits.
First time I ever saw Chris was during one of Dave's earliest audience questions and Chris came out as a surfer dude. I bought it and really thought that the guy was for real. It was hilarious. I had no idea until much later that Chris was a writer on the show.
Fabulous work
One of these days you're gonna wake up on the roller coaster at chris elliott land...and I'm gonna be running the brake lever
Wow, this is so much more advanced than what we had in the german speaking part of Europe at that time. We had big ol' serious shows with showmasters who lied to the audience that things were live when they weren't, and that things where unprepared when they were clearly pre-written, and there wasn't a nod to the audience about all that. It was a lie, a corny show and that was all that you got. I'm talking about "Verstehen Sie Spass", as an example. The level of sophistication shown here, we didn't got something similar until "Schmidteinander", in 1990.
Excellent Don thanks!
I’ve been here thru it all with Chris Elliot from the man under the seats to Roland Schitt on Schitt’s Creek. Love the guy.
Wow. Impressive collection. You must have been sitting in these awhile. I noticed you’ve uploaded lots of classic Late Night stuff
This show went levels deep with comedy.
until shaft 9 collapsed. trapped a lot of good people down there.
I love how he goes from cheery to dismissive in one second.
I wasn't mis-remembering it. Letterman really was hilarious, and the humor has aged really well.
"I got the lucky number, Dave" LOL . Havent seen it in 35 years but still remember it !
Dave looks so happy with what they have going on with Chris
Don, you've done it again!
Thanks!
Big TV's VCR and everybody went to the cinema haha amazing times wow time really evolves 😔
letterman between 82 & 87 was like the equal to pirate radio in the 60s. offbeat, against the grain and unhinged. all the things today's talk show environment are missing.
Culled from the best days of Letterman
Chris Elliott is a genius!
How cool is this? Very cool!!!
Truly spectacular.
Thanks so much for compiling these. Do you plan on ever doing Viewer Mail compilations, or Dave wandering the streets of New York collections (kids today talk about how that is what Conan is best at, they may need to see the true master at work) or just Dave's dumb shaggy dog stories about his weekend or the prior day that he told to Paul before starting his desk pieces? etc. etc.
Thanks again.
+New Fun Sandwich Thank you sir or madam. Appreciated. I'm considering a Viewer Mail collection, but I'm afraid it'd be prohibitively long. I didn't know until I was finished with "Guy..." that it would last over an hour. I'm currently preparing a Kenny the Gardener collection, which is an hour and 19 minutes long. Yikes.
Maybe I'll prepare the Viewer Mails (and Remotes) as month-long clips -- which would mean around four segments per upload. But I'm still digitizing the shows, and that won't be complete until, hopefully, 18 months. I've finished over 700 of them; there are 1,100 to go. So lots more still to do.
And there are a lot of other uploads I'm planning. I felt that one of Dave's favorite guests, throughout both LN and LS, was Michael Keaton. So I want to upload at least all of his LN appearances. And even Leno.
+Don Giller Sounds awesome, thanks for everything. And remember, Zschim is one of the lucky uploaders. I look for new NBC Dave clips every other day, and have been doing so for about 4 years. Other uploaders are banned within a few months, I've watched it happen to about 30 or so diff people.
Somehow Zschim with 1000+ videos and you are still under the radar, so probably keep the titles vague as possible no "NBC Late Night with David Letterman" or such, and again remember Dailymotion, and please come back if something happens to this account and/or spread your clips across multiple accounts..
+New Fun Sandwich I wonder if the reason Zschim has so far been able to get away with his uploads is that they're not complete shows; Then that's the guy who's been appropriating others' uploads as his own (including mine) but adds a copyright notice. Who knows.
And yeah -- I'm fine with under the radar, but that might change after today. Someone else alerted me to this; I certainly didn't find it myself:
myspace.com/article/2016/4/26/prince-letterman-clips
+Don Giller Yeah somehow that guy, Patrick Josh Valisno?, is able to stay around as well, but there have been other brand new user content stealing uploaders that have been clogging up my "new" search results who either get removed in a few days, or are somehow buried by the youtube search results. I think its because they drop all of their uploads at a set time, so youtube knows the content isn't theirs from the sheer amount, and knows they are just posting the videos purely for ad revenue.
+Don Giller Also, I'm not sure if you nostalgic purely towards Dave, but there's a great resource for forgotten, hard to find videos at reddit.com/r/obscuremedia . I've actually linked your videos to there, they love old Letterman (especially when he has an oddball guest on), so check it out.
I just love Chris, his sarcasm is palpable. I just thought GET A LIFE was amazingly funny. The whole series is finally on DVD.
Funny that he mentions comedy duo "Bob and Ray" would be joining him in the second segment intro. "Bob" is Bob Elliott, father of Chris.
Will always be the best late night show. I watched it for 20 years...guy under the seats, suit of suet, top 10...
One of my absolute favorites from Late Night.
LOVE this!
the barbecue one was where it started to get hilarious - the sinister side of guy under the seats was revealed
“You know something mister, one of these days you and I are going to go round and round.“
i just keep coming back to this. it's _that_ funny to me. Don Giller, you're a super-saint. you deserve a raise. whatever UA-cam's™ NOT paying you, they oughtta quadruple it (and also actually pay you actual currency).
the thing that absolutely can't be ignored about this stuff is how pitch-perfect Letterman is in both his acting and his NOT acting. like, he plays "trying to go on with the show" amazingly well - peak comedic timing and tone. and then he _also_ plays "going along with the skit" perfectly - you often hear him laughing along with the increasingly ridiculous threats, making the whole thing like some sort of meta-comedy thing; what's the joke? is there even a joke at all? is the joke on us? does it matter?
no. it doesn't. this is as good as comedy gets, in my opinion. absolutely hilarious, the way they escalated this stupid thing. the footage of Chris afterwards looking bummed out and awkward under the seats never fails _once_ to make me laugh.
siting by myself, laughing hysterically. this stuff is THAT funny to me.
Quadrupling nothing still comes to ... nothing. :)
But thanks!!
As much as I love Conan and his remotes, his sketches usually lack the edge that Letterman had; it's never in doubt that people are just doing a bit. Letterman sketches always had a great combination of a detached awareness and straight-faced faux contempt that I've seen rarely duplicated. The closest I've seen from Conan is in their "Scraps" segments where they stumble through rehearsal and he just hilariously tears into anyone and everyone.
part of what made dave brilliant is that he always seemed annoyed so you never knew when he was simply acting annoyed
its why the kaufman bits worked
Brian McCann came close.
RIP workers of shaft 9