Act 1 (w/"Up with Hal Gurnee") on Letterman, July 24, 1986 (full, stereo)
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- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
- After Paul's impromptu snippet of a Parliament classic, the show gets off to a rocky start when Dave confuses Garry "Doo Wop" Shider, sitting in with the band, with George Clinton. It's an embarrassment of which Dave can't let go throughout the rest of the Act.
Then a Top Ten that doesn't go as hoped.
Viewer Mail is next, featuring Jeff Martin as Flunky the Clown,* Rick Scheckman as the apparition of Elvis, and, by request, a performance of "Up with Hal Gurnee" with Laurie Guthrie, Steve O'Donnell, Laurie Diamond, and Joe Toplyn.
*Full Flunky the Clown collection here: • Flunky the Clown Colle...
In that collection, a You Tube comment from mubd1234:
"Bob Hillman who wrote the [Flunky] letter was the sports anchor for WGN-TV (no network affiliation) in Chicago. He was fired about a year after the segment aired."
Paul's recollection of an argument he and Dave had over Parliament/Funkadelic band members comes from a Cold Close on October 29, 1983, uploaded here: • Dave and Paul Robbed a...
Carey Kirk, the guest with a mannequins demonstration (they can be spotted behind the backdrop during Dave's Opening Remarks), was bumped. He was rescheduled for August 12 but bumped again, and he never appeared on the show.
That glorious opening note on the keyboard.
I'm fairly sure it's at least two notes.
I’ve had this pointless and obscure Hal Gurnee song/bit in my head since it first aired in 86’…for no particular reason. It’s 3:45am MST, and I thought I wonder if I could find this on UA-cam in 2023…success! Thanks Dave, Paul, Hal,and of course UA-cam….now on to the next foggy childhood memory search. 😊
I love that you titled this video with UP WITH HAL GURNEE. I remember it well because it bombed and it made it all that funnier.
OMG, the "Cheezmaster 2000" line. I remember watching this when it aired and have been trying to "relive" it ever since. Thanks so much ... one of my favorite moments from the show ... made me laugh out loud again today!
So many memorable things about this 20-minute stretch of show: "I'm not hearing enough Phil Collins on the radio". Paul practically intoning "Dr. Fuckenstein" (a slight but jarring mispronunciation there) and Flunky's reference to dodgy circus corn dogs. So much gold!
It's the cheesemaster 2000.
Too funny - love it.
these are your best posts (besides the vital three hour compilations, of course), you are singlehandedly sparking the dying embers of worldly culture, don giller, and I hope you know your great efforts are appreciated if ultimately futile.
Holy moley. Did everyone in the audience just lose a family member?
Even in segments that don't go as planned, or especially because of them, the brilliantly un-slick, anti-showbiz nature of the original Late Night comes through. Clips like this could serve as a satire of the nearly unwatchable crop of current late night shows -- with their contrived "comedic" segments, flat, preconceived interviews and hyped up, disingenuous audience reactions -- even more so than the more polished Carson Tonight Show of that time (which in retrospect also looks surprising fresh in comparison to Colbert and the Jimmys). Letterman may have frequently squirmed during these segments, but the raw, stripped down nature of that show - from the stark lighting, warehouse-like set, Paul in a t-shirt, and over all feeling that they all just broke into an abandoned studio late at night and made it up as they went along - still resonates as fresh and honest. In recent years only Craig Ferguson ever came close to this kind of breezy spontaneity.
Well said. Another thing that none of the current hosts have but Letterman and Ferguson did have-they were funny. And good interviewers
Yes indeed
Ultimately, I don't disagree. I would take any Letterman or Ferguson over anything else right now. But this was a different time. People could go on TV and broadcast. You liked spending time with Dave and Johnny, and you could spend time with them! Everybody doing Late Night these days has to compete with smart phones and youtube clips and the like. They have to not only be acceptable TV, but also acceptable for viral marketing and sharing across the web. There's not broadcasting anymore. Just cold, streamlined, , made to order joke production. Just bam, bam, bam, bam. Gotta pack everything tight enough before the itchy fingered teenager or millennial gets bored and swipes left or right or whatever. I even like Colbert, but I just can't deal with the steel inhumanity of his show. Fallon, too. I just don't want to spend time with them. They're just boring houseguests.
Yes! Yes! You're absolutely right! Late Night TV is not the same anymore. I mean, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Steve Allen, to a lesser extent, Jack Paar, and even Craig Kilborn gave late night talk shows the kind of spontaneity that we don't see anywhere else anymore. Every single late night talk show host is totally predictable. You know exactly what they're going to do. They're going to talk about nothing but politics all the time, and it's not just during the monologues. The current late night talk show hosts are doing it all throughout the shows. The only person who just deals with the interviews on late night TV and stays away from politics now is Carson Daly, but Daly is just paying tribute to Tom Snyder. It's time for someone to come in and change the late night game again. Yes, we have the Internet now, and yes, we can easily watch late night talk shows anywhere, but we need a late night talk show host who we just have to watch on TV when that person comes on, and we need a late night talk show that isn't political. Can that be too much to ask?
Excellent description, Timothy. I loved growing up with this, absolutely. It felt like being at a party.
Not to mention confusing "NCAA" with "NAACP"!
This aired on my Uncle Jim's 30th birthday.
For those who weren't around back then the reason Thurs were the end of the work week for Dave was because NBC aired a music video show on Fri nights from 1983 until 1987
And then after the broadcast schedule of new shows shifted to Tuesday to Friday, FNV continued to air, though an hour later.
Also, Thursdays were not actually the end of Dave’s work week, as Fridays were spent taping remotes.
With the T-F broadcast schedule change, remotes were then taped on Monday, with that night’s broadcast a repeat.
I love watching these mid 80's episodes. Also, the explanations and references are so great, make it complete and give it context. Really great job Don.
I always remember Dave rippin on Phil Collins. Just not enough Phil Collins on the radio.
Look, no matter how bad the show goes, the big loser in all this is the guy with mannequins, getting bumped not once but TWICE and then never appearing on the show EVER. However I might be able to top that with this short/long story.
In 2004 My wife and I were going to NYC on our honeymoon and had planned to see the Late Show. So I called weeks before to book tickets but received no call back. On day 4 of our trip I did the thing you'd do and called the ticket phone line to answer some skill testing questions for a possible stand-by number/ticket. We went to the Ed Sullivan and stood in line and ended up 5 couples back from getting in. ( It was mostly couples that were in the line ). I believe Tom Cruise was on the show and my wife was particularly disappointed to not get in. She was 23 at the time and a little Cruise-crazy herself which is partly why she agreed to stand in these lines in a hot August heatwave.
So we tried the next day. I called from the hotel phone and answered the skill testing question again which I remembered was "Who is the stage manager on the Late Show"? And I correctly answered, Biff Henderson. So this time we stood in line again, for about an hour. I became curious as to what was going on outside with a watermelon stunt featuring Pat Farmer and left the line ( leaving my understanding wife to kindly keep our place *ahem* ). I ended up walking right into the shooting area strangely enough and started talking to Pat Farmer in between shots. He kept going inside to a window to throw a watermelon on the ground. After a few minutes I continued walking around the building. I came around the corner and accidentally bumped into Anton and Sid who were sitting on the ground smoking cigars to celebrate Sid becoming a grandfather. He offered me one and I smoked with them. Sid was convinced he knew me from somewhere and I had to convince him that he didn't. He seriously could not let this go either. ( No this wasnt a wacky dream, it actually happened ). So I hung out with them for about 15 min and then feeling guilty about my wife, left them and made it back to her, aplogizing and explaining everything to her. She understood and was happy that at least I saw and did some things. It was 15 min before show time and the stand-by line was moving along. We were just about to make it inside because we were the second couple from the front when they said "thats it., sorry". So with that went our last chance to get in because it was our last day in NYC. However we hung around and got into the Hello Deli and took a picture with Rupert, then, for some reason Biff came outside because Bill Clinton was a guest and was soon arriving. Biff was just standing there on the sidewalk, so I said "Hi" and asked him if he'd mind taking a picture with me. He said "No go ahead". So my wife took a nice picture. We watched Bill Clinton arrive with secret service amidst the clamoring crowd and took some pictures. It was near mayhem.
Anyway we went back to the hotel and I felt pretty good because I'd accidentally met almost half the people on the show and had pictures to show. My wife unbeknownst to me even took a picture of me standing and hanging with Pat Farmer during the watermelon stunt.
We flew home the next day and now we come to the point for this story. I checked our voicemail. There was a message sent 6 days prior. The day after we'd left on our honeymoon. It said "Hi this so and so from the Late Show your tickets will be available for pick up at the front window...." the tickets were for the same day when we were two couples back for Clinton's appearance on the show. Grrrrr....!!!
Well at least you got a good story out of it. Almost as good as going to see the show you missed! Hanging with the band isn't bad at all.
2:37 Beatrice has a corporate office in my hometown, Downers Grove, IL.
(I'll stop talking about myself now)
The Top 10 list was a DUD too. Wow.!Dave was REALLY off his game that night!
I still can't believe he was only on till thursday lol...
What a disaster lol! I love it.
Love Sid's brilliant yellow guitar.
One of the early ESP guitars. They gave them to all the cool NY players at the time as promotion.
Pete Fatovich doesn’t look too happy in that last control room shot going to the break. Still got 45 mins of crap to go!
But Peter Basil can't help but crack up.
Does anyone have an origin on "HYP-MO-TIZED" ? From my recollection it was just something he started saying for a while.
Here, in Kamarr’s 1985 Summertime Sunshine Happy Hour appearance. Kamarr Collection on Letterman, Part 1 of 2: 1984-1989 ua-cam.com/video/UwUvTqWbLk8/v-deo.html
Back when tv comedy/interview shows, audiences and their reactions were actually REAL.
Did anyone else catch Dave mistaking the black guitar player for George Clinton? Lmao
The whole world caught it.
welcome to the 1980's kids, this is how it really went... good reagan joke tho, really enjoyed that one. ah, the good times.
Who's voice is that playing Elvis? I recognize it.
Identified in the description beneath the video.
Apparently you couldn’t say “mother sucker” on NBC in 1986.
And as our hero Don will recall... you can't say "Johnson" either... ;)
That's a classic. Would have likes to have seen the segment with "Robert Clinton" of course, but hey ...
I'll put it up, but not tonight.
You're the best. Thanks, man. Really. These early shows really bring back a lot of great memories.
Thanks!
Yes, incredible. So many shows I'm seeing for the first time. Thank you!
@@dongiller Yes thank you Don for these. Nothing matched the 80's Late Night episodes. I hope you come across Mr. Humidity with "Angel"...love that...
Letter writer #2 @ 8:25 Bob Hillman, who was the WGN sports guy was fired less than a year after this... www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-3831990.html
Maybe it was because of things like sending letters like this on the WGN news director's stationary! Sure that Paul Davis - who axed him - wasn't pleased by this
and other missteps. Duh!?!
Nobody reads my descriptions beneath the videos.
I read!
Wow, what a bad Top 10. Don, do you have a idea how many times Dave haven't ended reading a Top 10 list?
I know that in other shows he's stop the list when it wasn't going well, but would finish it after pleading from the audience. Not yet sure if this particular list was the only one he never finished.
Thanks for the answer!
Really wasn't much of one. I'll try to find out for sure if it happened on other shows.
totally agree!
totally agree!
11:20 Schecky!! a far under-utilized talent, shoulda been in more skits
That was the worst Top Ten list I've ever witnessed.
That style of top ten list can work but the delivery has to be perfect, and the two sets of subject-matter juxtaposed have to complement each other in their utter diametric absurdity. It was more a reward for regular viewers - it was a curve ball to a normal list. Inside joke.