Norm Macdonald Live 3x3

1. - Here is David Letterman.

2. - Hi Norm.

3. - Hello, David.

4. - Thank you very much. - Good to see you, sir.

5. - Thank you for inviting me.

6. Introduce me to your buddy.

7. - This is Adam Eget.

8. - Hi Adam.

9. - My trusty sidekick.

10. - It's so nice to meet you.

11. - Now the only context in which I know Adam Eget

12. is your book.

13. - Oh, yes. - Which I read.

14. I couldn't put it down, as they say,

15. and read it in like a day and a half.

16. And I loved it.

17. Then I knew nothing about this man.

18. But I knew a counterpart

19. to this man, I believe, at the Comedy Store,

20. named Harris Peet. - Ah, yes.

21. - Harris Peet, when I started.

22. Well, he sort of came along with everybody in my group.

23. He was the doorman for awhile.

24. And then became an emcee for awhile.

25. And do you know him?

26. Did your duties overlap with his?

27. - I came right after Harris had left.

28. I know he was still there.

29. He was there for decades, I believe.

30. - Right, yeah.

31. Now, how many of the things that Norm writes

32. about in your book are true?

33. - Well. - Regarding you.

34. - That's a tough question.

35. Norm, what do you think?

36. - Well should I just go ahead and mention what?

37. - I guess what identifies,

38. what identifies Adam the most is

39. that I discovered him under the Queensboro Bridge,

40. jerking off punks for $15 a minute.

41. - That's exactly.

42. - Is that what you're getting at?

43. - Yes, that's what I was tip-toeing up to.

44. And I was wondering, even if you're best of friends,

45. can you still print that about someone

46. if it's not true?

47. Or can you print that about someone if it's true?

48. And I wanna know.

49. It's none of my business, but there it was in the book,

50. so I felt like, well,

51. now I'm part of this.

52. I can at least ask.

53. - Sure, well, he was a young man.

54. And I was.

55. You know Boys Town?

56. I was the savior, I got, you know.

57. I took them out.

58. - Yeah, uh-huh.

59. - I didn't procure his services.

60. - Right.

61. Now, Adam, honestly,

62. and again, none of my business,

63. and you don't need to be candid with me, but.

64. - Tell the truth.

65. - Yeah, you know, it was a different time.

66. I was young.

67. You know, we all have to make our livings,

68. and we all go through rough patches.

69. - Listen man, New York back in the 70s.

70. That was hard coin, hard kern.

71. - I was just hoping that we could loosen

72. the noose on the ugliness here today.

73. Okay, that's about all I had for you, Adam, thank you.

74. - Well, some people's ugliness is other people's beauty.

75. - Yeah, see, it seems like you've.

76. Oh, you're fine. - Yeah, I should be.

77. - You should be? - I should be.

78. - There still issues?

79. - Well, I mean, everybody has issues, right?

80. - He goes to a psychiatrist.

81. Have you ever been to a psychiatrist?

82. - Yes, yes. - What did they tell you?

83. - Well, I've never gone for that particular issue.

84. - Affliction.

85. - Every time I've gone, I've been in great duress.

86. Just hot anxiety, you know what that is?

87. Just like. - Well I had panic.

88. Have you ever had panic?

89. - Yes, I did.

90. - Panic attacks?

91. - Well, anxiety attacks.

92. I've had anxiety attacks.

93. Is it different than panic?

94. - Well panic attacks, you feel impending death.

95. - No, not impending death.

96. I've been lead to believe that anxiety

97. is connected to OCD somehow.

98. - So you have some SSRI or whatever they're called?

99. - Yeah yeah, yeah.

100. And they work just fine.

101. But the psychiatrist,

102. I would always go, you know,

103. I would cut in line to get to the psychiatrist,

104. because I would believe that my problems

105. were far worse than anybody else's.

106. With the exception of perhaps Adam.

107. And I would get there, and I would unload,

108. and I would unload, and I would unload,

109. and finally, I would be done.

110. And after I unloaded, I would not feel the need

111. to ever come back.

112. - Oh, I see.

113. - So I would go back a second time

114. just because I felt like they

115. felt invested in my misery.

116. - Did you ever make stuff up?

117. - And then I would start making stuff up.

118. Yes, making stuff up.

119. And I remember, one time telling the woman I was seeing,

120. I said, "Oh geeze," and she said,

121. "What's the matter?"

122. This is not that long ago.

123. "Ugh oh God," making noises,

124. guttural kind of whistling lung sort of noises.

125. She's an elderly woman, and delightful,

126. and I said, "I think, oh God,

127. "I think I'm going to vomit right here."

128. Teasing.

129. - Oh.

130. - And she said, "Oh, I think you should go home now."

131. And so I got up and left. - Oh.

132. - So that worked, if you want to get our of a session.

133. - They don't like jokes.

134. - No, they don't.

135. - I went one time, and I was on 5th Avenue

136. in just some apartment, you know?

137. Or this apartment building.

138. And they made me go for gambling.

139. Anyways, the lady was there, and I kept.

140. She kept asking me these questions, I'm joking.

141. "Oh, what about your father?" I'm joking.

142. She's like, "Enough with the jokes."

143. So then I can't joke anymore.

144. So now I'm just, I'm crying and I can't,

145. and she's like, "Time's up," and I'm like, "No, no."

146. Like, I'll pay anything, let me stay.

147. She's like, "Get out."

148. And then you're in cold New York with hot dog vendors,

149. you know, tears going down your eyes,

150. they don't care about you.

151. - No, and then you head over to the Queensboro Bridge.

152. - You'll get a little release.

153. My first time I ever went to a psychiatrist,

154. when I was a boy,

155. I went to a psychiatrist in Vancouver, British Columbia,

156. and I went four times.

157. And I didn't go the fifth time,

158. because he committed suicide. - Wow.

159. - So I read in the newspaper,

160. all kinds of problems this guys had.

161. You know, he was in debt and embezzling,

162. and all this, and all I kept thinking

163. was I wasted like four hours of his last life

164. complaining about how I couldn't find a house.

165. - Yeah, I wouldn't blame yourself for this.

166. - No, no.

167. - You know, as long as we can have

168. a good laugh about it now.

169. That's all that counts, really, if you look at it.

170. - Now we know where I found Adam.

171. Where did you find your trusty sidekick, Paul Shaffer?

172. - Wow, you know,

173. I can talk about Paul to the point of,

174. people might think it's exaggeration.

175. I found him, he was on I believe the sixth floor

176. of our office building at 30 Rock,

177. when we were starting the Late Night Show.

178. And he had worked at Saturday Night Live,

179. he was the original musical director on Saturday Night live,

180. band leader and so forth.

181. And then he had gone off to California

182. to make a pilot with Norman Lear

183. called A Year At the Top,

184. which did not work.

185. So I chatted with him for a few minutes,

186. and I said, "Fine, let's go."

187. Not full understanding the range of what the guy could do.

188. Musically, without a question, a genius.

189. You talk to anybody who's been on the show,

190. or people who have not been on the show,

191. people who have worked with him, a genius.

192. And the other thing is, the guy can't read music.

193. And I think, how does that work?

194. Apparently he could read music before the accident.

195. Nah, that's a joke.

196. And then it turns out he's so funny.

197. And he loves show business

198. in the way show business is meant to be loved.

199. - Like Martin Short.

200. - That's exactly right.

201. - So this was very lucky.

202. Did you ever think before Paul Shaffer

203. of getting a sidekick, an Ed McMahon guy?

204. - No, we'd had the morning show where we had a band.

205. - Who was the band leader there?

206. - Oh, it'll come to me in a second.

207. But we also had Edwin Newman.

208. - I remember. - Who was a news man.

209. - I remember him doing the,

210. when he started the news, they would applaud.

211. - He would be seated.

212. I would be where you are,

213. and Edwin Newman would be right here

214. reading the news.

215. And there was a story about a notorious gangster,

216. a mobster had died.

217. I forget who it was, oddly enough.

218. And when he reported the death of the man,

219. the audience burst into laughter.

220. And so NBC News was.

221. - Was it a creepy carpous?

222. - No, it was.

223. Frank Owens was the band leader.

224. This guy, it was like, Sam Giancana,

225. let's say it was Sam Giancana.

226. And the audience just blurted into laughter.

227. So then NBC News said, well this, you can't.

228. They moved him to a different studio.

229. - Now what'd you figure after that happened?

230. After the complete complete disaster, right?

231. - Absolute failure. - Absolute failure.

232. - You know, it was so funny.

233. At the time, it was not funny.

234. But my girlfriend of the day,

235. and the woman who created the show

236. and was the head writer and producer.

237. - Bonnie Franklin.

238. I was just guessing, I don't know.

239. - Yeah, Bonnie Franklin.

240. So, now, we're just taking the weekend off,

241. and we don't know where we're going.

242. We drive up the coast of the Long Island Sound.

243. We end up in a town called Mystic, where you know,

244. you can have your picture taken,

245. where you stick your head through and you're a pirate

246. and that kind of stuff.

247. And we got the Sunday Times,

248. and we're whipping through the Sunday Times,

249. and we come across this big six or seven page

250. full page, every page, front and back, article

251. about how the NBC daytime network had been destroyed by me.

252. - By you? - Yeah.

253. And there's pictures and everything.

254. And it just goes on and on.

255. And that's our Sunday morning.

256. And nobody had bothered to tell me.

257. I mean, we knew things weren't going well.

258. But nobody had bothered to tell me

259. that we had single-handedly blown up the daytime network,

260. and that affiliates couldn't run away fast enough.

261. And they were getting game shows ready.

262. Because we had 90 minutes of network time.

263. - You had a 90-minute show.

264. - Yeah, 10 to 11:30.

265. - Did you deal with the affiliates?

266. - I had to make a lot of calls.

267. In one case, the general manager

268. of the NBC affiliate in Atlanta said,

269. "Well I'll carry it, but you have to agree

270. "to come down here and host the local Emmys."

271. So I said okay.

272. I can remember going down there,

273. and this was after the show was canceled.

274. And it was the station that carried wrestling.

275. And it was like non-stop wrestling.

276. And I don't know anything about that.

277. - So you honored your obligation

278. even after the show was canceled?

279. You're down there with Dick the Bruiser doing.

280. - I had given my word.

281. The same reason I'm here.

282. So I walk out, and they've rented the ballroom space

283. at the Hyatt or something,

284. and I say, "It's a great pleasure to be here."

285. And I think this is gonna get a big laugh, and I say,

286. "Yeah, I spent the day in my hotel room watching wrestling."

287. And on their feet cheering, "Yes!"

288. And I thought oh Lord, get me out of here.

289. And then I quickly just became a piece of furniture.

290. Nobody cared who I was,

291. all they wanted was a best Emmy

292. for best report on school crossing guards,

293. and that was the whole night.

294. And I got the hell out.

295. - What did they replace?

296. I mean, what did you replace?

297. Was it, at that time, was it game shows?

298. - So yeah, they brought back every game show

299. that anybody had ready to go.

300. And there were apparently plenty.

301. - I've seen you on game shows.

302. I've seen you host game shows.

303. - I used to be on game shows, yeah.

304. - You know, I saw you on Password once.

305. - Password, I used to be a guest on Password.

306. - You had one of the best clues I've ever heard.

307. - Really? - It was for airplane.

308. You said aeriofoil. - Aeriofoil?

309. - You don't even know the word?

310. - Well, I know the word airfoil.

311. I don't know aerio.

312. Maybe that's Canadian.

313. - Oh, maybe it is.

314. But the person. - They didn't get it.

315. - They didn't get it, no.

316. - I used to like being on the.

317. They said what? - Demosthenes.

318. - I used to come into New York

319. and be on the $20,000 Pyramid.

320. - Oh, that must be fun.

321. - It was fun, except in those days, I was drinking,

322. and I hated to be on the aeriofoil.

323. So I would just be slam-dunk hungover

324. when they started taping five shows in a row.

325. And of course, the contestants are, you know,

326. people who, "Jesus, I could use $25,000."

327. Or 20 or whatever it was.

328. And I would do pretty well in the beginning round.

329. The boom, bang-bang-bang,

330. but then when I would get to the pyramid,

331. I never got the big money.

332. And people would be so disappointed.

333. And then I found out later,

334. because some of the people

335. who worked on the pyramid staff

336. ended up working on our staff,

337. because the morning show,

338. the same producer worked on the Pyramid and our show.

339. So he brought some people over, and they told me

340. that if they didn't like the celebrity guest,

341. they would monkey with the pyramid

342. to make it virtually impossible to win.

343. - Wow. - Yeah, like Demothenes.

344. I never won the big money.

345. - They didn't like you. - Apparently not.

346. - Dick Clark was the host.

347. - Dick Clark was the host, yes.

348. - And he would come up afterwards and say, "Don't look."

349. And then he would say his own better clue, right?

350. - Did he? - Sure.

351. - But the show that.

352. The show that I did audition as the host for,

353. was something called Word Busters.

354. - Word Busters.

355. - And, the guests,

356. one of the guests was Jo Anne Worley.

357. And so we had committed to do two pilots of the same show.

358. So we're getting ready to go out

359. to do the show, and she leans over and says to me,

360. "Now that you're hosting a game show,

361. "you'll never be anything else."

362. This is just before we're ready to walk out.

363. - Oh my God.

364. - And start Word Busters.

365. - Was that okay with you then?

366. - Oh yeah, I was fine with that, Norm.

367. - I don't know. - No, no.

368. No, no, because in those days, who wants to be?

369. Look at Pat Sajack.

370. Don't you think there isn't a minute of his life

371. that he doesn't want to kill himself?

372. But yet, he's made a good living.

373. - Well, he tried a talk show.

374. - He did have a talk show.

375. He had the talk show at CBS before mine.

376. - And he did 90 minutes after Carson

377. thought that was too much.

378. - Oh yes, his was 90 minutes.

379. - So you think being a quizmaster.

380. - Well, it's not why I left Indiana.

381. - But I don't understand why you left Indiana.

382. I mean, what did you expect?

383. There was only one talk show in the whole world.

384. - Well, it was,

385. and I bet the reason that I left Indiana is similar,

386. not dissimilar for the reasons that you left Canada.

387. - Yeah, it sucks.

388. - Oh, I love Canada.

389. - Oh yeah? - You think it sucks?

390. I like Toronto.

391. I like Montreal.

392. I like Vancouver.

393. I like Alberta.

394. - I saw you do stand up there,

395. you were drunk as a boiled owl.

396. - Yeah, yeah.

397. I didn't much like doing stand up up there.

398. I can remember, this was in Toronto,

399. and a guy picked me up and he said, "Yeah.

400. "It used to be kind of a, just a rowdy ass bar,

401. "and now we're, we bought that,

402. "it used to be a whore.

403. "We bought that whore, and by God,

404. "now we're gonna turn her into a lady.

405. "And by God, we're gonna teach that lady how to dance."

406. - Whoa. - Yeah.

407. This was on the ride in.

408. - He let the metaphor ride a long way.

409. - And I remember being on stage.

410. - Put her in a nice pretty dress.

411. - Lipstick on her, new shoes, take her downtown.

412. I'm up on stage doing my little dumb act,

413. and you know, obvious things

414. you think would occur to people.

415. But right there, next to me,

416. not more than four or five feet away

417. is a cigarette vending machine.

418. So all night long, it was guys coming up,

419. getting the Kent unfiltered, getting the Salems.

420. It just was, really?

421. You're gonna turn this whore into a lady.

422. All right, but she still smokes.

423. - So I still don't understand.

424. - Oh, and by the way.

425. - I still don't understand why you left Indiana.

426. - And the guy reneged on the check.

427. He paid me half up front, and I never got the second half.

428. - Well, that's Canada.

429. But why did you leave Indiana?

430. - Because I had worked at a television station

431. for five or six years,

432. and I was getting tired of that.

433. I mean, it was fun being on TV.

434. And then I went to a radio station

435. and worked there for a year.

436. And that was right during Watergate.

437. And people would call up

438. and ask me questions about Watergate,

439. and I didn't know.

440. I couldn't answer it.

441. But I met Richard Nixon.

442. - No, you didn't.

443. - Yes, after he left office.

444. - How does it come about that you meet Richard Nixon?

445. - We had a guy who worked on our show, Frank Gannon.

446. Who had worked with Diane Sawyer as,

447. they were speech writers for the Nixon administration.

448. Frank had maintained a nice relationship

449. with the former president,

450. and he was on the Today Show talking to Bryant Gumbel.

451. So he said to me, after we got done taping our show,

452. he said, "Bryant Gumbel is taping his interviews

453. "with Richard Nixon,

454. "would you like to come up and meet him?"

455. And I said, "Yes, of course

456. "I would like to come up and meet him."

457. Now a friend of mine had been on our show named Jeff Altman.

458. And Jeff Altman loved Richard Nixon.

459. Loved everything about him.

460. Loved what he looked like, loved what he sounded like.

461. Just, he was fascinated by Richard Nixon.

462. So I said, "Hey, Jeff, let's go up,

463. "and we'll meet Richard Nixon,"

464. and he said, "Oh my God, yes."

465. So we go up there.

466. Now, it's Frank, myself, Jeff Altman.

467. And we walk in, and there was a little

468. green room waiting area.

469. And Richard Nixon jumps to his feet,

470. and my first impression was he was a taller man

471. than I thought.

472. He seemed to be about six feet tall,

473. and I always envisioned him

474. as sort of hunched over and such.

475. But he was tall,

476. and the other great, perhaps greater, surprise

477. was he was very charming.

478. "Oh Frank," he was so happy to see Frank.

479. And he patted Frank on the shoulder and this and that,

480. and we introduced everybody around,

481. and Jeff Altman, and he was talking about Angels baseball,

482. and about how much he loved Carney Lansford.

483. It was going quite well, and then Frank

484. said to the former president, "Mr. President,

485. "what are they talking to you about?"

486. And he said, "Oh, you know, it's the usual.

487. "Deep throat," that's not much of a Nixon.

488. "They wanna know who Deep Throat was."

489. And so he's just kind of fumpfering around

490. about Deep Throat, but in a jocular fashion.

491. And then after that sort of settled down,

492. he looked at Frank right in the eyes, and he said,

493. "It wasn't you, was it, Frank?"

494. It was just ...

495. For my friend Jeff, for me, for everybody,

496. it was delightful.

497. - 'Cause he was serious. - Yeah.

498. Who knows if he was serious.

499. I don't know.

500. - It wasn't you, was it, Frank.

501. You don't know Frank Gannon.

502. - I know Jeff.

503. - It's so bizarre to think of Frank Gannon as Deep Throat.

504. All right, we'll be back.

505. We'll be back with more David Letterman momentarily.

506. We're back with Letterman.

507. I still don't understand how you,

508. I'm still trying to get my head around how

509. you're trying to get a job that doesn't exist.

510. That only one person has.

511. But this is your plan.

512. - Yeah, this is my plan.

513. And I fooled myself and everyone else

514. by telling people I wanted to be a writer, a comedy writer.

515. Because I recognized, just like you pointed out,

516. that there weren't a wide variety of openings

517. for the kind of thing that I ended up doing.

518. But if you watch The Tonight Show in those days,

519. in the early 70s, late 60s,

520. they would have comedians on routinely.

521. One, maybe two a week.

522. And often they would mention that those comedians

523. were appearing at The Comedy Store.

524. The Comedy Store, and then they would go on to tell you,

525. was a place where comedians tried out their craft,

526. and it was on Sunset Boulevard.

527. So now, there's the roadmap.

528. - But it's not the roadmap.

529. You're not gonna get on the show,

530. Carson gives you one of these,

531. invites you over to the couch

532. and offers you his job.

533. - No, but it pretty much,

534. that is exactly what happened.

535. I went there.

536. - And that was your plan somehow?

537. - It was my plan, but I thought it was.

538. And it wasn't just my plan.

539. It couldn't have been more obvious

540. that if you went to The Comedy Store,

541. someone from the Tonight Show might see you

542. and put you on the Tonight Show.

543. Not far-fetched.

544. - That's not far-fetched, but,

545. moving from the

546. chair to behind the desk.

547. How does that happen?

548. - All right, well, so I went on.

549. I was in California, moved out in 1975.

550. In 1978, I was a guest on The Tonight Show.

551. - I know how it happened.

552. I mean, how did you conceive of such a thing?

553. - I don't understand the question.

554. - You thought Johnny Carson was going to leave?

555. - No, no, yes.

556. Yes, because every time there was a Johnny Carson contract,

557. they would play the game,

558. "Oh, who will replace Johnny Carson?"

559. And there was always.

560. - Chevy Chase. - Chevy Chase.

561. David Brenner, Rich Little was in the running.

562. Richard Dawson. - Rich Little

563. may have been the better, best choice.

564. Richard Dawson. - Richard Dawson.

565. - I used to see him, and he almost talked

566. exactly like Johnny.

567. He had the cadence down.

568. Him and Bob Newhart seemed the most like Johnny to me.

569. - So there was.

570. And the guest hosts, of which there were many,

571. were always thought to be

572. considered for the permanent job.

573. - And how much confidence

574. did that show you of Johnny Carson?

575. I don't think there's been a talk show host since then.

576. Puts on a bunch of guest hosts that are younger than him.

577. - No, no, no, I certainly didn't have that confidence.

578. I was afraid that if I was,

579. I was off for six weeks 'cause of my heart surgery,

580. I was scared silly every day that they would.

581. - Jeanine Garofalo.

582. - That they would take the show away from me,

583. and then I would have a heart attack.

584. Yeah.

585. - I thought you had a heart attack.

586. - No I didn't, I never had a heart attack,

587. I had the surgery.

588. - To prevent a heart attack. - Yeah.

589. But then the shock of losing the job

590. would've given me a heart attack.

591. - But isn't the surgery to prevent a heart attack

592. much worse than a heart attack?

593. - No, I loved it.

594. Geeze, I loved it.

595. - You liked it?

596. - I loved everything about it.

597. - Really?

598. - Yes, everything.

599. - They tear you open.

600. - Not tear you.

601. I can remember, I went in there for an angiogram.

602. To see, I knew I had something wrong.

603. I had the coronary artery disease.

604. And they said well,

605. that's the kind of thing we ought to keep an eye on.

606. And I said, okay.

607. So the last time I went in for a test,

608. the night before, I ran six miles on the treadmill.

609. I go in for the test, and they said,

610. "You're not going anywhere."

611. So they wheeled me into the thing,

612. and then all of a sudden, it fills up with people

613. I've never met before in my life.

614. And there's the heart surgeon,

615. the thoracic surgeon, his buddy,

616. there's Dr. Wayne Eisem and Dr. Carl Krieger,

617. my friend Donna Reilly,

618. and then the anesthesiologist.

619. There are the heart lung guys.

620. The guys that. - Kildare.

621. - And I said, which one of you.

622. Now, I'm scared silly.

623. - Who's in charge? - Yeah, I'm scared silly.

624. And I noticed that my surgeon is this.

625. I said, "Holy God, you're missing a thumb."

626. And he says, "Yeah, ha, that's right."

627. We all had a good laugh.

628. So, but I'm trying to be funny,

629. because I'm scared to death.

630. And so I say, which one of you

631. is going to operate the bone saw.

632. Thinking, there's no bone saw.

633. - Oh my Lord God.

634. - And the kid in the corner does this.

635. And I said, holy shit, I just, do me a favor,

636. I don't want to hear the bone saw.

637. And they all laughed and said,

638. "Oh, don't worry, you're not gonna hear anything."

639. So pretty soon, they're wheeling me down,

640. they got me in the gurney.

641. They're wheeling me down to the operating room,

642. and a woman, you see them in every hospital,

643. and they're walking but they're hooked up to the

644. standing IV, and they're walking by.

645. So I'm just, you know, like this,

646. and she walks by, and she says,

647. "Oh look, it's David Letterman."

648. And the anesthesiologist behind me,

649. the rare time an anesthesiologist can make a joke,

650. that means anything to anyone,

651. he says, "Don't worry, Mr. Letterman,

652. "we'll have her intubated."

653. And I'm still not sure what "intubated" means, but,

654. everybody laughed, so it was,

655. really, it was more like a party at your house than surgery.

656. And then the next thing I remember was a guy,

657. a disembodied voice, with his hand on my shoulder,

658. saying, "It went great."

659. And I thought, that's all I need to hear.

660. - Wow. - From then on,

661. it was Mardi Gras, I was,

662. it was fantastic.

663. - This is like a hypochondriac's dream, right?

664. - It was wonderful, wonderful.

665. And then I couldn't stop talking about it,

666. and everybody was sick of it,

667. and I finally just ran out on the topic,

668. because nobody else wanted to hear about it anymore.

669. And I wanted to know,

670. how long was I on the heart lung machine?

671. Did they actually take my heart out of the cavity?

672. Did they pass it around?

673. Was it in the lobby?

674. What did they do with it?

675. And they'll tell you exactly what they were doing.

676. I was on the heart lung machine for 43 minutes.

677. - Does the heart move?

678. Do they touch the heart? - Yeah.

679. Yeah, they do.

680. I don't know, in come cases,

681. in extreme cases, they actually remove it from the cavity.

682. In other cases, I think it's just left where it is.

683. But the interesting thing about the heart surgery is,

684. you think in terms of your coronary arteries.

685. What would you guess is the diameter

686. of a coronary artery?

687. - Two inches.

688. - Norm, they don't have plumbing in this building

689. that's two inches in diameter.

690. A lot of people think, oh you know, the size of a pencil.

691. Well, it's not, it's the size,

692. it's the diameter of the lead in a pencil.

693. - What, a number two pencil?

694. I'm trying to get an idea.

695. - Yeah, a number two pencil.

696. So when it was all over.

697. - Very very thin.

698. - Yeah, yeah, and this guy's doing this with it.

699. You know, they're bypassing stuff, and the guy's in there.

700. This guy. - Yeah.

701. - Is in there tying knots.

702. I just loved it, because it was all about me.

703. - If you ever found out,

704. how'd the thumb come off?

705. - Yeah, it was a farming accident.

706. He was from Texas.

707. - He was a farmer?

708. - Well, he and his dad, when he was growing up.

709. Norm, it's all I could afford.

710. - Next time you go to a hospital, you must remember this,

711. an anesthesiologist does not have to be there with you

712. the entire time, as a matter of fact,

713. they make a lot of money by moving around.

714. But if you ask them, then they're forced to stay with you.

715. - Yeah, no, he was gone.

716. But I loved him.

717. He was great, and it was delightful.

718. But then the next day, I got angry.

719. Because when I had this, "It went great."

720. To me, that was the hand of God,

721. and I thought, fine, bring the car around.

722. So the next morning, I wake up and my cardiologist walks in,

723. and he looks at the computer, and he says, "Hmmm."

724. And I said, "What do you mean, 'Hmm?'"

725. He said, "Well, you've got a rub."

726. No one said anything about a rub.

727. And I said, what's a rub?

728. And he said, "Oh sometimes when they cut

729. "the pericardial sac, your heart, it'll rub the heart."

730. - Ugh.

731. - Yeah, exactly.

732. And quite angrily, I said,

733. "This is the worst decision I have ever made in my life."

734. And he said, "No," he said, "It's all right.

735. "Settle down, everything's fine."

736. - He'd seen the morning show.

737. - But I was, you know, I thought I was free and clear.

738. But then the rub went away, and everything was fine.

739. - Why is it when you walk down the street,

740. there's not half the people with nooses around their necks?

741. What makes life insist?

742. Let me put it that way.

743. - Well, I think that there is,

744. somebody expressed a depression,

745. when you're in a deep deep clinical depression,

746. provoked by mix-up of chemicals, lack of chemicals,

747. too many chemicals, that you are seeing the world

748. with 20/20 vision.

749. And that we have built into us

750. a certain amount of chemicals

751. that control our brain, and make things palatable.

752. Because without that, people would be walking

753. around with nooses on their necks.

754. - So, do you ever wish

755. that maybe you were less smart?

756. Maybe you were more ...

757. - I wish I was as smart as you.

758. - Well, I'm not smart.

759. - Oh yeah, you're smarter than I am.

760. - Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

761. - In terms of being intelligent,

762. I think you're high here.

763. I would probably be next, and Adam I guess.

764. I think he probably balances the scale.

765. You know, one of the great things that I loved

766. about you early was when you and I

767. started talking about George Miller,

768. who was a good friend of mine,

769. and an interesting man, and very very funny.

770. And the fact that you shared a love for George Miller,

771. I always took that to heart.

772. - Well there's very few people that are pure comics,

773. and he was one of them.

774. I remember I had a stupid

775. sitcom at one point,

776. and I didn't know what I was doing,

777. and then I said, "You wanna come on the thing?"

778. And he's like, "Well, how do you do that?"

779. "Like, you just pretend to be another guy?"

780. Why would a stand up know anything about acting

781. or care to do it, you know what I mean?

782. - Yeah. - It doesn't really

783. make any sense.

784. - Well, he didn't want that at all.

785. Because when he was first on the Tonight Show,

786. and he was the first of our group

787. to get on the Tonight Show.

788. - Oh, really? - Yeah.

789. - Wow. - And he was, just,

790. exploded, he had like four or five,

791. maybe a half a dozen killer shots.

792. Bang, zoom, come over to the couch, this and that.

793. William Morris was handling him,

794. and they started sending him out on situation comedy things.

795. And after awhile, he just stopped showing up.

796. He said, "I don't get it."

797. "What am I supposed to do?"

798. "I don't know."

799. I understood that, but it was also,

800. there were a lot of things,

801. all he really wanted to do was write and tell jokes.

802. That's all he wanted to do.

803. - And play pool.

804. - Play pool, that's right.

805. At which he was very good.

806. - I remember one time, he said,

807. "I got a big pool game tonight against,"

808. and the guy's name was

809. The guy he was playing, his name was Bobs the Farmer.

810. I said, wait, is his Bob the Farmer?

811. He goes, "no, no, Bobs the Farmer.

812. - Bobs the Farmer, yeah. - That's the guy's name.

813. - Yeah, he was tremendous.

814. - You want to hear a very interesting thing?

815. - Yeah.

816. - You remember the movie The Hustler?

817. - Yes.

818. - So there was a character in it,

819. Minnesota Fast played by Jackie Gleason.

820. So there's a guy in New York, right?

821. Just a cheap hustler, shooting pool.

822. And he says, "I'll call myself Minnesota Fast."

823. And then everybody thought he was based on Minnesota Fast,

824. and every year on Wide World of Sports,

825. he'd play Willie Masconi,

826. a really good, Willie Masconi would crush him,

827. and then Minnesota Fast would go,

828. "I could beat him in a bar anytime, for money."

829. But it was nice,

830. it was really a steal of a movie character.

831. But of course, everybody thinks it's the other way around.

832. So you want to tell some jokes when we come back?

833. Oh, we have some George Miller jokes also.

834. - Okay, good. - Wouldn't that be fun?

835. - Yeah, I like George Miller jokes.

836. - And, well I'll tell you about it in the commercial.

837. 'Cause you probably won't want to do it.

838. - Let me ask you this. - Yes, sir?

839. - Is this pretty much what you put Seinfeld through?

840. - We will return in a moment.

841. David Letterman, back.

842. Here's something that happened to me, Mr. Letterman,

843. that I just recalled.

844. When I was young, I used to go to a ...

845. Like a televised church thing.

846. But it was Canada.

847. It wasn't big time.

848. So anyways, the host's name was David Maines,

849. and he said, the way he started the show was,

850. he said, if anybody wants to witness.

851. Witness, I guess, meant

852. somehow God had entered your life.

853. - Testify, yeah. - Testify.

854. And did a miracle in your life.

855. So I'm sitting beside a French-Canadian idiot.

856. Big fat guy.

857. Super dumb.

858. 'Cause I just went there for the sandwiches.

859. I'm telling you, before like 10 minutes,

860. he puts up his hand, I'm like, "What?"

861. This dumb fat Frenchman is going to talk?

862. So sure enough, David Maines starts the show,

863. "Who wants to witness?"

864. And a couple of people.

865. And then the fat guy beside me, he gets up.

866. And David Maines goes, "Now what happened to you?"

867. And the guys goes,

868. "I got the thing, I got a terrible cough.

869. "I think to myself, by God, I said to my wife Marie Claire,

870. "I got the cancer.

871. "But by God, I go to the doctor,

872. "and he tells me, no cancer."

873. So it's not a miracle at all.

874. So everybody's super embarrassed, you know?

875. So David Maines goes, he's trying to save it,

876. he goes, "Well that was God's way

877. "of telling you to quit smoking."

878. He goes, "No, I keep, I still smoke."

879. He goes, "Oh, well, let's everybody put our hands together."

880. Like one of those things like what you were saying,

881. and now I'm holding the guy's hand.

882. He doesn't want to quit smoking.

883. And we're all praying that he could quit smoking.

884. Except for him, who was just remaining silent.

885. I don't know why I thought of that.

886. - Now that story is not in the book.

887. - No. - Well so why

888. isn't that story in the book?

889. - That should be in the book.

890. - Oh, thanks Adam, welcome back.

891. Were you out looking for apartments?

892. Jesus.

893. - The book is a novel.

894. That's why, it's not a memoir.

895. - But there's enough.

896. What I enjoyed about it.

897. And maybe you're the smartest man in publishing.

898. Now you can tell the real version of those stories

899. in your next book, after this is a runaway bestseller.

900. - Well, that's some idea.

901. What about this? - Yeah.

902. - The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.

903. You follow that show at 12:30,

904. and you call your show Late Night with David Letterman,

905. not starring David Letterman.

906. But with David Letterman.

907. - First of all, you can call it anything you want.

908. But I was embarrassed.

909. I could not possibly and still don't consider myself a star,

910. 'cause I couldn't refer to myself as a star.

911. In the same way, I always.

912. - So it had nothing to do with Carson?

913. - Oh no, no, no, no,

914. He, Johnny Carson, was a star.

915. There's no question of that.

916. So for me to adopt that,

917. starring David Letterman,

918. that was just ridiculous.

919. In the same way, I always cringe a little when people

920. refer to the folks who watch the show as their fans.

921. I just think that's a little too ...

922. You know, you kind of just stepped

923. over the line of basic humility there.

924. So to call myself a star didn't go.

925. So you had the Today Show, the Tonight Show,

926. the Tomorrow Show.

927. Sigourney Weaver's father came up with that idea.

928. - Pat Weaver. - Yeah that's right.

929. When he worked at NBC.

930. I said, for the love of God, go back to the Tomorrow Show.

931. - Absolutely, yes,

932. this is what bothers me about the show.

933. At one point, there was two shows.

934. The 11:30 show and the 12:30 show.

935. Johnny Carson and David Letterman.

936. Now, there's a hundred Johnny Carsons.

937. - Well, no. - There's no David Letterman.

938. - There's not a hundred Johnny Carsons.

939. - No, I don't mean, but I mean,

940. there's a hundred 11:30 shows.

941. The 11:30 and 12:30 shows are indistinct.

942. - Oh, I see, they're all the same template.

943. - Right? - Yeah, yeah.

944. Well, I don't know.

945. - Change something.

946. - I don't know.

947. - I mean Conan changed it up a little.

948. - Yeah, well do whatever you want.

949. I think you're bound by

950. the pressure of who is writing the checks.

951. You know, don't you think so?

952. - I guess. - Yeah.

953. I mean, good Lord, how do you get away with this,

954. for heaven's sakes?

955. - Did you ever wonder, when you were doing your show,

956. how it came, maybe you know, 'cause you're a student,

957. how did it come to be that

958. the host interviews the guy, and he has a desk?

959. As if it's a job interview or something.

960. - Well, I wanted it to be,

961. I thought that there were certain rules

962. of television that were not to be violated.

963. Like Johnny had a desk, okay.

964. I think Steve Allen before him had a desk.

965. - But not Merv, not Mike.

966. - No, not Merv and not Mike,

967. and I always thought those were peculiar shows.

968. I thought those were experiments,

969. like something Luther Burbank had concocted

970. that the graft hadn't taken.

971. - Luther Burbank? - So I thought okay,

972. those are one-offs.

973. That's Mike Douglas, yeah yeah, it's Mike Douglas.

974. It's daytime, it's very quiet,

975. it's Philadelphia, it's no desk,

976. don't go anywhere near that.

977. And Merv, you were on the Merv Show, right?

978. You were, or no?

979. - No, I was never on Merv Griffin.

980. - Well, I don't know.

981. - You mean in the 50s?

982. - Oh no, not in the 50s.

983. When Merv had the later show.

984. - I thought you meant when he had.

985. - Oh, when he had the,

986. he used to have the CBS show.

987. - I thought we meant when he hosted the Tonight Show.

988. - Nevermind.

989. So I just thought, okay,

990. well there's certain things you can't mess with.

991. And we had a guy come in and tell us,

992. his name was Dave Tebbit, who was Johnny Carson's guy,

993. he was his lookout guy.

994. He was his lieutenant.

995. He would take care of him.

996. He was his go-between the network and the show.

997. And he came in and told us what we could do.

998. We couldn't have a band more than four pieces.

999. I couldn't do a monologue.

1000. I could do like three jokes.

1001. We couldn't have any of the Tonight Show guests.

1002. And others things, and he said,

1003. one time he came in and he told us that, he said,

1004. "Let me give you an idea of what we expect.

1005. "Let's just say Bob Hope is arrested for selling drugs."

1006. This was the scenario that we had to be leery of.

1007. "Don't make jokes about Bob Hope being arrested

1008. "for selling drugs."

1009. We said, okay, we can do that.

1010. - Now you have a show for 33 years.

1011. Every day, you know.

1012. You do that, every day.

1013. - Yeah, yeah.

1014. - And then, so the show ends.

1015. And then that night,

1016. what do you think?

1017. Are you thinking about tomorrow's show?

1018. - No, it's funny, because as you must know,

1019. the human neuro muscular skeletal system

1020. is easily programmed.

1021. - Well sure, I knew that.

1022. As soon as you said that first word.

1023. - After two or three repetitions,

1024. you kind of get what it is.

1025. So I had that for 33 years.

1026. - So you were just performing on muscle memory

1027. the entire time.

1028. - That's right, that's pretty much exactly correct.

1029. And now what I've,

1030. and I didn't miss it.

1031. For a long time, I didn't miss it,

1032. because there was still, sort of,

1033. the high of having completed this,

1034. and all of the artificial adulation that came with it.

1035. - Oh, I don't think it was artificial.

1036. - Well, I think it was.

1037. I'm talking about my family.

1038. And then, the next.

1039. - My favorite part of the final show was Harry's friend.

1040. Oh my God, that was funny.

1041. - Yeah, Tommy Roboto.

1042. He's a tremendous kid.

1043. - Harry's in the audience.

1044. So David, you know, says, "There's my son,"

1045. and his son wants his friend to be on.

1046. - Yeah, but the deal was,

1047. in the dressing room before, I said to Harry,

1048. I said, "You and mom are gonna be in the audience.

1049. "I'm going to introduce you."

1050. And he said, "Oh no."

1051. And I said, "Aw, come on, let me introduce you."

1052. And he said, "If you introduce Tommy, you can introduce me."

1053. So I'm negotiating with my son

1054. 10 minutes before the final show

1055. about how we're going to orchestrate the introduction.

1056. And the only thing I regret is, I wish now,

1057. I had asked them both to stand up and take a bow.

1058. And I just didn't.

1059. - Or come on stage.

1060. - Yeah, but he had so spooked me about

1061. the parameters of the introduction.

1062. - It was one of the greatest things I ever saw.

1063. - Yeah, it was fun.

1064. - What was his name?

1065. - Tommy Roboto.

1066. - Is Harry in 4H? - No, no.

1067. - Do they not have it?

1068. - I don't know if they have it.

1069. I mean, he would be, he likes all things agricultural

1070. and animal related.

1071. He likes horses and dogs.

1072. - He was in animal husbandry for awhile.

1073. - Really? - Oh yeah.

1074. - I've had a checkered past.

1075. - Well no, there's nothing wrong

1076. with being in animal husbandry unless it's a euphemism.

1077. Is it a euphemism?

1078. - Oh, it's a euphemism. - It's a euphemism.

1079. - Okay, then I don't want anything, no.

1080. - Fair enough, fair enough, that's fine.

1081. - Adam has been bugging me all last night,

1082. he wants to ask this question

1083. I said, "Don't ask the question."

1084. - Let's ask the question.

1085. - Well, I've been watching you for years,

1086. and I've always been really curious,

1087. where do you get your ideas from?

1088. All right, okay.

1089. - Well, this is gonna sound.

1090. This is gonna sound maybe loutish on my part,

1091. but you know,

1092. I always saw, I loved Mary Tyler Moore,

1093. and I know you were on her TV program.

1094. And when she was your guest,

1095. there was this incredible chemistry.

1096. And was there ever anything romantic with her?

1097. I mean, she must have been,

1098. she must have been very desirable to you.

1099. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, well good.

1100. - Well what is the question?

1101. - The question is did you have,

1102. you know, did you ever lay down on top of her, I guess?

1103. - Jesus Christ.

1104. Now wait a minute,

1105. you bring up a good point, Norm.

1106. First one of the day.

1107. At the cast meeting, we were all invited

1108. to lay down on top of her.

1109. But there was no sexual activity.

1110. But we all, at once, laid down on top of her.

1111. - I thought you were gonna.

1112. - She loved a good stunt.

1113. We all would just take.

1114. It was the heaviest to the lightest.

1115. And it'd be five or six of us laying down on top of her.

1116. - Now we have some jokes,

1117. some of them written by.

1118. Some of them written by the great George Miller.

1119. But would you like to read a joke?

1120. This is not a George Miller, joke,

1121. this is just a joke.

1122. - Read it aloud? - Yeah.

1123. - Scientists have discovered a vegan spider

1124. in South Africa that will not eat ants.

1125. It refuses to eat ants, even if it's starving.

1126. But it will eat tofu shaped like ants.

1127. That's good, that's good.

1128. - Should we let Adam Eget read a joke?

1129. - Well, I'd like to see him do something before I leave.

1130. - He's gonna read a joke.

1131. - Researchers in Bermuda

1132. believe they may have finally solved

1133. part of the mystery surrounding

1134. Amelia Earhart's disappearance.

1135. She was a bad pilot.

1136. - Bermuda, she didn't go down anywhere near Bermuda.

1137. - Do your goddamn research, Eget.

1138. Now what about this one.

1139. Oh, here's a great joke.

1140. This is a perfect Dave Letterman joke.

1141. Well, you gotta say it louder than that.

1142. - Because of what just happened, I've decided to pre-read.

1143. - We'll have a moment of silence after that joke.

1144. No, I mean, it was 150 years ago,

1145. we can look back and laugh at it now.

1146. - The Deerhunter is a terrific movie,

1147. unless you shelled out three bucks

1148. to see some actual deer hunting.

1149. This is reminiscent of your Weekend Update stuff.

1150. - Remember you had the snow storm

1151. and you did the show without the audience?

1152. - Yes. - Seemed like

1153. you really enjoyed that. - Yes, it was fun.

1154. - Would you ever consider doing that again?

1155. - Yeah, yeah sure.

1156. I mean, in a sense, what we're doing here, more or less.

1157. Now, I know you've done this show in both versions.

1158. Which do you prefer, with or without?

1159. - Oh, without. - You like that better?

1160. - Oh yeah. - Yeah.

1161. - But I don't have the range

1162. that you do. - No no no.

1163. - You see, what makes it.

1164. There's only been two talk show hosts

1165. with this deep deep layer,

1166. you and Johnny Carson.

1167. So you can speak to anybody.

1168. - You can speak to anybody. - No.

1169. - Do you watch this show?

1170. No, have you seen this show,

1171. the one that we're doing?

1172. - Get yourself a Charlie Rose desk.

1173. How much could they cost.

1174. And then you're just.

1175. - It all comes down to the expense of the desk.

1176. - You're just in black.

1177. - But do you watch your own show?

1178. - No sir.

1179. - Well, you have, I've talked to people,

1180. I've watched it and I've talked to other people,

1181. who find it compelling.

1182. You can't take your eyes off.

1183. - Well, imagine if you were doing it.

1184. - Whatever it is you're making up,

1185. whatever quality you're fabricating here,

1186. you yourself possess them.

1187. - But imagine if you were doing it.

1188. - Well imagine if you were doing it.

1189. Well, what's the matter?

1190. I've done it for 30 years.

1191. I don't want to do it anymore, you do it.

1192. - Without an audience though. - You could do it.

1193. - But you'd be a different show.

1194. - I don't want to do it.

1195. - You don't want to do it?

1196. - No, I've done it.

1197. People always say to me, "Well, what do you want to do?"

1198. And I say, "Well, I kind of did it.

1199. "For 30-plus years."

1200. And you, we always worry a little about you,

1201. because we regard you as the top of the heap,

1202. the best of the best, the funniest of the funny.

1203. The guy who has it in every fiber of his being.

1204. Not conjured, it's the real thing.

1205. So you do it.

1206. - I just wanna write.

1207. I just wanna write books.

1208. But I'd like to watch you with a big desk.

1209. And it'd be black.

1210. Hey Dave, say what you will about Elon Musk,

1211. but with his new plan to bring people to Mars,

1212. nobody is a more creative serial killer.

1213. Hey, you know the funniest part of doing

1214. an office conga line?

1215. When you look back and realize you're doing it alone

1216. and you're not in an office,

1217. you're in a psychiatric hospital.

1218. - How many years did you.

1219. - Here's a George Miller joke.

1220. - How many years did you do Update?

1221. - I wanna say 15.

1222. What's that one say?

1223. - Oh here you go, yeah.

1224. I heard that when Beethoven was 16,

1225. he wrote his first symphony.

1226. This is kind of guy who makes you realize

1227. what an utter sham your life has been.

1228. When I was 16, I was in a McDonald's saying,

1229. "You want lids on these?"

1230. - What a perfect choice, huh?

1231. I mean, maybe the idea is generic,

1232. but the word choices. - Yeah.

1233. - It's beautiful.

1234. Well, here's one for you.

1235. It's a George Miller joke.

1236. - I went to one of these fancy restaurants.

1237. Boy, they really specialize with all these fancy waiters.

1238. - They specialize, they specialize.

1239. The waiters, they specialize.

1240. I don't think they're fancy, I think they specialize.

1241. You have the butter waiter, he brings out the butter.

1242. You have the water waiter who brings out the water.

1243. What is it?

1244. - Coffee or head waiter?

1245. - Coffee waiter, yeah.

1246. - And then what else?

1247. - And then the ...

1248. - The head waiter.

1249. - They're very specialized at these places.

1250. This is not a George Miller joke,

1251. but it's more of just a whimsical observation.

1252. A certain name you don't hear much anymore, Flintstone.

1253. - The George Miller joke that,

1254. oh I remember the first time I saw George Miller on stage.

1255. And he was talking about how he was in school,

1256. he wasn't very popular,

1257. and they would play post office.

1258. You know, the post office.

1259. And the punchline of that was,

1260. "Yeah it didn't do much for my self esteem,

1261. "I didn't feel very popular with the girls.

1262. "Do you have any idea what it feels like

1263. "to be known as postage due?"

1264. - Here's two last George Miller jokes.

1265. I'll do this one, then I'll give you

1266. my favorite George Miller joke.

1267. I played a great club here in the city, Catch a Rising Star,

1268. boy, that's a good club.

1269. But across the street, they have a tough club,

1270. have you been there?

1271. Snub a Bombing Has-Been.

1272. But this is my favorite one of all time.

1273. This is the favorite joke of George Miller.

1274. His sex life.

1275. - Oh God.

1276. Here's something you should never say in bed.

1277. That ought to hold you for awhile, Gertrude.

1278. - All right, we'd like to thank David Letterman

1279. for being on the show.

1280. Before he leaves, he has agreed to do a top ten list.

1281. - Yeah, I'll do this for you.

1282. I would only do this for you.

1283. - Aw. - Honestly.

1284. - Really? - Yeah.

1285. I would only do this for you.

1286. - That's sweet.

1287. Well, let's start.