David Letterman Video - David Talks About The Time Johnny Stole His Car on Carson Tonight Show

David Letterman Talks About The Time Johnny Stole His Car on Carson Tonight Show - 08/31/1989 #johnnycarson #thetonightshow #davidletterman

Video Script:: my first guess is you know uh follows us uh right after the show five nights a week or four nights a week or whenever he shows up mr david letterman what a reaction thank you very much thank you you can't really for laughs beat a remote controlled hat no you can't see i'm back there and i'm watching that and i'm thinking this is interesting it's a it's a civil war sketch with actual vintage material that's right and uh and i said to myself johnny carson is the bravest man in show business and then i see the exploding hat and i said oh well of course sure he's got an exploding hat who couldn't with an exploding hat unit always save something in the bag just in case when you're done with the material you go for props now would you would you have done a sketch like that on your show with the exploding happiness i would not go out there without a nap did you see the hat go off when you're standing back there or not no i didn't i'm just ready going and the hat goes the old hat trick it's a magic night isn't it though here we are again here we are together for the for the first time i i came right by the uh the newsroom and i have a message for uh leona helmsley san quentin phoned your room is ready so i don't know what that means but the mints are on the pillow now see that that's more than me you've been on top of that story more than we have out here i did a joke a couple of weeks ago about leona helmsley and half the audience got to look now you do that in new york and it's the biggest story in new york and new year's yeah in new york people want to they want to take her down you know they're storming they're storming the vast deal i was in new york i came out uh sunday yeah and i came out on twa's non-stop service for misfits and losers look into that and um i normally take the screaming baby express this time i said i'll spend the extra dough and uh ask me now uh johnny what time twa's 6 30 flight to los angeles leaves okay well six thirty flights what time does tv at 6 30 flight leave for almost 30. we we were waiting people had been waiting for this flight so long they were actually getting mail there in the airport um actually getting mail 1865 they were getting mail uh you seem to have these uh problems with airliners every time you come out here well you know it's tough to come out here but i love california i like coming out here and i think it's important also to get away it gives a strangers who have moved into my house some sometimes it's important to have that me time especially if you are psychotic it's a very well you can blame martin sheen for that he said to the homeless you'd go out to malibu and uh you don't really live in malibu anymore yeah we used to be neighbors and all the great fungi not neighbors what do you mean not me we weren't door-to-door i mean no no you you were on the 6 million side of the neighborhood i was on 600 000 side of the neighborhood um that's when we had the bad truck out in front that you know i saw that truck today as a matter of fact you stole the truck and brought it in here that's right and damaged it that's right that was fun wasn't it i don't know if you remember that i stole his truck once and brought it out here now wait a minute wait a minute did you were you out there jacking it up you personally yeah stole was the wrong word i don't think this man has seen a jack in quite some time and we brought the truck on the show then you complained that we stole it it was damaged we got judge watner to come on this show and he sat here and uh you bribed him with a half a dozen stakes before the thing yeah and he ruled in your favor 27 bucks something like that because you busted busted out a headline no we didn't bust ahead um now you don't have this malibu house anymore did you sell them actually [Laughter] well i i don't have it anymore i sold that to an interested party i just don't have it anymore you know it's funny thing about real estate boom you may not have it sure moves quickly yeah uh hell i would have gotten a trailer if i knew that was gonna happen pull it out anytime but there you go and uh is it life strange you know what i was i was out of the country for a while this summer and i come back to uh i don't know i was going like 10 days yeah and it struck me how uh odd things are in a short period of time i come home and i want to uh catch up on the news so i'm watching i don't know matlock or something when i'm unpacking and a news bulletin comes on and it's a linda ellerbee noted nbc news woman noted abc news woman and i think oh it's a bulletin because they've interrupted matlock there's linda ellerbe there's lindella being i thought you know maybe a break in the lindbergh case or something i don't know i've been and and she says this is the headline she says millions of americans are enjoying the full rich flavor of maxwell house coffee i said she's pretty slow news day and uh and then she says now let's go to wisconsin where willard scott is standing by with a group of clogged dancers i think well maybe it's a bigger story than i thought get another angle on this full rich flavor thing so we we go to wisconsin and sure enough there's willard scott now i know willard scott i'm assuming you know him you probably know i'm not telling tails out of school here but it's a known fact willard is nuts so so he says you ladies all love the full rich flavor of maxwell house coffee and they all scream yeah we all love it now willard has a microphone he throws down the microphone grabs one of these ladies one of these clogged dancers whatever the hell that is by the neck and they go spinning off like maniacs good not only is he goofy he's full of caffeine now a dangerous combination do you notice i came right back to material absolutely yeah you need a hat for the real exploding exploding head sure we have to take a little message that we are prone to do here uh you're probably prone to so what's the difference we'll be right back thank you welcome back to the tonight show the only show that has two two hosts and one i've been waiting to do that for a long time very nice fit right in you are in your uh i asked you during the break you're in your seventh and a half year seven yeah seven and a half years so we're working uh i was thinking about it when i first started doing this show as a guest and then later i was uh hosting the show you knew i was hosting for a long time that's right yes and um and i keep recording that you know the ayatollah died this summer yes yeah i just got over it last week yeah it was a hardship for a lot of us we're working through our grief now yes i know it's not easy and uh uh i we i can remember doing jokes about him when i was doing this show and and i'm thinking as i'm watching the coverage of this guy's funeral here is a guy now world leader religious leader and in one form or another single-handedly held this nation hostage for about 20 years he got ted koppel his own show that's right so they're man wow see after the hat joke they're ready for some esoteric material you can only go with a clothing hat so long and then they got to think so um they're they're covering the man's funeral on the news and it's like watching a panty raid it was and so people are pushing and shoving and i guess you know this and they they actually knock the remains of the ayatollah out of the box and onto the street yeah thank god he wasn't injured that's right he'd been turbine dead for weeks you know before he actually before he actually died he just kind of drifted away quietly so now now the other thing i'm thinking about is is oliver north now uh they finally had the trial this summer and they finally had the sentencing and so forth he gets like a fine he's fined like a hundred thousand dollars and he's given 1200 hours of community service boy that'll teach him i mean i think they're sending a pretty powerful pretty clear message there by god you get caught selling weapons to one of our enemies mister and by god you can just spend a couple weekends a year picking up cigarette butts in the park forget that because and and more thing i bet there is i hope there is so now this so this rob low deal now this thing i just want to get this straight the guy goes down there to the democratic national convention last summer that's right and by the way isn't he the kind of bright-minded clear thinker we need in politics and and he gets himself into some some kind of trouble and this i don't understand he goes around i guess talking to girls are are you under the legal age of consent good great i'm rob lowe this is my buddy larry i don't know he's got a buddy um we we'd like you to come up to the hotel room and have sex with me of course and larry and we'll be videotaping this as a memento uh and so now he gets sentence he gets caught and he gets sentenced and it's 20 hours 20 hours of community service and so he's going to go around lecturing high school kids so the real challenge here is i see it is will be for the first time he's going to have to try and entertain teenagers with his clothes on so that's part of it but he's he's not off the hook i understand he still might do hard time for singing at the academy awards [Music] the main thing is though the servicing the community is what got him in trouble in the first place i think why didn't i think of that that's the better joke it took eight seconds now we have uh when you're on well you're on another 20 years you'll remember those you're just you have all that to draw from folks speaking of speaking of our shows and i guess we were have somebody one on the show that uh they're people that turned the show down they're never head-on carrie grant was one of them i would have done harry grant was not on the show no he just refused to do it he just felt uncomfortable he was on when i hosted [Applause] we all have our little things i'm dog meat now you guys look that's right you know the uh there's a lot of people that that uh you you would want on the show just exactly like that paul newman and stuff like that i had blown them around on the show i i can imagine you have yeah um but i find the hardest thing about doing a show like this is not getting oh stop it people are now laughing at my segways that's right um is is people come on and they don't have good show business stories mm-hmm and and i finally have one and i've had it for like the last four or five times i've been invited on the show and i thought tonight i i can't think of a better place to do it and the music show business and then we'll get to your question later certainly yeah um it's about it's about a uh a circus act and maybe you've heard this are you familiar with the term cutting an act if you're a drummer does that ring a bell with anybody right yeah and and i think what this means not being a drummer you wouldn't know i guess yes you get like a circus act and it's the moves of the actor accented with like rim shots and uh yeah and it kind of provides a little bit of drama a little bit of underlying tension so there's this act someplace pick a state new jersey thank you and and he's working the the gimmick is the guy works like a hundred feet off the the ring no net so it's just the wire the high wire and then 100 feet of air boom down to the sawdust there you go and he's working with a drummer who is cutting his every move does a forward roll boom bang could we hear a little of that what that might forward drill there exactly uh a double roll that kind of thing all right now this goes through the entire act finally the big finale the guy like a double back flip and he lands splits bounces back up and then does something else i don't know i wasn't there he misses misses the big land the split on the wire thing and is now plunging to his death the drummer cuts him all the way down [Applause] [Music] minutes from being stained to sawdust and you you saved that one for me huh it's no exploding hat john i know that you know but i thought you'd like it yeah so what else anything else on your mind unless you want i don't know talk about this paul newman thing uh so he's got he's got all his products out now he's got uh what popcorn he's got a salad a salad dressing uh yeah exactly so i finally get the chance to meet the guy this is one of those guys i've always wanted to meet yeah and uh you know there are people in show business who assume everybody knows everybody and everybody wants to hang around everybody i was in a restaurant once in long island and i'm getting up and i'm leaving and i hear hear a guy start to applaud and interrupt the joke no i hear a guy [Applause] i uh and god bless you for it uh so i'm getting up to leave and i hear a man say dave cliff just like that and i turn around it's cliff robertson like we're in a club and coincidentally i'm so stupid that day my phone was on the blink and for a split second i thought oh great i'll report it to cliff [Applause] so um so i'm i'm in phoenix now i'm attending an automobile race a couple of years ago and and uh there's a race driver named bobby ray hall yeah great driver uh won indianapolis and 86. two-time national champion and i'm spending some time with his wife she's she's being nice to me showing me around and she says to me would you like to meet paul newman and i think well geez normally you know if she said would you like to meet that hay vern guy no i'd have passed [Applause] so so she goes into his trailer and by god there's paul newman and i'm stunned because this guy is really a star a major movie star he's been in uh films hud the verdict on and on the butch cassidy the sundance all of them a great actor and a great star and the only thing i can think to say to him is geez i really enjoy your popcorn but but we go on and we have a nice little dialogue and i'm beginning to think geez maybe we're we're friends now paul newman and i because we've chatted we know one another we're both at the race we both know debbie ray hall okay so now a couple of months later i'm in indianapolis also at a race i have a race there and i see paul newman again and i think this is my chance to impress this young woman that i'm with i think this will just drive her nuts because paul newman is coming up these stairs he has a little white outfit on white shoes white pants white shirt little white hat like he's pretending to be in the navy this kind of thing and so i normally wouldn't do this i stand up and i see him and i said hi paul just like that and the girl is right here paul does this and keeps walking true story it's a true story yes it's a true story and the end of the story just go to the commercial spicy [Applause] and we'll be right back you