hi i'm andy breckman i was a staff writer on the show from the beginning 1982. in 1981
i submitted five sketches to saturday night live i did not get that job but unbeknownst to me
my agent submitted those same sketches to Merrill Markoe and david letterman uh in november
the phone rang it was my girlfriend and she said Merrill Markoe and david letterman are in town
for one day they're interviewing writers and they can meet you now it's one of those
calls and you get if you're lucky once once in a lifetime i just raced up town to the plaza hotel
and i went up to went up to their room and there was a coffee table in front of the couch with some
spare change on it and i sat down and i said hey can i have this and i scooped up all the chain
from the coffee table and put it in my pocket and never mentioned it again it made dave laugh and
any writer can tell you there's no sweeter sound in the world than making david letterman laugh
and i got the gig in those days the writers were on a 13-week cycle which meant we had
no job security at all and the weeks went by i wasn't getting any anything on the air i finally
at some point a couple months in i scored with a joke uh there was a segment called small town
news and it wasn't a great joke but it was um it meant the world to me because it meant that uh
i had i maybe could find dave's voice that was the challenge to write in his voice of course
and getting that joke on the air meant that maybe this job might work out after all and
this first item is on page one first page vandals hit the gila bend school campus monday night and
the maripoco maricopo county sheriff's office is investigating page one the gila bend herald
what has this society come to huh i'm no detective but maybe start looking for a guy named ozzy well
in those early years the show uh burned through uh lots of material we were producing more written
material than saturday night live was in the middle of the show there was a smaller comedy
piece that we called a desk piece this was just dave at his desk some flimsy premise and i found
myself uh writing those pieces dialed services were a new thing in the early 80s and so we did
new dialect services both scientists and interested members of the general public
will want to try this one this is dial and eight on the richter scale oh this is
some kind of uh illusion i'm guessing dial in eight on the richter scale
hi larry richter's girlfriend speaking
oh boy here take it take it good heavens uh so the audience is kind of divided on that one gene liked
it roger didn't care for it video games were a new thing and we did new video games this next one
is called broken bus basketball in this game your opponent's team bus is broken down outside of town
and you get to take the court unopposed perfect for wimps that hate to lose here's one designed
for fans of gymnastics who like to bet on a sure thing nadia comanish versus sonny von bulow
as you can see sunny has two points for toys or pop-up books there was always some some sort of
small premise well this is the popular pop-up book of the uh elvis book by albert goldman
now wait a minute so we open this boy up and let's see what happens here
uh these books are terrific where do i operate it oh right here uh now you can watch elvis
become the biggest star in show business right before your very eyes there he goes there you go
hey look it's albert goldman i had nothing to do with it one of the rules we were told
early on was dave doesn't perform he doesn't he won't pretend to be someone else he won't act
he certainly won't sing and i a couple of times pushed back against that i wrote a piece where uh
which began as just another art card piece at the desk uh but paul shaffer kept interrupting dave
asking dave to perform some party tricks i should mention that piece when i wrote it ended with dave
singing and that was apparently a bridge too far he wouldn't he wouldn't go there
he did everything but the singing as you can see the open loops here and this r
uh the second r and then it's also duplicated down here in the g now this indicates a strong
what's uh i'm sorry what's so funny oh sorry nothing david go on fine
okay uh as i was saying uh ronald reagan the first r of the man's first name a
large opening there and then another one there and again it's picked up down here
in the uh final g now these would certainly indicate
ah now what is it i'm sorry dave i was just thinking about the office party over the weekend
i was remembering some of the tricks that you were doing this guy was amazing at the party
he did a thing with file cards i couldn't believe it i'm sorry go ahead go on
okay now ronald reagan's signature clearly shows here excuse me dave listen i tell
this handwriting thing is is absolutely marvelous i really mean it but i would love
no seriously i'd love to see that file card thing that you did at the party it was amazing
could you do it for us wouldn't you like to see it because i i can't no come on come on come on
all right okay
okay just once and it may not be uh this spectacular under these circumstances but
at the party it was a lot of fun you just you take yourself some file cards and like that
there you go
well you can't get them all but that's that's all paul was okay
okay all right well that's what paul was talking about now let's get back to ronald reagan's
signature here we have several uh signatures of several famous people
and uh okay now we've pointed out that the r's are similar to the opening in the g here
remember that thing you were doing the hand shadow thing at the party
he did these hand shadows just with his hands they were incredible you want to see them
come on we you know i'd love to uh but we've rehearsed this all day and uh we think that
we've got about three funny jokes here so uh let's just go ahead no that's it okay well just take
a second just a second for a little handshake look there's a screen you can use this screen
over here that the lighting people were using to focus the cameras could you open it up and
get the screen that's all right maybe some other time we'll do i want to see dave through the hand
little hand shadows all right all right i'll do it i'll do a few of them but we're going to have to
get back to the ronald reagan uh uh signature okay a couple of hand shadows again uh the party the
first one a bird there you go good bird it's kind of a simple thing to start out with okay all right
okay enough of the bird gonna be enough of the bird there now i'll do uh oh no we're not done yet
this is the the skyline of manhattan for you folks from other parts of the country
there you go the skyline okay that's after those now um i'll do two more this is the uh
united states supreme court here they are the supreme court ladies there they are
and uh this is this is the one that was really a lot of fun at the party
the holmes cooney fight ladies and gentlemen round seven here they are
okay okay that's it that's it i can't that's it i thank you i gotta we gotta we're running
out of time and we really we really haven't gotten into this thing with ronald reagan's signature now
president of the united states the first name this dave how about that gravity thing
the gravity thing yeah i remember the party you made will leaf fly up in the air it was
amazing but you never did it to me it's my turn i think you want to see dave make me fly right here
no absolutely not no all right uh uh i'll just do the microphone real quick okay the
gravity thing was no big deal okay here we go the microphone the gravity thing there
okay no it's nothing okay all right that's it we gotta get back here now uh the large r in
the first name and the large r in the second name is duplicated here again dave listen i'm
you you got to do the gymnastic stuff that you did after everybody left the party dave did this
acrobatic stuff around the room we went nuts it was unbelievable you got to do some of that for me
come on come on what do you think come
to then on gonna have to move uh okay let me see here let me just okay
are we all right okay just a second all right here we go there we go
okay
all right one of the perks of the job is uh i got to meet uh artists that i had always
admired and got to spend time with him when jerry garcia was booked on the show i wanted to find
an excuse to hang with him so i wrote a short sketch it's up there and then right down there
and then that's it yeah it hurts yeah well after a while see these you build up calluses like on
my fingers okay now go ahead and if you strum that let's see yeah like this yeah it's proud mary yeah
oh
about a year into the show dave came to me and asked me if i would try writing
monologue jokes suddenly the gig became a real job for me there was one segment we did in 1982
where we invited members of the audience to read jokes that dave had rejected
uh now have you ever uh had any experience to tell jokes to people
no are you sure you want to go on with it oh yes oh no this is a fine experiment now um
any uh experience in show business whatsoever all right okay uh anything we need to know here
andy no sir okay uh go right ahead there are the cards uh i'm sorry your first name
again pam pam go right ahead pam did you hear about the big earthquake in colombia last week
it did millions of dollars worth of damage and left hundreds of people homeless
the only bright spot was for a very short time bowling scores in the area went up dramatically
that's not bad
that's that's not too bad i passed on that one or did you hide it
did you did you bother to turn that one in yes sir that was the answer okay
it really makes me mad when i see convicted criminals cashing in on their celebrity
have you seen the david berkowitz's new commercial for peter paul mounds
sometimes you feel like a nut sometimes you don't
we could probably edit that out couldn't we hal uh one more do you have one more i'm afraid so
you're doing very nicely thank you thank you i learned something new this weekend
that sticky stuff on the floor of adult movie theaters tastes just like root beer barrels
i don't understand why you possibly can you do this to an out-of-counter oh is that it i'm afraid
so okay you did a very nice job nice meeting you and tell yourself in new york thank you very much
i began my career as a uh singer-songwriter none of my so-called friends had the decency to tell me
i wasn't very good so i just i just plowed on dave and merrell had come down to see me do a
set in the village and a few weeks later a guest cancelled at the last minute and i was told if i
if i was interested i could i could do a song with the band that night on the show we went
on with the no very little preparation almost no rehearsal and uh it did not change my life at all
brother mother didn't die my mother didn't die my father didn't die my sister didn't die
mr green dad had a real
of course the best thing about working on the show is that's where i met tom gamel's wife right honey
you