hi i'm Paul Shaffer i was musical director of the uh late show and late night show with
david letterman it was a hell of a run we had a lot of fun and uh i'm gonna be showing some
of my favorite uh moments uh from all those 33 years i think all of us were very excited
the first time that bob dylan was booked to do the david letterman show this is about in the 80s
and i was just all over him with gushing and just you know hip references to
some of his songs and um just showing him you know that i was a fan and he said do you think i
could get to meet larry bud millman and so that was my first conversation with bob dylan which
was monumental there was a period of time um i would appear in comedy sketches with dave and
other guests the theme seemed to be the same and that would be that i would be out on the
street and a car would be approaching me and i would scream and they would say cut
and put a dummy in there and then the car would hit the dummy
there was one example of this i remember very very clearly and it had to do with the cure for the
hiccups and i don't do that again for something i can't i'm trying to control it i can't help trying
to do this you hold your breath and just kind of rock your head back i tried that before the
show it didn't work did you drink a little water oh stop it i i drank water and i held
my ears and drank water didn't work right did you did you thump yourself really hard
on the end i tried nothing did you like heimlich listen nothing seems to work on this all right but
have you got them under control or not i thought i'd come here come here i'm going to take care
of this come here you cover for him while he's going come here i'm going to put an end to this
because frankly it's going to get nice to see you it was a lovely service wasn't it
and we set up a scenario in the office where this is what we do when paul has a hiccups he
put a paper bag over his head and i take his baseball bat and i just swing and i pow and i
bash the the dummy you know and then they would cut put in a dummy and then i would take
cut back to me take the bag off and you know it's great dave well you know no more headache
well we're shooting it one piece at a time first piece of course
it's me i put the thing on my head and he winds up cut you know and then there's a crew bag five take
a five you know and i'm just everybody's relaxing and i'm sitting there with the
bag over my head just relaxing i you know i don't know i hadn't taken it off and dave is
just winding up he was considering taking a practice swing because he thought it was the
dummy under that bag but it really was me and that would have been you know pretty much the end of my
conscious life dave said i would have been calling your wife kathy once a year probably christmas eve
i'd call her to find out if everything was all right and you know you'd be a vegetable so that
was a close call and but it was worth it because here's the sketch
on the 50th show show number 5.0 because in show business we don't have time to say 50. we say 500.
my parents were in town from canada and they came to
see the show now say hello to paul shaffer ladies and gentlemen and the world's most dangerous
band thank you thanks a lot uh you know david my parents are here visiting from canada
and uh they came to the show last night they liked it so much they came back tonight so
this is uh you know my mom and dad bernie and shirley shafer are here with me today
hello dave hi we're just thrilled about the show good
and i want to say it's a real fresh kick to be here
that's very nice of you i hope paul hasn't been too much trouble no mom that's our mom
just relax paul's just it's okay quality a nice song well we play we don't really do it like
that around here we play you know when when david you know after he does his piece then
then we'll play that but that's my mom and dad and uh thank you very much
thank you folks
yeah i forgot to mention it's parents day here at the show and here we are back at letterman and i
remember that i started off the show i heard a joke in the afternoon and i decided to tell it
on the show have you ever had a freudian slip happen to you you know where you make a video
i say something and it comes out differently i mean it has some sort of other meaning that's
right i mean i did the worst one over the weekend i was at my mother's house for dinner
and i meant to say past assault right instead i said you [ __ ] you ruined my life
i don't know how it happened it slipped out
now what am i supposed to do
explain to me paul now what it is i'm supposed to do
i know you've pulled the pin on the grenade and handed it to me
here i thought see this is how dumb i am i didn't know you could talk like that on television
i i didn't know you could talk like that to your mother
i can't believe my ears it was just a joke you know oh oh just a joke but a damn fine joke too
well the audience you know just erupted and dave just calmly said um let's get your mother on the
phone unscheduled not planned yes i'm gonna give it a try here a little dialing music paul
okay let's just see who this is
let's see who this is oh there's the first ring be cliff robertson wouldn't that be funny
hello hello hi hi mrs schaefer yeah hi this is dave letterman
hello
how are you i'm very well thanks how are you good thank you very much how's how's
springtime there in thunder bay uh springtime in thunder bay is very lovely the sun is shining
it's david letterman on the phone it's a beautiful afternoon yeah uh and are you you folks enjoying
yourselves up there uh relaxing working having a nice time thank you yeah will you be coming to
new york anytime soon well we will we are coming as soon as we're invited we're coming okay well
any any time you're in the area of course i i love being able to see and spend time with
you and your charming husband and uh it would be good to see you folks again now
uh uh shirley may i call you shirley yeah all right
uh the reason i'm calling is be sure or do you have plans tonight no but this is that you're
not this isn't letterman letterman uh tapes at 5 30. why are you calling me now what nowhere it's
it's a little after uh six now we've we've been on the air for about 40 minutes ah okay it's it's me
it's me it's me it's i you should say
yeah i i see what you mean paul
uh anyway uh surely the reason i i i'm calling i want you to be sure and watch
the show tonight all right where i will okay thank you very much you you and bernie have a
lovely evening well that's really lovely beautifulness how's past oh paul is fine
paul's just fine and paul paul told me earlier to send you his love thank you okay nice
chatting with you alrighty bye-bye cleared the whole thing up okay all right all right
yeah now i know it was a lovely moment and she was from that point on she said he never
called me again he never let me on that show again i should never have corrected his ground
and i don't think that had any anything to do with it uh nonetheless you know she was a stickler
for grammar and i i thank her for that to this his very day we had a wonderful time on a trip to los
angeles once shooting a sketch where david disappeared from the show i had to go find him and
he had been seen on the set of so many different prime time shows at the time and we shot this out
in the valley i guess they call it cbs in the valley i went looking for dave on the set of uh
jerry seinfeld show and i went looking for him on the set of a civil shepherd's show and a number
of other shows we're playing but uh i certainly remember how thrilling it was when during a break
on the civil shepherd show i said sir well let's go over to the piano and do something
and she favored us all with a full out number it cheered us all up and we made a wonderful day out
of something that had started as just an average day i'm gonna tell you it's been fun you folks
have been a terrific audience i can't tell you how much i appreciate you guys waiting in line all day
sending in for the tickets it was a great show all because of you thank you very much god bless you
everybody thank you very much
he's done it again he's done it again i can't believe it i got to get him
wait there i got everybody right there just a second
have you seen dave not since i broke into his house would you just let it go paul
yeah thanks it's not about us right and then you walk in gary
i've been looking all over have you seen dave we're right in the middle of a rehearsal
here paul have you guys ever thought about rehearsing by the way i think it could help
we're right in the middle of a show i can't find dave have you seen him
did you try the hotel bar i gotta go bye
dave who i think that's okay that's not my belly button roseanne hi
have you seen dave uh isn't he on cbs we don't get cable ah
tv's paul shaffer
what's your favorite kind of sandwich hot dog hot dog that dog's not a sandwich
you talking about you got your meat you got your bread you got
your condiments you bite into a hot dog my friend you're biting into a sandwich
what are you guys talking about sandwiches oh man don't get me started on sandwiches
listen to this first of all is there sand in a sandwich is it made by a witch sandwich
what is this dave mary i've been looking all over for you hey kramer no dave it's me paul
listen our show's not over yet we got to go back we're talking about sandwiches oh well
don't get me started on sandwiches our show we got our own show let's get out of here come on
he's right i gotta go i've made a terrible mistake all right goodbye larry thanks you too always guys
what's the opposite of must-see tv
at one point uh the band and and i uh added a song to our repertoire by blood sweat and tears
i love you more than you'll ever know which was a sort of a takeoff on a james brown
this is a man's world and dave letterman heard it and immediately related to james
brown and he said i feel like i should be putting a cape on you so one thing led to
another and he ended up doing that i saw one next night i i sang the song he put a cape
on my shoulders and it became a thing somehow it developed into not only dave doing it but
then other people doing it and before you knew it it had developed into an every friday night thing
during the long station id break i would do this long song and then we would come back from the
station id you'd see me down on my knees screaming like james brown and everybody came out and and
put that cape on me i think the highlight was when james himself uh put the cape on me i couldn't
even in the band i said you know somebody's going to do the cape we're doing it tonight because this
is when they're available i can't tell you who it is but when it came out it was pandemonium
you're the godfather
darling love was my favorite singer as a kid when she sang today i met the boy
i'm going to marry i just i don't know it it reached me like nothing else did and
um i got to work with her back in the 80s and in a show about the songwriter ellie
greenwich who wrote a lot of her material dave letterman came to see the show and she sang
an original christmas song uh from the famous phil spectre christmas album her song was called
christmas baby please come home an original rock song when dave heard it in in this show down at
the bottom line nightclub he said let's have her do that this christmas she came on and sang it
just with the four of my four us four musicians singing and playing behind her and it was a smash
and she before you knew it she was doing it every single christmas and darlene is very
happy to say that it gave her a sort of a second life and she's still going strong at 80 years old
you