hi I'm Chris Schukei I worked with Paul Shaffer in the CBS Orchestra as music coordinator from 1993
until 2003 continued on helping with American Federation of Music contracts you could refer
to me as the Mulholland and Barrie of AF of M payments I grew up in central Nebraska which is
not necessarily the media hotbed but luckily my parents were very attuned to Great comedy
and introduced me to Dave at a very early age I remember having a particular episode
that I literally had vhsed and taken to my high school to try to get kids to watch to
try to spread the gospel of Dave a viewer male joke asking how you know how old the show is
how do we have some videotape we can show Ed that will demonstrate what that indicator is
here it comes oh yeah watch closely here this should answer the question for you okay so
then Sphero Agnew turns to Martha Mitchell and he's says oh why don't you take a nap
say hello to uh Paul schofer thanks hi Paul
Christmas at late show was unlike any place else and of course it focused on the darling
love performance starting in late November we would start to get choir members string sections
extra musicians it became and rightfully so this holiday tradition that obviously
still stands that people remember is fantastic television that brought you into the holidays
for a kid from central Nebraska who hadn't seen a lot of the world the
ability to travel with the show was amazing San Francisco I still think
has one of the best Chiron quiz intro songs that Paul ever did
wow what was that that's San Francisco by the Village People Tom Hanks flew in on
a private plane Wednesday the guest was Dean King
wow the memories I have of London were Chuck Berry needing to get paid in cash before he
would perform I don't think anybody had dollars on them there in London he was not going to budge
we were scrambling to try to put that together by the way Chuck the queen would like her pants back
a Van Morrison that might have been had a
few drinks before being a little unwieldy with our talent people
blah blah blah
that's what you you you you you you you
one of the things that I enjoyed the most was you would get these great writers pieces that
would come on and they would ask Paul to write a song one of my favorites was
a sort of sitcom that was called the Letterman family Paul wrote this great
song for that with great will leave vocals for it it makes me laugh every time I see it
we're living and loving loving and living living and learning learning and giving
and taking taking and sharing I'm searching and finding finding and caring
we're laughing and crying crying and hoping helping and trying trying a cold beds
All In The Name of Love occasionally Paul would be gone he did Blues Brothers 2000 he would take
some of the the high holidays off too and we got into a nice mode where we would bring Warren Zevon
in to sub for him he felt like it was a great opportunity to show kind of his comedic side
he always did want sandwiches ready to go when he got into the dressing room and of course on
that last show he mentions the line enjoy every sandwich and I think he truly did when he was at
Late Show when I first heard about this I think that you were in touch with Paul's assistant you
actually had a conversation with him and and he said it was the the most bizarre thing kind of
the stunning revelation of this but yet Warren was making jokes just like that now how is that
possible I'm not sure I could make jokes like that if I had had that info you think so I know
you would really yeah let me just say now thank you for being here and thank you for everything
thank you occasionally we would do these remote pieces and it was going to be new
for spring problem number one for new for spring was that morning it actually snowed
and then one of the jokes was that there was a three-legged race and somehow I was
going to get tied up with Dave well you can imagine that's the last thing Dave thought
of when he got up in the morning was I hope I can be tied together with Chris shookai
you'll remember in the 90s long distance services were huge and Saving Private Ryan
was a big giant movie going on so one of the Riders had this idea to combine them
and do this big theatrical piece that ultimately turns in to a long distance
commercial we shot all day on Friday and it is pouring rain and it does not let up it was
the wettest the coldest and how I escaped pneumonia in that shoot I will never know
foreign
you know when you got appearance fees there was a u5 which meant you had under five lines but
the gold standard was principled and the best opportunity to get that was who asked for it
from Lawrence Kansas Lawrence Kansas hey the heartland that's the uh I believe it's
the home of the University of Kansas isn't it yeah Jayhawks you go to school there yeah I'm
a student all right what do you study um I'm not really sure at this point but very undecided uh
what can I do for you well I'm not going to be able to stay around for the whole show and I was
wondering if you could show me how it turns out oh sure you want to see the rest of the show Hal
do me a favor this guy's got a lead going back to Lawrence Kansas or something fast forward through
the rest of the show let him see what happens okay watch this yeah good good question there we are
Sinbad right yeah we're chatting it's in bed having a nice time now here's
Paul Paul grabs oh let's grabs him wait a minute let's oh my God
I guess I'll get to see Sinbad at least yeah that's right
the bit with Jim coming out was he was going to celebrate New Years big time I'm sort of
standing there Jim comes and just pops me luckily he did do a fake good fake punch
Happy New Year
a lot of times people would ask well where do you stand during the show going on and
myself and Michael ferranti who also helped with the band would be to the
side of the band so that we could be accessed very quickly if there were
any issues so what I still get more than anybody seeing is the Chris Farley intro
I love you
I think this was a Carter and Craig bit it was Alan calter going around
and punching people and it started with one person and then continuously would
build they'd run the exact same people and then add people to it turned out
to be a great segment for me that ran throughout the entire summer and gave
me some wonderful appearance fees that helped with my wedding cost got any messages for me
no uh huh
hey Chris
hey Alan
oh hi Alan
when CBS Orchestra did Jimmy Fallon last year Jimmy talked about how Paul's laugh
was an indicator that oh this is really funny there are just so many times where
you hear him laughing on the side and you just think oh well that is super funny
all right it's start time if you if you press the silent alarm
Mr Wizard
get out of here get back in the audience get back in the
audience where you belong what are you sneaking up here on me like that
Paul often he had one of if not the hardest job on television always he could read Dave's mind almost
as well as anybody could and I think a great example of that was this band that came on and the
lead singer is shimming around and singing Dave's loving that and he goes give me a little more of
that well this band doesn't know what he's asking for so Paul with just not even a second hesitation
knows exactly what Dave wants and Paul gets down there and shimmies on the ground just perfectly
you know another area of course that Paul was genius was play-ons for guests it became
a game I think across the world of hearing the song and trying to make the connection
of what it was with the guest Jeffrey Tambor known for Larry Sanders and the term hey now
Paul would play the Crowded House song Don't Dream It's Over that has the line
hey now hey now and then some guests would come on they had songs that they have done
Paul would know those songs and play him during break Will Smith was one of those they'd give
him a mic and then he'd start rapping and do an entire show for the audience
foreign
yeah the cake it started very organically where Paul just kind of came out of the pit and was sort
of singing this song and dropped to his knees and just kind of for a show for the studio audience
not even part of the actual show Dave was so Charmed and tickled by this that they thought
well this is a great idea and let's do a cape Paul committed to that drop to the stage floor we
needed to get him some knee pads for that because the first couple times where he didn't have those
that was hurting him he wanted to do a drop to the stage floor and then my favorite always would be
as he was being led out by whatever celebrity he would sing their name and it was funny to
see then the reaction from each celebrity as they stood there and held the cake look at that
Al Green was always amazing he could get this energy in the crowd he'd
start hopping and getting that energy going and it was just a sight to behold
yeah oh Chicago you know what I mean
it was Pete Townsend solo there was this energy coming off of his guitar
you could just feel in the room it's almost impossible to articulate that
what that is when that would hit but boy you just knew it because you felt it in your bones
into the elbow
foreign
yes I just flew all the way from New York City yeah I thought you were hanging from a Ledge
oh that that letter was just a joke a joke
thank you