Marc Karzen built bumpers, went to the SNL after party and took pictures of Bob Dylan and Liberace on the same night.

you're watching the Letterman podcast with Mike chisen endorsed by the hello Deli yeah welcome once again to the Letterman podcast my name is Mike Chisum uh I love the returning guests the returning guests are fantastic this one in particular I'm really excited about I've wanted to had them back for a long time uh but just schedules and and timing Universal timing I guess you'd call it we've got Mark Caren coming back which I'm so stoked about because he was our guest all the way back to episode two so of the uh dozens of people who have embraced this show most of you probably haven't gone that far back uh because many of my early episodes were intolerable and I understand that but thank goodness things are uh evolving ever so slightly uh there it is right there late night bumpers uh phenomenal book phenomenal history in the Mythos of uh David Letterman are the bumpers from Late Night with David Letterman Mark Caren the Helmsman of those bumpers but not uh not alone certainly not alone and I love how quickly Mark uh talks about the collaboration of what it took to build these bumpers now here's the thing go to late night bumpers.com and you're going to find not just the book available for purchase although everybody who is an Enthusiast of Late Night with David Letterman highly recommend this book but he's actually starting to release the bumpers available now uh to be purchased in different sizes and he's got some a cool couple special very cool four packs which we're going to highlight right as soon as this episode starts and I'm going to get some of these images out there as well for the holiday season though we've still got time just somebody in your life uh if you yourself are an Enthusiast and you got people asking you hey what would you like for the holiday season is there a present that I can get you or whatever send them to late night bumpers.com there are some very very cool things there and I just appreciate Mark who is an artist uh first photographer uh extraordinaire and uh from a from a a bygone era but has kept up with the technology which I just love as well um late night bumpers.com the Letterman podcast very very proud to present uh for the second time Mark Carson Mark I'm so excited to have you back it's been since all the way back to Letterman podcast number two uh you showed faith in us right from the very beginning when the crazy Canadian guy kind of reached out to you out of nowhere and uh I just want to say thank you so much for everything that you've done in the Letterman Mythos and thank you again very much for coming back on the Letterman podcast great to be here Mike very proud of what you guys have created and the show is cool and digs deeper and it's loads of fun uh it seems a lot longer than a year and uh five months or whatever it's been it's been a really fun ride you're a part of that ride um a couple little things things right off the top uh Dave um and Company moved to a blue and yellow or a blue and gold kind of color scheme fairly early on in in much of the uh outfacing materials obviously the jackets and things like that were you part of that color scheme uh decision um it's hard I I know that the blue idea the idea of a blue coat I kind of was leaning in that direction but we had you know wardrobe people that were involved I think the yellow I don't think I was made the the call for the yellow which you know I love um but um I think I was the one who was pointing towards blue as opposed to like red or green as the body color but yellow I don't think was my call for this but I love it yeah I love it too um that's something that I've always been curious about if it was a university color of some sort or a team color that that that that that he loved but the the the blue and yellow um you know early on again here's the cover of late night bumpers still available go to late night bumpers.com uh and uh highly highly highly recommended uh for anybody who has an Enthusiast of David Letterman and Company in their life get this book right to the very first jacket the blue and gold now we're at a place where Dave is giving away a piece of the Marquee from the Ed Sullivan Theater uh which I have entered into uh many times already to try and get that right to the very end that blue and gold uh hit it's funny there was branding before branding was a thing yeah I mean but that was the fun thing about you know working on the show the creative process from my standpoint was just completely no one had any idea how long the show was going to go y so what we were doing was you know why not what do we have to lose and let's try this and bumpers like how long oh you know we'll shoot these for three or four months and it was a nice gig but you know who knew that they would catch on and become like a part of the show so that was the the greatest part for me was just that the ability to see things evolve on television yes over years over you know 11 years for me well and and um you know and now all these years later being able to look back with the benefit of hindsight uh we mentioned this the first time you were on the show way back in episode two uh how how you didn't know that you were kind of creating um the brand that is late night and and that phase especially but the bumpers were an extremely uh powerful component in creating the overall picture of what Late Night with David Letterman was uh we're going to get into that um the cool thing about having you on now is so we've already built Rapport we've we've we've built you've talked about a lot of the framework of how these things happened back in the day um and we're here now uh for SE episode two a little bit more prepared with some anecdotes and things like that we're going to talk about the store and some of these bumpers that are iconic and are now available uh through latenight bumpers.com and and and we're going to talk about that and go through some of them each of these bumpers have a story behind them I am going to first though uh you have been so generous going into your private archives to send us some fantastic photos that you took and they all have stories accompanied with them there's Hunter S Thompson and uh boy oh boy you want to talk about two Titans of who have added to the culture of Americana David Letterman and Hunter S Thompson right there um what an awesome photo and what an awesome moment give us some behind the scenes on that my friend so over time having you know being a part of the show making the bumpers which were all shot outside of the show when I saw that you know there were certain um guests on the show I could you know get you know approval to come on set and shoot production Stills and then they were cool with me um you know U giving them to Rolling Stone magazine that was my main um feed I mean otherwise I had a syndication syndication agency that would sell stuff yeah but you had a relationship with rolling stone already though right yes yeah yes and so when I would say hey Hunter you know Hunter who obviously was a part of Rolling Stone I would you know go and shoot production SKS you know and other you know key you know celebs so so here I am you know with Hunter on the coming on the show and and I'm just standing on set i'm you know usually I was the there was either um an NBC photographer who was mainly shooting black and white and I would shoot color which was always tricky under tungsten lights and so I'm trying to grab a moment with Hunter he comes out and he brings this box which he puts on Dave's desk and he's talking about all sorts of strange things which has it's been noted that the the show had to cut some of this stuff out because it was bizarre and so as he's walking off stage and he goes through the little green room I'm there I meet him in the hallway and there's Sandra feron who's the segment producer on that on that segment and so it's Sandra ferton Hunter Thompson and me standing nose to nose and Sandra says Hunter thank you so much it was great to have you on the show and Hunter says listen I got a great idea why don't we take this box it's filled with m80s and let's put it behind the set and so when the next guest comes on we'll blow it up it'll be incredible and Sandra says well you know Hunter we wouldn't want to interrupt someone else's segment so maybe maybe another time and and I'm you know processing what's actually happening before me not knowing if Hunter is serious or if he's kidding and you know whether there really are explosives in this box and you know it dawn on me that it's probably he's probably serious's I don't didn't S I didn't think he was making a joke the quick little side note to that is a a few years prior to that I was in Aspen skiing with a friend and we're sitting in a bar and Annie Lebovitz comes walking in and she is a friend of my friend Ron masarus we're sitting there hey Annie what's going on Annie comes over and sits down with us and she and my friend Ron says are you okay and she says I've just been um at Hunter Thompson's house taking a portrait of him and I'm shooting Polaroids and he says let me look at that and he looks at the PO at the Polaroid and say and and decides he hates it grabs her camera throws it into the burning fireplace and that was the end of the shoot and so Annie's in front so Something Told me at that moment that Hunter was serious that he really did have live ammo sitting in that box which Sandra Fon was able to diffuse the situation that's one of the craziest stories of being on a Sho in my entire life you know it's funny um you're talking about I don't want to say you were talking about Hunter Thompson before he was Hunter Thompson because he was but there's a lot of legend that is growing in those moments same with Annie Leo like like Annie was Annie at that time but you look at the legend that grew there as well and how that story has mushroomed into when you look at these two personalities and who they've become since then what a fantastic story that is and and and I can only imagine what she would have been feeling having that happen at that point her camera thrown into the fire by this this this character of a of a man uh what a great story that is too thank you for sharing that with us um yeah the Hunter Thompson stuff all the way highly recommend I don't know Don I think you have a you have a a compilation of that uh don Gill's on the episode here he's just in the background uh I'm sure he'll come into the foreground at some point too I think there is a compilation out there also seeing Hunter on um on Conan O'Brien on Late Night with Conan O'Brien also some very very very funny stuff um for those out there who are Hunter S Thompson fans many there's a huge cross-pollination I think between Letterman fans and Hunter Fans I think that's one of the reasons why they jelled so well is H there's a similar mischievous chaotic sensibility there so thank you very very much for bringing that uh We've also got uh where are we here now I like this one here um we've talked a lot in the last year and a half mark about James Brown every time one of the uh like will and Paul and and and different people who come on the show who've been there for a long time they talk about James Brown and and The credibility that he lent to uh Late Night with David Letterman the moments that he gave to uh everybody with that this is a fantastic behind the scenes shot look at Jerry Mulligan right there and his uh Prime and His glory um man what a cool shot this is so there's this is a a picture that says everything I don't need to I mean there's nothing more to say than this is a behind the scenes moment when this is what you see in the audience that nobody at home sees and this is the energy and the intensity and you look at James's face and Dave's face and the inputs that are coming at the two of them I mean three people are yelling at Dave and that's amazing and two people you know coming at James it's just incredible not to mention the music that's playing behind this so the the music on set was loud it wasn't like you know laidback so they're hammering while this is while This Moment's taking place I mean I just I just love this moment it absolutely is um you know and it's funny that's one of the things that didn't change you know uh uh I I don't know actually on Late Show how many times I've seen um you know obviously uh when a when a sitting president or someone important politically was there and you see the commercial uh what's going on you know perhaps it's a it's it's a little bumper while something's happening maybe an announcement happening at the desk and you see Dave's people around him and you see the guest people around them um you know people think about late night and how it was sort of the little show that could but even back then that was the first anniversary by the way that James Brown shot uh it wasn't the night that will talked about and and the magical night um that that Paul talked about where they got to perform with him and they kept going and all of that but um you know interesting you've got these two an upand cominging Titan and then this Legend in music and their teams doing their thing you taking that shot was that ever were you all was there a sensitivity that you needed to have during moments like that because I mean it is kind of vulnerable and intimate and inside um or did you by that point have cart blanch you you could kind of take any photo you wanted as long as everybody was in the studio there was no um I mean I just had to be uh clear on the lines that I could or could not cross I wasn't walking around behind the set and stuff stuff like that I mean I had to you know um there was a lot of uh there were a lot of eyes on everything and everybody um but as far as editorially no I mean I wasn't saying oh can I release these images that that's where you know I had the trust I wasn't going to release images that were uh putting anyone in a bad light yeah well and of course and and and um that's the Integrity of of of an artist which you are of the highest caliber you know we're were talking about Hunter and Annie Hunter with what he wrote Annie with with with photos she's taken you are absolutely in that same category when it comes to uh uh the art that you are a complete master of and I'm just so grateful that you're sharing these insights with us here uh and you and I have talked behind the scenes a couple of times about how you know you have rolls and rolls and rolls of of of of of negatives of of things that uh that potentially could be presented or Unleashed on the world and if there was a venue and a right thing to do so hint hint to worldwide pants there's there's some there's a lot of meat on that bone still isn't there sure yes and we'll leave it at that um Okay so we've also got uh and this one here is uh there we go you want to talk Legends right there holy crap uh first off I'm certain Dave is very excited about how he looks in this picture today with the benefit of uh today's fashion uh Bob Dylan Liberace and David Letterman good Lord this is one of those moments this is you know I see the guests from for the next week and I I'm you know I said yes I'm going to show up on that day I need to shoot you know I guess so so and Liberace is like on the show too I'm like you know this is whatever 40 years ago you know Liberace is you know iconic and obviously on the on a different side of the spectrum and so so I shoot uh Bob Dylan and um some great moments um and they air run in Rolling Stone and so forth but while I'm standing there and the show's over and everybody's kind of moving away someone comes running over and says Dylan wants a shot and that's so you know they're look looking at me and there was also the NBC uh photographer was there that day as well he was shooting black and white and I'm shooting color yep so so Dave comes you know back out on the stay on to the set in his cat regular clothes and they because Dylan wanted a shot with Liberace and Dave so Dylan realizes this is a moment that needs to be captured um and that was you know so we're sitting and Dave you look at you know the expression on D CH she's like this is the this is like an incredible moment like who could ever imagine this scenario and Dave sitting in the middle and Liberace came on the show I think he was doing a cooking segment he didn't play so Liberace did a cooking SE segment and Dylan played um and I have those images as well but that that this is that's a shot that has come up Time After Time After Time over the years like what about that moment so I love these Echoes uh The Echoes where a legend respects a legend of today is respecting a Legend of their day and and I just um that is you know iconic doesn't even begin to kind of that kind of starts the The Narrative about something like that you know and and Dave right in the middle of it looking at you know at that point Dylan of course is is completely revered and and he already is at a ascended to a certain pedestal and then you go to the end of Dave's run in 2015 and the second last show or the third last show or whatever it was and Dylan uh on there performing and and and even in that show there you know uh something the way they shot it was different and and there was Direction there the fact that Dylan asked for that shot that you took back in the day uh you know there's a there's an echo there as well and uh very very cool um Okay so we've got the 747 show let's talk a little bit about that I talked with my boy Rick about that show a lot um I bring up Rick every single time I possibly can on this show so that's what I we we we did talk about this show a lot though uh talk about the 747 the the the the plane ride show well so someone had some wild idea to you know let's shoot um the anniversary show the fourth anniversary show on a 747 Y and so several weeks in advance I got access with the bumper team uh PUK and Ed so Bob PUK who actually we just lost this year very sadly so all tribute and respect to Bob PUK who made this happen yep um Ed Hall who was the graphics producer um and then Mar Donnell who was Dave's assistant came with us as well and she was um she played as staris uh in a few of the shots that uh for the bumpers so we had access to this to a 747 uh in a tww hanger at JFK two maybe three weeks in advance so we could do the shoo and then do all our post production and then we all got to fly down to Miami and so here this is stupid pet tricks you know in the front in the nose of a 747 I mean it's just amaz look Steve Jordan the the Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan on the right hand side of the Fantastic yeah this is a and H it's fantastic and and also uh we can take this and we can oh by the way the the 747 D Don's telling me that's Merl's idea and Dave sandborn is also there there's Dave yeah yeah David sandborn is there as well so um and then as we want to marry this a little bit to uh to late night bumpers to the book here's shot from the book from that episode now the shot with Calbert that was that from the show itself or was that beforehand that was a shot in the on the on the airplane that was not a bumper I just so there's a few pages in the book where I have some behind the scenes photos as well as bumpers so on the right you see a bumper this is one of my favorite bumpers it's just couldn't be more low Tech simplistic yep fun not and unpretentious this is you know airplane food what else do you need to say um and then on the left is a shot of Calbert on the plane while we're flying down to Miami so I kind of uh mushed them together I uh I love this one here I was on another Show recently and we were talking about the opening credits of Napoleon Dynamite and and um and and it very you talk about simplistic and and not necessarily having to be edited so much this uh bumper here was there any I mean and again we've talked about this on the original time you were on the show here no Photoshop back then it was a lot more of an art uh very inaccessible uh for the public the way it is today to edit photos and change them around and do some things how much editing would gone into this particular photo other than of course lighting and colors and things like that this was it pretty much staged the way it is and you take the photo or was there some post production done on this photo there's a lot of post here the well with David Letterman his hand so what we would do we shot on film yep then we would make a a print and then on the print the graphics would be applied if needed so with David Letterman is drawn on the print by hand yep and and the late night part on the right is a Polaroid that was shot of red and mush and on the Polaroid scratched is like by hand late night so that's actually just a polar an sx70 smeared late night like it was drawn by hand and then cut out and glued onto the print to make it look like someone wrote Late Night with their spoon or something uh very very cool uh again you know I don't think a lot of folks understand the care and attention and and and the amount of people that it took to make one of these bumpers never mind how many of them you did over time do you have a number as to how many bumpers uh you created for the show over the years it's around a thousand a thousand and and I mean you know obvious viously they were they were reused sometimes do you know the one that was used the most they were all reused not all of them but 747 one like that um you know airplane food that was reused that was shot for that special but that was the kind of shot that could be reused most you know holiday bumpers would happen M you know once a year yep um you know Christmas lights and you know carved pumpkins and things like that um and everything else was used the what what was most fun about the bumpers and the way they were used in the show is that Brian ma alone the assistant director on the show would hear um you know a guest make some reference to you know I'm sorry I'm late I was in a cab stuck in traffic and call up a taxi cab bumper so that wasn't planned they would they they would plan bumpers for the show and subject to change so everything could dynamically change on the fly so that was the cool you like any one of these bumpers you've got there that is that's really cool to know because I think that uh uh folks who watched late night late show the whole way appreciated the fact that the director or or or somebody in the control room on the Fly could pull out a sound effect you know obviously for the breaking glass or the game show something like that the fact that they were Dynam Ally um you know aware for for bumpers and they could do that on the Fly that is very interesting uh that's something that I don't think we've ever talked about on here and by the way uh go back go back to that for one second yeah yep so what's fun about this I mean there's a few things this is literally grabbed on the Fly this is me um walking to 30 Rock for a meeting and I've always got a camera on my shoulder and I just I'm grabbing taxi cabs just like we need more taxi cabs and this is also a daylight bumper which is unusual most everything we shot wanted to look and feel like it was shot at night but this is a daylight shot but the funniest thing about this shot is look at the look at the car it's like totally sprung onto the back wheels like they're like five dead bodies in the trunk or something he took the words out of my mouth I mean it's and you don't can't even see anybody in the back seat so it's like do they you know do they have like you know a ton of bricks in the trunk or whatever it's just hysterical uh so dawn has chimed in here um and and it's cool that you talk about how it's a rare daytime shot the cab was uh first used and I don't know if it was used again or not but it's from The Late Night 1985 Morning Show so if you remember they did the morning show uh episode of Late Night with David Letterman and a daytime bumper shot being used for that show extremely clever a great example of the thought and Care put into uh into this I love that Don says he's gonna have the bumper stats uh once he finishes compiling the bumper database um so I mean I just love that Don's work is never done when it comes to this um that morning show similar shots from the regular nighttime show open but here in daylight so yeah you know paying attention to that I I I love that I love how every single one of these things have a story behind them we talked a little bit about uh the rights and you finally the labor of love and how long it took to get this book and and and the uh and and the idea of you actually being able to sell these prints to the public how long it took and how how many roads you had to cross and and and um and it's just so long but it's finally finally here go to late night bumpers.com and you can check this stuff out right now I want to talk about um you know obviously it's cool that you can get some of these original bumpers but you have I love the four packs that you have going this is a new thing that you've created and you've got two of them two seasonal ones uh that that people can get talk a little bit about the why you chose these images and then there's the other one as well um and you can get these on Late Night bumpers.com right now so over the years I've sold sets of bumpers uh to people who are kind of programming images in their mind that feel like I've got a truck up inside um who want to decorate a wall so not just one image but two or four and I've sold as you know many as eight bumpers to one person who want to you know you know kind of create a a an environment and so this idea of grouping up a set of bumpers um to represent either a season or a time of year or a theme is something I've just been playing with and I started doing some test prints you know over the last year and sort of got them to a place where it fell like wow this kind of works and it's simple and they're printed on super high-end art paper so in terms AR of archival quality and um pigment uh Inc um Canon fine art paper I mean this is super high-end quality uh printing uh at work and so they're really cool actually grab one right here please do oh look at that with a ring light reflector so that's about how big they are 16 by 20 inch frame that is perfect for any office for uh for for a rumus room or living room that sort of a thing I just absolutely they're gorgeous they're absolutely gorgeous mark thank you uh thank you very much by the way on behalf of all the the letter miss the Letterman Enthusiast Community for actually releasing these things it's fantastic um they all have a story behind them and the fact that people can kind of get a four for one what's the price point on that 249 yeah 249 and I mean do they show up r or are they flat when they show up um these will be flat sent flat yeah um yeah that's that's absolutely uh fantastic that you have those and there's the two there's the two seasonal ones so far in the four packs and we're going to see how they sell and what people kind of want um the idea again there's a thousand of these things out there um you know putting them together in sort of a you know a four-pack postcard size that's a that's a really cool thing that you're doing there I love the creativity and um and if you have any ideas for for for Mark as to um you know needs or wants from the community please feel free to contact him at late night bumpers.com uh there are a couple that I do want to go through here uh one in particular I've been in contact with Bill short um and he is great great great guy the great Bill short widge uh what was his role uh during the process when you were there so Bill's father was one of the senior art directors at NBC and so Bill literally grew up in the art department and you know uh ultimately got a job working as a a graphic artist at NVC um and started around the time that I was there so that was in 1980 I'm pretty sure that's when I did my first shot for Saturday Night Live but if you go to the hotel graffiti shot yeah I'm looking for it right now I thought I had it here but right there you go boom oh this guy right here that's the one there it is so that's Bill Shortridge yes so this is when we took over um a hotel room at the birkshire place a dum Fey classic which is where all which is where all the guests stayed and you know idea our idea was super simple let's just take over a hotel room and shoot a bunch of bumpers that you know with you know before and after food and bathrooms and beds and all this kind of stuff um and this is this is sort of the bumper creative process in full flight so I'm literally I said Bill put on a bathrobe and grab this beer can and stand on the back of the bed he's like what I said just stand on the back of the beer back back of the bed like you're uh spray painting graffiti that's a beer can he's holding right there so that's a beer can looks like you know gra uh spray paint and so you know we do this wide shot and do and on the print you know they printed maybe a half a dozen of these and with real airbrush not Photoshop this is the quintessence of you know hand done collage Graphics yep that's just painted in purple airbrush onto the print and then The Late Late Night with David Letterman neon that's also another photographic print that was cut out and glued onto the print as well onto the the chibi s uh was that food that you actually ate there or was that all just staged no no no we we weren't wasteful we had to you know we were Eco ecos sensitive in those glad you didn't scrimp on the champagne and the dessert well done um thank you NBC for that well so the hotel was that room was occupied for about three days oh my gosh the shoot was one day but the room was used for three days and some of sort of had a fun time over the weekend the uh uh Bill actually also told me to ask you this is a good little segue and you talked about it slightly in the first time the first time you appeared on episode two but I was too daed and excited to to to to go down that Rabbit Hole uh you talked about how and Bill told me to talk about the parties that you would go to including the Saturday Night Live parties and some of the After parties that you guys went to um let's talk about that a little bit because when you're telling me in the 80s you're going to Saturday Night Live uh After parties shame on me for not going down that path and asking about it are we talking that's it's not original cast is it um well I got there in I start um I had a roommate who worked on SNL and so she was a writer production assistant which in those days meant here's my script marked up rewrite it y on the typewriter okay so she on Tuesday night when they would write the show she would come wandering back to our apartment that we shared um like you know six or seven in the morning having typed all night and then make Xerox copies and so she started giving me her extra tickets the staff were given tickets for dress rehearsal not for the live show and so I started going to dress rehearsals and then P I got became friendly with PUK he asked me if I could do this shoot of a Saturday Night Live written in wet cement in front of 30 Rock so I showed up on a few hours notice got the shot right and that was my entry to working in television and so bill was working on the show right around the same time and that's how we became friends and then two years later or a year and a half later when it was um Letterman started and PUK and I were PS and he said you know like working on this idea and why don't we talk about how we could you know not have a logo and you know do these photos and do graphics on the photos I'm like fantastic so that's how it all got going and and so uh bill was you know worked on tons and tons of the bumpers the bumpers would you know I'd shoot them theyd make a print and sometimes everything was in frame yep and sometimes they needed after Graphics like we were talking earlier and so you know Bill Shortridge Shortridge was one of the designers uh poop did some arand Schumer was there for I think just one or two seasons yep um and then uh and that was the that was the main Squad shout out to Arland right there that's um so let's go back to these parties here so okay we're talking probably second cast um you know after the after Lauren flipped over which makes sense because that's where you guys got Jim Downey uh over at Letterman and and whatnot because there had been that shift happening with Lauren moving out and then eventually of course to come back in again um these these some of these After parties where would they would they all take place in the same spot or did they uh did it move around all the time it was always a secret it always uh during dress rehearsal someone would walk around with pieces of paper cut up with an address and just hand them to certain people so there's obvious no cell phones in those days NOP people are leaving messages on voicemails or just knowing like this is where the party is going to be and it was different every week yeah so they'd be Upper East Side at you know elanes and downtown you know in you know in the meat packing district and Wall Street strange places Midtown all over the place um so every week it was a mystery but nobody was even at the party until 1:30 yeah so the show ran from 11:30 to 1 and then by the time everybody got down there so then the trick was getting to the party so grabbing a cab was one option but as SNL got bigger you know limos became a part of it Town Cars first and then limos and people jumping in limos hey can I jump you know grab a ride so these parties were epic and you know still go to this day but back in those days it was literally a little piece of paper that was handed out to ke uh staff on set at 8h you saw some crazy stuff well we were up all night I mean we would go to the party at 11 you know 1:30 to 2:30 3:30 and then there was sometimes a party after the party yep so especially in the early years Dan akroy and John balushi um rented this abandoned bar down downtown and it was the blue their their version of the blues bar and so sometimes we would go down to the blues bar and they would would you know was boarded up in some weird weird little triangular spot that doesn't exist to this day because they've you know re built that whole part of Manhattan at this point now but we would go there and they would have amps and a drum set and come in and flip on the power with you know six packs and there were some bottles of Boo and and you know there would be like jam sessions at like four in the morning with Joe Walsh and Bonnie rate and whoever you know happened to be in the room yeah uh it was incredible incredible stuff and and uh again you look at stories uh from today's version of those events there's a story about uh Prince performing at one of those I think it was at the SNL 40 if I'm not mistaken and and that you know shows up because of what you're talking about I was hoping that that bar might come up because I I've mentioned it on the show once or twice before but nobody's ever given um uh you know taken that baton and been able to run with it that's fantastic that you've seen some of that stuff again entertainment history that you got a chance to not just document but to witness uh in your your role in that I want to go back to that um that airbrush photo in the hotel really quick uh airbrushing the actual photo itself would you have five copies of the photo in front of you and it would take a couple of takes to get the airbrush exactly right or was it mostly one take uh that's it well that was the graphic designers doing that so I you know they would order it depended what the graphics you know we would sometimes we talk about you know what the graphics would be while we're discovering a shot and it was obvious and simple but for something that you know was going to be with an airbrush or you know like there were some Coney Island shots that had a lot of airbrushing and so they'd order several prints of those and sometimes you know need to try it you know a second or third time yeah Don's telling me that the SNL 40th was after Prince died but Fallon tells us story about prince playing at one of those parties so that's uh there's one here that Dawn wants to talk about which I have uh pre-loaded in here my gosh it looks almost like we're professional at what we're doing here uh no it's not that one it's the Union Station one and that's one I this is I think this is the Union Station one right it's Union Square Union Square sorry um and did he say that let me just see yeah Union Square sorry that was my my bad um let's talk about this one here for a second I love this one here because this is kind of as close as you're going to get to like a a gig poster for Late Night with David Letterman uh I love this shot this was our this is our first bumper shoot this is the first time we went out and the B we had these posters with us um that you see of Dave that say late night but you'll notice they only say late night yes and so so um so we found this little location this is before Union Square had been re constructed so this is you know like they're building you know they're going to redo the entire Square um and buildings around it and and all sorts of sniping uh snipe posters on this wall and so you know we put up a big strobe and lit this wall but these posters were all um staple gunned onto the wall wall yep and you know we kind of talked about it lightly about you know where with David Letterman would go and and we we hadn't set the rules totally this was done just of of note this was shot in on 1981 so we you know needed images that were going to go in as be used as bumpers which this was but this was also used in the main title sequence yep so we you know had to shoot things in advance for the February um First Premiere and so this was probably shot around you know December of 81 and so the graphic that says with David letterin that's on the print but everything else is in camera oh that's cool look Miles Davis I mean gang of four Manhattans and Cloud Nine Cloud9 is a club I don't even know okay uh yeah I just a ban Cloud n yeah perhaps it was the band yeah um this is this is cool that you uh uh are able to recall so much of of these shots and and when you think about it uh it makes sense you're in that hotel for three days a lot of that stuff's gonna you know permeate before things start getting foggy Don also wanted to note that there were other food shots from that uh uh that shoot in the hotel room that were used for other bumpers I think we got 10 10 or 15 shots out of that shoot I mean we that one was one of our best shoots because you know it's like kind of a fresh weird World um so yeah I mean we're everything from do not disturb signs on the door to you know laundry and luggage and bathroom stuff we got a lot champagne and a you know champagne bucket very very very cool let's uh let's let's go through a few more of these before we uh uh before we close the curtain on this one here now this one here I love very very much because Morty's pool is the title of this one here yeah this is uh now this is we're into the show this is I don't remember the year but I'm guessing it was around 87 or so so five years into it the logo is well established by this point yeah so the logo is established and that logo which is obviously on the print after the fact I mean it looks pretty cool like it's through the pool but that was shot that's a logo that was on the on a you know a graphic stand shot on Polaroid as I was saying earlier so shot at an angle and on the Polaroid if you you know squish over it while it's developing it ripples so that's how that ripple effect was oh my God so that's a Polaroid that's shot at an angle in color and and you know someone taking a pen and squishing it to make it and then the xacto knife to to cut it out and put it on the photo is that is that the deal yeah yeah oh practical practical practical and again it's a lost art that people just don't consider uh who do we have in the chair that's Morty that is Morty there we go it's Morty and Morty's pool with a fruit drink asleep with a cigar and it's it's it's a classic I started smoking cigars because of those guys um I and I've said that when Mor's on the show I told him I started wearing Blazers and jeans because of him I I started um you know how much of the the influence of that show is just it can't be understated I love that one so much I see all the time he's a great guy here in La yeah absolutely uh here of course is the cover of the book we talked about that a lot in the first episode that uh Mark appeared on backing way back Letterman podcast episode two um I love this one here this is a fantastic one who's in the chair in this one me I may have known that so this is uh as you see happy anniversary so we had props organized to do like bumpers for an anniversary um show yep and so I am literally coming home from New Year's Eve January you know January 1 morning and thought wait a minute you know and just kind of hung this stuff on the wall and um put a lamp over my head and the key as I've said in the past the key to this is the fact that you see the light bulb silhouetted yes it sells that idea of this nut job with a lamp shed on his head which is I don't know it's fun and so you see Late Night with David Letterman that's on the print y everything else is in camera um and who took the who took the photo if that's you in the shot my roommate fantastic fantastic uh um and again you know you talk about some summer fun yeah you know just those Graphics that's a CL simple graphic colorful we went out to um Ed Hall's family had a house um on Long Island and belong to a beach club and so we did a bumper shoot at the beach club and it's like oh let's you know so this all these Graphics are all in C all after the fact late night is done on the print and with David Letterman and white grease pencil on the print a that's perfect um and by the way everybody just so just so you're all aware uh the reason that we're showing these particular shots these are the ones that are all available on Letterman bumpers.com you can go there right now and buy each one of these now the four pack is $249 these guys here are1 199 is that the well they they're different sizes so there's 8 by10 13 by1 19 and 16 by 20 so the price uh varies by size fantastic that you're giving so many options to folks uh for their needs I love this one here because I'm a huge music fan and um and and I just this just makes me think of the band right there especially that incarnation of the world's most dangerous band this seems to me like a guitar store from the 80s when you look at all the different wild designs uh the logo here go Ahad this is this is a classic example this bumper was used I don't know Don can tell you three million times I mean this was used a lot yep and this you know so we went to this guitar store uh I think it was Sam Ash I don't remember exactly but it was right off of Times Square on maybe 47th Street or something like that right off at Times Square and this is just a shot of the wall and that graphic was put put in on the on the print Don just said that inest an exact number three million times he he also said one bumper featured Sue and Ed's dad at a barbue Yeah Yeah from that from that um Beach Club oh from this guy over here yeah during that shoot we have a picture of Sue and Ed's dad at the how about this one here same shoot yes yeah and and I mean when you think about a thousand different bumpers out there the bang for your buck let's get as many as we can from from from each shoot uh oh I like this one here a lot this is uh from our famous Coney Island Bumper Shoot yeah uh where we didn't have a shot list and we just literally sh this was prod created uh do in a documentary sense so this is the three of us wandering around um we had clearance to be there so that was good um and we're you know so we have a strobe and we're just lighting things and super experimental but this is the beauty of this shot and this is obviously all on you know after the fact Graphics Y and painted I'm pretty sure that Arland Shimmer did this bumper uh in a very cartoonish style so the um spaceship is on there and then the you know with David Letterman exclamation is done on the print I mean this is this is a classic and the the stars and the lettering as well would be after the fact as well so you just got a blank rail there you didn't have somebody out there with scissors and construction paper making those letters that was all done after the fact this is uh yeah classic classic example there's a blue version yeah same same shot or same uh same shoot I should say yeah moments later again shout out to arand uh I love the car wash one this one's iconic as well I mean I don't know how many times I've seen this one um on on the show but it was a lot this is one I remember from when I was a kid we were literally driving down the wests side highway and pointed three of us are like oh my God a car wash so we did looped around the block Ed walked into the office and said hey we're taking pictures of the thing you mind have with thing they said sure no problem and so that's my car my Mitsubishi montaro going through the Car Wash and on the original print itself um is that's all that glittery looking late night Car Wash that's with actual glitter paper it's cool oh right on um and then we've got that one we did the car wash oh this one's fun too somebody wearing their letterman jacket uh handling jump jumper cables in a battery hopefully nobody got electrocuted in the in the making of This bumper yeah so this is a a Rena car yep and this is me holding the camera with my right hand and my arm so that's my arm the left hand with the jumper cable me holding the camera and then probably PO either PUK or Ed on the right side with their arm coming in frame it'd be even more fun if you guys had to wear the same jacket and do that and to get the difficulty up that's fantastic and goodness we had two jackets um and then again this one here featured in one of the uh the four packs yeah this is a shoot this is us going up to Bob puk's house in Garrison New York PUK Ed and myself spending a week and doing bumper bumpers in in and around puk's house so this is literally like oh look a lawnmower that's run out of gas sitting in the grass shot at night and this is one of those shots like oh late night will be here and we'll figure out where what with with David Letterman goes later I mean I love that shot because it's just so simple and straightforward yeah yeah that's that's that's very very true and they do go they do kind of run the gamut of simple all the way up to extremely complex and busy and and and uh um it's neat to see the diversity in that again examples of that in uh the late night bumpers book go to late night bumpers.com and check that out there's a bit of jacket trivia that you may know you may not know obviously um as I've done this show lots of little factoids have come out some of them I've retained some of them I haven't uh this one I have Steve Wier told me um a pretty neat jacket story apparently in the first run of jackets that were offered out to the staff they were offered not as necessarily as presents but as something that the staff could buy and there were two tiers of jackets that you could purchase I don't know if you remember this or not but there was uh the jacket with the leather sleeves and then there was the jacket with the vinyl sleeves um and then it ended up being that uh Dave ended up giving them as gifts anyway but uh but they didn't know that originally there was one person on staff who took the vinyl sleeves and that was Carl tetman so he may have one of the rarest of all of the letterman jackets um I haven't substantiated if he actually does have the vinyl or not but that's how Steve remembered it does that ring any bells well the first uh bumper jacket was given out as a present yeah yeah yeah that's what he said he said it ended up being given as a present but originally it was going to be a made to order thing but it ended up being a present anyway so that the response was so strong and yes not to mention the reaction wearing that out in public walking you know up Third Avenue and people pulling you over it's like oh my God where'd you get that that's the coolest thing I saw that on you know like that was a little bit of a you know market research just to wear that out in public but so the response to that was so great that they did another order and so I got another one for my sister yeah um so I have my original one and and I also have my sisters which I stole back from her um I actually have one waiting for me down in La the next time I go down there Jay Ryan has has uh he knows how much of a of a nerd I am when it comes to these things he actually has a late night with David Letterman uh jacket one of The Originals for me and it has Ed Hall's name in it so it might be Ed Halls which is which is pretty cool uh he's part of your he's on my uh name Association list without adding pressure to the idea that it's name Association let's talk about Ed hall for a second I can't wait to have him on uh he and I have been in contact a couple of times he's he's he's going to eventually come around and come on here uh what was his role and uh are you and Ed still in contact to this day Ed and I are still in contact we talk from time to time uh we compare notes on things he lives here in La um and uh he was the producer of our bumper shoots so the three of us would meet and talk about shot list and also Ed was the one who took the final bumper that would be done in the graphics Department by Ed I mean by PUK and Arlon and uh Bill Shortridge and Ed was the person who actually presented them to Dave so Dave saw every bumper before they went on the air and so da so po um I'm sorry so Ed was the person who liased with the uh crew and the staff on you know hey why don't we do you know we need hockey bumpers y great so Ed would get the clearance for us to go to Madison Square Garden organize the shoot you know whether we need needed transportation and then like Dan BL who was an NBC uh props guy he would come on some of our shoots to do props as needed some you know like if we went to Coney Island we didn't need props but if we did you know the hotel room we would come with a set of props with us so the crew was a the the key members of the of the crew were um Ed Hall myself and Bob PUK and then the graphic designers you know came um on some some bumper shoots as well uh I love that MSG one I was actually just gonna open up the book to find it that's a you know Canadian uh and hockey is religion up here I love that one so much the the the banner uh in MSG uh you bring up an interesting point um Ed was the liaison between you know um and and in the final uh you know they would see the final draft of them making sure that they get the final check mark but also requests uh two questions on that uh number one were any bumpers ever rejected that you can recall very few okay there was one for Veterans Day that was rejected that just maybe it felt too uh somber the tone wasn't exactly right yeah and and then the famous um rupik Cube which I've misquoted as being something that was sent as a um a gift from a of a fan viewer but it wasn't it was actually a Rubik's Cube with Dave heads and and icons and it was like a an NBC advertising Department prop you know that they would send out to Affiliates or something and so we shot some Rubik's Cube bumpers and maybe one aired once or something but it I don't know the word I had always heard was Dave didn't like it so that's all I know I'm sure's got other thoughts on that we've we've shown that Rubik's Cube or or one of those Rubik's Cubes here on on on this show DA's got one um and uh and we've talked about this so you've oh there he's looking around I'm not kidding it shows uh the how how much this means to Mark right now that real time in his office he's like yeah okay I can go grab the Rubik's Cube from 40 years ago can't find the Rubik's Cube I do have this oh look at that this is this is pretty collectible that is very collectible this style can you can uh don can confirm that this was used in uh 17,24 different segments he just sent me this I actually if you if you run the tape back you'll actually see me counting on my fingers how long it took Dawn to either appear and show it or send me a picture it was uh within 20 seconds I believe uh that he did that here here's another rarely seen collectible oh look at that sunburn cream not suntan sunburn cream so Props like this actual props we would use these I mean the the this was probably the most used in camera prop of all uh so you bring up an interesting point sunburn cream neat little uh neat little play uh and a little bit of Comedy there uh that you guys on the road using some writing skills or do writers have writers ever contributed um ideas uh for bumpers oh sure I mean a lot of people would you know plant seeds and thoughts and but a lot of most of it came through Brian maon because Brian was the one with his finger on the butt and deciding which bumper would get used for things so things like we need more food we need more you know clothing uh women's clothing kids clothing you kids toys you know people talking about oh yeah my kid is now four years old so you know little bumpers that would refer that what you know would could punctuate you know something that a guest would say that was the key that was my second question what are some of the requests from uh that would go through Ed or whoever requests from you know the higher-ups or the or that part of the production saying you know here's what we want so you just did a good example um answering that question I appreciate that um gosh this has been so much fun we're already I can't believe we're already at this place they go by so so quickly um let's talk a little bit about what you're doing right now what like I mean obviously you've had a career in this you were there at late night for a long time but you you're you're uh it's we had somebody on um Dan flare who you know a cameraman uh for late show and he talked about how he's third generation broadcaster uh you know his his grandfather was a was uh worked for the RCA building his dad um you know a cameraman he became a cameraman I love you got a little bit of that going on in your life as well where where where uh uh you know you got a kid who's doing some pretty major things talk a little bit about what you're doing and then let's talk about Junior for a second so what I'm doing in the last um several years is moving um back into my art photography which is something I've been shooting forever since started you know shooting codoc Chrome in the 70s and I'm revisiting these images and printing and working on two more books of my artwork from uh Paris in the 70s New York in the 80s and Los Angeles in the 90s oh my God so that's happening as we speak but the key kind of uh takeaway as I revisit these images is that these the style and the approach to shooting things in a documentary kind of landscap landscape way is really what led into the look and the feel of the bumpers so there's this parallel track of you know Landscapes images that I would shoot you know when I would be you know back in Kentucky where I was raised or out on the west coast and these you know I see these visual threads from the bumpers and to do my artwork so I'm having an incredibly you know fun creative time revisiting these this work um The Muse is alive and well um and by the way those three cities in those three decades even you just saying that um it it expands the mind the idea of that my favorite of all three of those my wife would probably say Paris in the 70s uh oh there's a part of me with LA in the 90s that's cool too but the idea of New York in the 80s you know uh for for for those who are comic book guys again shout out to Arland uh you know Batman The Dark Knight Returns you think about Gotham of the 80 like there's a there's a real snapshot of a vision of what that was like back then it will never be like that again uh what a very cool project uh I could see why you're so inspired by that well so you're touching on one of the biggest components of this which is time slipping yes and you know to to create a moment capture a moment in a photograph and look at it you know in real time on your digital camera or look at it in two weeks after you've developed the film is you know one thing but to look at an image that was shot 20 30 or 40 years ago literally transports you um so I have a website for that which is caron.com and you can see these images from the 70s and the 80s and there's you know some reference to the to the bumpers as well and how these you know played off of each other so it's really cool carson.com k r Zen or Z sorry k a r zen.com and you can go there let's talk about Junior now so second generation television photographer kit Caren kit caron.com um shoots his seconde gig is shooting for Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football so every Wednesday day he goes to the city and he's getting picked up at the airport right now coming back from Baltimore uh where they the game was last night and he shoots uh behind the scenes Stills and videos um for Amazon Prime wherever the game happens to be and uh last year they the entire crew was nominated for an Emmy for um interactive programming Y and they won the Emmy so it's not just the producer the entire crew got Emmy Awards which was just like a statue in the whole deal you got one of those too don't you I don't have one of those I you don't I have certificates okay okay harbers were nominated we didn't win uh but the the designers got the nomination I was just a part of that but that's okay yeah I know that must be so gratifying do you guys talk a lot of shop all the time yeah we talk about we talk about photography but we also talk about you know getting in front of people and how to break through and what to say and what to show and you know back in my time obviously you know I would get a meeting to come and show show my portfolio and now everything is obviously online and websites and Instagram and and you know texting images um so the you know the interactivity of not only shooting but presenting and clients finding you yep oh I saw your work and are you available to meet and on a zoom and a client who's cross country you know is uh you know times have change dramatically but the key is you know building a name and trust and respect so it's it's loads of fun having a son who shoots I was gonna say that must be so gratifying for so many reasons not to mention the fact that isn't it great when you and your kid have something in common and you can make it easy and and and and be professional and friends and all that sort of stuff outside of the the the the biological attachment the emotional attachment um Don just asked a fantastic question here uh we've had John Philo uh on this show um he was a CBS photographer and and and other photographers well any have you you and John's path ever crossed no okay um so I I moved away from late night at the same time that Dave was gonna move over to CBS that was my that was my queue to yeah well and it's funny John you know historic photographer in in his own right shot uh you know pet surprise for for for the Kent State um photos that he he shot and whatnot so he's got a huge history in this thing and then Sports as well and then he kind of sort of fell into uh Late Show with David Letterman and it's kind of neat having you know the perspectives of both of you on here and and for those who watch that episode um you know certainly Echoes of uh of of how you feel about what you do as an art uh there are many many Echoes it's neat hearing the perspectives from both of you um I can't thank you enough uh for for for taking time to come back on here again um we're not going to do so much about the name Association because you shied away from that but we talked about the idea of name Association and and and uh I'm not telling Tales out of school here because you're right here U you were like I'm not very very good at those and I said okay well as an example if I said Merl Marco you'd have nothing to say and then it turned out you had something very cool to say so I said barl Marco as my first kind of test one and look what you pulled up oh my God look at that here I'm gonna I'm going to flip the camera to you here um again for the audio listeners this is one you're going to want to watch on YouTube what do you got there mark so this is a Christmas card that Merill made for me specifically and she did a Xerox and hand colored this Photograph that I did not take this was done by um a magazine photographer and it says Dave says did Carson take this picture I looks like I look like a jerk and Merill says no and Dav says that's good Merry Christmas love us I mean this is on my wall I love it shout out to Merill um hasn't been on the show here yet but I would love to have her on I've famously said or famously I don't suppose that's right I have said many times uh if you gave me the choice of who I could have on this show it was either Dave or Merill I would have to think about it I adore her I adore her humor and the cool thing is for those who have continued to follow Merill and what she's doing when Mark shows that photo if you go on to Merl's substack and you look at some of the things that she is doing right now almost identical sensibility um you know the the the illustrations with the thought bubbles uh you know the graphic novel stuff and the humor within that um that is so meril it gave me goosebumps when you pulled that thing off the wall um you know we don't have to go down the road goad I said's the greatest and I hope she comes on your show oh I do too I do too she's just uh oh she's so great um so there's there is one other person I want to ask about uh because you mentioned him in the first episode and I didn't uptake it nearly as much as I do now because there might be a sort of a bigger play happening here um would you mind talking to me a little bit about um your impressions of Jack Rollins Jack uh help me Jack uh took me under his wing and uh so one of the after you know working on the show for about a year the the constant mention walking down Halls was you know the bumpers would be such a great coffee table book oh my God you should make a bumper book you know at that point we had you know in the hundreds so um I approached it and Jack said let me let's let's take a meeting next week so come over to uh 30 Rock at whatever time and Jack says come on come in here for a second we and we'll talk I go into Jack's office he says hang on let me just take this call so I'm sitting in Jack's office and I'm 20 maybe 26 years old yeah um aware of who Jack Rollins is like in Showbiz right like Jack that's a big thing you being in his office at that time at that age right so Rollins and jaffy produc produced all of Woody Allen's movies there we go yep and not only that they also managed a lot of big name comedians y Dave was one of the his clients and uh David Steinberg and many more Yep absolutely so I'm sitting in his office he says Mark hang on one second and so he grabs his assistant says Jackie have a call so he's on takes his call and it's about wood he or something and he said and he's I'm listening right interesting okay you know I appreciate you calling and inquiring but it's this is just not right for Woody and so that was like just this little tiny moment of me hearing Jack say no in the nicest possible way in other words no way in hell but it's just it's just not right for for Woody according to me and that's all you get yeah so you know so Jack you know thank you very much and I appreciate your interest you know so little moments like that so Jack let me kind of you know sort of listen and watch him you know operate there's also I've got a picture of Jack and Albert talking on the 747 show um that is kind of a nice beautiful moment but anyway so Jack was the one who helped me navigate the infrastructure at NBC to try to get a a letterman coffee table book going so and this literally took years to get everybody comfortable with this NBC had to sign off Dave and Jack had to sign off and then it got to a point where who's going to pay for this and who's going to publish this and I said well I shoot everything on Kodak film what if I get Kodak to sponsor it and they can publish it and so that's oh that sounds like a good idea so I flew up to Rochester and met with the the president of marketing at Kodak showed them you know a bunch of printed bumpers and talked about the idea and at this point you know late night is as hot as you could possibly get and they are like uh let's you know let me present this to the committee and they came back and said yes we'd love to do it so everything's coming together but this is literally taking years yep to get everything to line up and by the time everything was all lined up and we're moving in this direction and you know it takes a month or two to get a meeting in the you know each of these places is when Dave makes a decision that he's gonna move over so this is how long it took so Dave's going to move over to CBS and that was the end of my deal so it was uh so the fact that we got the bumper book actually done all of those years later yep you know because while Dave was at CBS there was nothing to talk about I mean like yep you're on CBS like I'm gonna do a book of NBC's youo bumpers so um wasn't until Dave made his announcement that I re approached and he said yeah you know if you can get NBC to sign off Let's Do It um I cannot endorse this book enough and I can only you know what I will ask one more question a thousand bumpers to choose from um the ones that made the book was it difficult for you to to to pair it down to what's actually in the book these are my favorites okay perfect so you know a lot of what's in here is a function of just thinking about what we found and what ended up you know making the airwaves you know the simple things like the lawnmower or you know Bill Shortridge on the back of the hotel room bed you know those kinds of you know and you know the Polaroid stuck onto airplane food and Morty on the you know in the pool with the Polaroid logos at a you know at an angle each one of those little stories in terms of the creative process and how cool they looked yep you know that's that's basically what I was going for so bring it back to Shortridge for a second here uh one of the things that he he had said is that uh at one point there was an odd little I don't know if you'd call it a mini documentary or something made or a video made of that particular shot or and there was a recre where they put somebody else in a bath playing Bill uh do you know about that yeah so there was a TV show um a cable show called The World of Photography and it's still you know on YouTube Somewhere um and so they wanted to do a segment about you know the bumpers and how I shot and how we produce these things and great let's uh recreate it you know we weren't going to I don't know some for some reason we were G to recreate the hotel room shoot instead of bring them out on a new shoot because it was going to take too long to like bring them on a shoot and then produce the bumper and not knowing what the bumper would be so we want you know we we backed out of like here's a great bumper let's recreate the shoot for it so right I don't think Bill was available that day or something yep he may have been bill was uh loves Japan so he may have been in Japan or something on okay station so we used a friend of mine Matt hasell to play the role of Bill Shortridge and stand on the back of a bed um in a h so we got a hotel room and recreated that moment super cool and we'll find that uh we'll we'll find that clip and we'll attach it to the comments on this on this bad boy here um Don asked a good question here and and I'm going to alter it slightly uh what would be like the fastest turnaround time between like a photo shoot and something making it onto air is there one where there where it was in insanely quick were they all kind of delayed uh because of how much work went into them well I also worked on um segment images so shots that were gonna get used um on a sketch yep those are immediate oh yeah shoot it today process it the film will come back in the morning order the prints um and the graphic would get that done that day uh for air that night so I would say the qu and plus I also did shots for SNL right so those would happen um also 24 hours as far as Same Day stuff we didn't have in-house printing capabilities the only thing we could do is I could shoot a Polaroid yep um not a sx70 but an actual Polaroid with um you know with lights um on my Polaroid Frankenstein um so those were quick but as far as bumpers bumpers were never shot with great urgency I would say bumpers quick would be um a week okay but normal would be like two weeks even that when you consider like you say you know we're in the hotel room for three days uh you know the the shoots you know are extensive uh getting it back and then the art department has to go to work at that point there that's actually still to me I I'm surprised um you know that that a week uh you can get such high quality output that's that's that's super cool um this episode here just to let you know there's G to be a lot of people who are very happy about this we've been very late show um Centric in the last month or so it's just it's just we just go where the where the organic p takes us and so there's been a lot of folks saying hey when are you going to get back to do some late night stuff uh so there's a lot of people that are going to be very very happy about this particular episode Mark uh I'm gonna say this to you and to Dawn um was there anything else that we wanted to talk about in this particular episode uh of your you appearing on the Letterman podcast today um I'm just you know happy to revisit these fun times and um you know re to rethink and deconstruct some of the process of you know this cool part of the show uh is always fun and you know I love I love the series that you've created and I'm a huge fan and can't wait to come back oh I appreciate the heck out of you for that and and actually from you know I'll say this on camera too uh anytime that you have given me advice behind the scenes and some of the the direction and ideas uh Mark that means the absolute world to me so I thank you so so much and then uh the ghost in the machine here Don Giller I thank him as well you know I this is a I I don't refer to the show as my show uh whenever possible I call it our show I say we all the time um because it is a collaboration uh you know your bumpers are a tremendous example of collaboration you've done a phenomenal job of explaining that today everybody who listens or watches this episode I think this is one you want to watch though so on the Spotify there's the video and on the YouTube of course as well uh because it is a very visual show everybody who comes into contact with this show go to late night bumpers.com if you uh are are a late show with David Letterman Enthusiast or late night with David Letterman Enthusiast and you want to gift phenomenal gift ideas on this uh particular uh venue of the internet latow bumpers.com if you have somebody in your life who loves David Letterman go there late night bumpers she said Late Show bumpers oh gosh late night bumpers thank you yeah late night bumpers.com just like the book says everybody uh get the book get some of the prints and uh thank you very much Mark I can't thank you enough for being here on the Letterman podcast I'm gonna say a quick goodbye and then or a quick outro and then we'll do our goodbye privately thanks Mike okay um there it is that's why we do the show there's the Love Letter to some of the late night fans who have been patiently awaiting our next late night focused show um we do have one sponsor here on the Letterman podcast it's of course uh not G in the hello Deli anymore but rert uh still has um hellodd deli.com where you can get Late Show with David Letterman merchandise uh and he would be happy to pack that and send it to you with care uh thank you so much for everybody who's out there we're approaching episode 100 of this thing and um I'm very uh I get emotional even thinking about and talking about it it has been a phenomenal year and a half and as far as I'm concerned we're just getting started lots of Amazing Ideas moving forward uh but I just can't thank each and every one of you uh enough this has been um it's it's a fantastic journey I appreciate it so much so uh that has been another episode of the Letterman podcast with Mike Chisum coincidentally I am Mike Chisum thank you and good night overcoat and