Vinnie Favale

tell me when you're ready yes got it um so so i remember dave once said and i've used it and it's been awesome whenever you get a phone call from a solicitor right take the call and act all excited and just say oh my god i won the big screen tv the color tv i wanted oh my god really what do i have to do and just act enthusiastic until they get exhausted and hang up on you i love that it's a big screen colored tv it was like the price is right 1972.

totally yeah that's exactly i love that and i mean i think you know um maybe because we're recording now we don't talk about who did it or whatever but but a mysterious audio tape of of dave testing the phone systems in the studio has surfaced and they're using it on the official channel walter and company are using it on the official channel where it's dave making prank phone calls to different places oh really and it's and it's appeared a a friend of ours uh that may have found something in the archives and handed it over and if you go if you look on um on the official letterman channel they've got i think he called uh he called a couple of places just uh a book publisher and uh there's another one that's on there and i think i think they got over an hour's worth of these things and they're going to be releasing them so great yeah there's there's always another show going on behind the scenes there with dave uh so that's what the i'm so excited that he did that and is embracing his archive the way carson's johnny carson's nephew did a good job although it's funny johnny carson stuff you put it out there and was aggressively licensing it but i don't know that there's a website the way dave's is so freaking good i love the yellow font that just kind of announces you know and i like that they're um not shying away from putting stuff up there like right after someone passed away you know like in the olden day the older days the old days i remember like the show would never really exploit and they're not explaining it now it's just it's out there might as well if ray leota passes away i people's natural inclination is to kind of go and do a deep dive for 24 hours because he's trending and people pass clips around so why not dave do it with the highest quality because the other thing i noticed that walter is doing with dave is these things look pristine i mean as good as they're going to look especially the nbc stuff you know which might i think shecky i'll be uh for you listeners viewers out there i'll be invoking the name shaki a lot it's not shecky green it's rick shekman that i'm referring to uh but shecky would tell you some horror stories of of shows disappearing you know and only existing some of the old shows just on three-quarter inch tape which is insane well we have a real we have a real opportunity here um you know in the idea that and that's what this show and other shows that are out there too that are doing to to to conserve um this body of work and and preserve it and and share it and and let it grow and continue on because like when i think of guys like chappelle um you know who who arguably are you know the number one at the zenith of their career potentially or or they're at a peak who knows how high the peaks are going to get moving forward but and and there are guys like that who worship dave guys who are on top now and and and their first appearance was on uh you know was on late show or or whatever so so you have this opportunity uh like you said with with legends who are passing away of course um but also people who are on top now like i think about you know lizzo and dave's dave's interview with her was really really good her first network appearance was on late show and it's it's it's cool to have um to let these things kind of time move forward a little bit right and the folks who you know at the end of late show or or you know who started their careers um are now in bloom the weekend is another example i'd love to see dave talk to the weekend um you know he had a performance on on on dave's show before before the end uh vinnie i didn't give you uh a proper a proper intro here because we just need no wait my next guest needs no introduction that's right actually not only do i need an introduction i need an expl explanation and sometimes a spirited defense well you'll need no defense here i'm excited about this uh i'm excited to have our first network guy on here and and you're gonna be the first of many we've already we're talking to some other folks who uh who who are technically considered the network guy um and and uh vinnie favel is is how long were you uh associated with the late show uh well not counting my infamous stand-up appearance in 1982 his first year uh officially like on payroll uh was june of 96 is when i began uh right till the very end i i left comedy central to become the head of late night east coast uh for cbs and i was actually hired by uh by dave robert and mitch semel who's who was the the new york based executive who was overseeing if you remember bill cosby had just come to cbs so yes suddenly cbs was in business in new york they they they had a prior time sitcom coming out of uh astoria i believe um and and the late night show because he had just come to cbs okay so um and i want to give you so so everybody this is a real get for us having vinnie on the on on the show and he's again no no no no this is like vinnie nautica said no if you're listening vinnie is shaking you said you guys are all it it blows me away how everybody in the pants family or associated with the pants family how self-deprecating you all are and how hard it is to give you guys a goddamn compliment it is really really tough to do that you have had such a unique viewpoint in the history of broadcasting uh credited as a founder of comedy central a major player in in in the late show with david letterman uh phase of dave and company's uh heritage and career more of a more spectators sometimes i i pitched uh some relief innings but yeah go ahead okay and then also deeply associated with howard stern yeah so so i mean my god the the the breadth of of experience that you have had um in in broadcasting and the things that you have seen you're talking comedy central which started from a certain place and now is at a very different place when you talk about stern when you talk about letterman two titans of broadcasting um my god and and not just that you love this like you love this yeah i'm like one of those i there are many times where i'm like i don't want to know how the steak is made and unfortunately i did i witnessed it sometimes i was one of the the ingredients of the actual steak uh but but i i i was always a fan first uh to the detriment of my career sometimes and uh uh and remained a fan an even bigger fan there were some times maybe i want to say in the double digits maybe between 10 and 20 times days where i i started my day off at six in the morning sitting in with howard which was amazing um host that's a whole separate podcast series right um and then that afternoon being with dave in rehearsal because i was on in a comedy piece that day and i'm like i can't i can't believe this is happening and i felt so fortunate i still do feel that i still think about that going boy that was that was definitely a great time i've got so many places that i could go with you and and i mean you're one of those guys who i giller gives me hell for saying this all the time especially when the record button is on because what are you gonna say when i say oh i can't wait i hope you come back at some point he says you say that to somebody and you give them no choice but to say they'll come back at some point um you're you're a guy who i want to have on here multiple multiple multiple times i feel like i know you a little bit because of this here i'm a huge fan of this book i love carter's books don't get me wrong carter's books are incredible but in my opinion the greatest six weeks of television for me my generation hit me right between the eyes uh no offense to johnny's uh farewell on the tonight show but for me the greatest six weeks of television history broadcast history is the last six weeks of of of the late show it was incredible and and you were the guy you were the liaison between the network and the show is essentially if i were to sum up what you were doing that's really what it was you were on the payroll of cbs but you were you were a pants uh working for worldwide pants and you were the guy that built the bridge between the two right yeah yeah i mean there were days where i i felt like at the beginning of my career i didn't know what i was doing you know i was like because i was such a fan and um i didn't know leslie you know mitch had hired me great guy he was a very close friend still one of my best friends um and if you remember leslie moonves had just come to cbs so he wasn't really like i didn't know him that well and he was my boss's boss right and he had other priorities at the time things to deal with like turning cbs because cbs was still the murder she wrote network when he got there you know and just to put in perspective to talk about like dave for a second yes because i like i really really like making this point uh of how unfair it was to dave what happened to him in the early years of cbs pre leslie pre-me we're talking nfl and all this stuff yeah okay good yeah right well not only that just on a personal level like he's being wooed by uh just remind me uh it was a uh tisch who was that it was it was that larry tisch larry larry tish plus michael ovitz was involved rep repping the um the late night guy before me the the the in the bill carter book it was tish and the other guy the head of programming were wooing dave yeah they were like you know you got to come here we're going to just we're going to buy you a theater you know which they did we're going to buy you a theater we're going to renovate it um we're going to ownership the carson deal he david the way we talk about it here he walked into the carson deal uh yeah basically 11 30 12 30.

it's all yours production not only that here it is not only that we got football we've got um you know they they they they probably just didn't talk about prime time you know that was the thing uh that that that they left off but but so so dave comes over and then like within a couple of years they're all gone yep pish sells the network to westinghouse not that group w right yeah so now so dave went working for for refrigerators to washing machines you know from from ge to to to westinghouse so and then his those people leave and then the worst you know football they promised him football promos and football games it was so bad i what i walked in there in in 96 i didn't realize that things were so bad that when cbs lost their detroit affiliate right yep yep they had to scramble and buy a uhf channel a religious channel like 70 something that didn't even have an 11 o'clock news so in detroit and i remember it always being like i didn't understand what was going on because i just started i remember randy grossack awesome she she was the he that's the tv the ad working with jerry foley the director i remember saying you know they're talking like cuz i'm in the control room just trying to take this all in and figure out all the players who these things people are and people are looking at me like what the hell is this guy thank god i had shacky like shecky was like my rabbi shecky was was right there by my side you know and i think there was a sense of if shecky trusts him we'll trust him a little you know that kind of thing but but but uh he's got a great radar though jackie's got a great race he really he really does yeah and i remember it was so bad that because the show would would often be over in time and and and you know had to be delivered by 1130 but except for detroit they had to do it a half hour earlier which was a huge difference so i i think there were some times where detroit might have gotten a slightly different version of the show because they had to jam that edit in oh that's fascinating yeah yeah i think you know shecky could probably shacky and randy and jerry foley could probably give better light on that but i do remember that was a big deal so anyway long story even longer that's what i walked into so when i came there in 96 yes the uh john pike the late night executive had been fired and they never replaced him i mean that's how bad things were there was like you know and i think to a certain extent everyone backed off because they sensed that that's what they've wanted anyway you know dave didn't want the people that wooed him to come to cvs to be there every night you know it's like okay we'll take it from here leave us alone you know right i remember famously uh ollie because shecky tells me this i wasn't there but when the show launched i think they did a special feed uh in in what the restaurant which used to be mcsorley's you know uh uh it was sullivan's bar for two minutes right i mean he had some theater right down the stairs he used to be at the time this was an irish pub but they they fed uh a feed in there and that's where the cbs executives were like they weren't even allowed in in the in the in the uh in the theater so um yeah that's a place that has a secret entrance into the theater isn't it yeah exactly where jackie basically used to go there they brought leno in i think they put leno in there too that when they did the the doritos commercial when they did the super bowl when they did the super bowl commercial i think hey i i want you to know that i had that was so top secret so awesome but i remember when it was delivered to me when it was we were digital at this point so i remember uh they handed me uh a thumb drive i think it was a hard drive with the high resolution version of it and it's going to be in the super bowl commercial i'm like oh my god i have this it's the early days of twitter i'm like i could blow up my career right now but i'm just uploading this uh but i remember like that was that yeah that was that was awesome so already i'm all all over the timeline but no please do no please do just the picture in dave's defense for all of his crankiness and frustrations with cbs and even me personally in the early years is because it's like well jesus christ you know you sold me a car but there's no extended warranty you know there's like now it's all falling apart yep and i'm stuck here with murder she wrote and diagnosis murder and um uh dr quinn medicine women like they were all of these shows it was almost like uh like the pat robertson channel you know like uh the christian broadcast network that kind of stuff so you know and i don't think dave was patient with leslie in the beginning because you know it takes years to turn this stuff around and thankfully you know leslie did it relatively quickly with survivor and csi and all that stuff but well and i think everybody loved loves raymond helped i think that uh yeah well in the beginning though in the beginning yeah raymond absolutely i i think dave leslie was in some ways a bigger supporter or as much of raymond as as letterman was i mean he really really nurtured that show but i remember uh worldwide pants freaking out when uh it was being moved from unless he moved it from friday to monday i mean freaking out i'm sure they were excited but also like oh my god now you know cause monday was a big night for cbs it was murphy brown it was designing that was their that was their uh for lack of a better term and i'm sorry for the for the cross branding here if if cbs had a must-see tv night monday night that was it absolutely and that was that was all leslie leslie was like you know i'm doing this and and i think it was really you sure because then now that's a true test you know when your friday you can kind of go along and you'd be critically acclaimed and your ratings don't matter then but you're up against abc's tgif as well and not only that you don't have any lead-in or anything like that now yeah i think we gave him um i want to say murphy brown was deleted so it's like well now we're going to know you know so yeah kudos to to leslie on that for for for helping build that but yeah that was that was a pretty incredible um time period to come into that so i just wanted to kind of paint that picture of it no and i want to paint another line on there i i got it because you're a fan right you're you're a giant fan yeah okay so you come in and you obviously as a big fan you have seen you know how letterman has treated warren littlefield and some of these other you know the pinheads the weasels the all these things yeah like when you took the job was there a part of you going i'm about to be labeled a pinhead like was there a part of you going i i'm about to be that guy in this show potentially um or or were you like i'm gonna come in here and not be that guy like like yeah i think you better do your mind at all i'm trying to remember i do remember like i didn't know what i was supposed to be like i thought i should be wearing a suit for instance and i show up on my first day the production meeting and rob burnett who's awesome pulls me aside he was the show runner uh for many of the years he's like if you ever wear a suit again you're ready you know like don't do that which was great and so so then i probably leaned into more it took maybe for them it seemed apparent earlier for me it took a while i thought leaning into more of my natural personality which was more irreverent but i was always like conscious of like wait these are the funny people i'm the funny guy in the office but i'm not the funny guy these people are paid for that they do that but like i said earlier it took me several years to figure out that whatever problems were happening and there were many sure were my problems they weren't leslie's problems to figure out they weren't mitch's problems to figure out they were for me i can't run to to because at a certain point mitch left and then it was just me dealing directly with leslie and i remember thinking okay you know what if leslie doesn't hear from me in a week that's a good week for leslie because whatever i'm talking to him it's got to be really serious something where i just need his advice on or i just need to give him a heads up you know but i have to have to figure it out like i learned over time that it wasn't it was it wasn't what should we do leslie about whatever the problem is it became more of okay here's what's going on and this is what what i i'm inclined i think we should do i just want you to know you know so that if he disagreed he could tell me right but i kind of gave him the problem and the answer to the problem already yeah yeah you're basically saying this is how it's difficult so that's the kind of stuff that that that you know and it was everything from not enough promotion time i remember there was one time oh this was so i was thinking about this the other day i i thought i was losing my mind uh so to remind everyone the the the downfall in ratings for because letterman was on top of the world ratings wise when he came to cvs absolutely he's different he way over delivered what they thought like that nobody ever thought because on paper when you look at the when you look at the map as to what is possible is it possible he could get higher ratings than the tonight show it's it's technically possible but there were many cards when it came to affiliates when it came to the demo and how things were were spread around it was there were many cards that were already stacked against him to be able to do that like the fact that he was able to for a year and a half be on top was improbable from they weren't selling it that way i mean i'm sure they were selling it for uh uh an optimistic radio but not like that and so there was so at that point they're gonna wait till next season now we can adjust it and sell it at the higher rate and then what happens is the ascension of of must-see tv yeah you know that was a big deal the combination of losing football and losing all that valuable promotion time you know what good does it say you have julia roberts on monday if nobody knows can hear it you know you need to tell the people what you're doing um uh and then and then um you know so jay leno's going up and dave's numbers were going down so that was kind of like the world that we were living in i remember the it started to become though then you got the oscars you know so if you were going to just do the timeline and these things are all their exaggerations you know because if you if you look at that oscar it was fantastic by the way that first of all one of the highest oscar ratings ever number one yep and uh by and large it was actually it was very very funny you know and and yeah he brought a lot of the show his show to that like stupid patrick's but people do that the hosts before we continue i'm just going to say i still to this day quote a joke from that oscars and it's not my own joke it's dave's joke but uh tarantino and bender come up to get their only oscar and and and bender's like yeah i think we're gonna this is the only one we're gonna get tonight so i'm gonna thank this and this and this and this and this uh because for it it was the forrest gump year i think is what it was so they leave and uh he said i and also before he leaves he goes and plus okay um i think this is our only time up here and i really have to take a pee so i'm going to go now and letterman goes up there and goes i've got to take a leak for four hours now i don't know what his problem is and i say that all the time and and that's that's one of letterman's clip quips from that show um i i just i you guys are crazy to me how you guys undersell everything that you do and it all comes from the top and that culture comes from from david people like rob burnett i mean robert neb will tell you he'd have to talk to him that would be a great thing rob was dave's macgyver helped him figure out things but rob explains the whole uh uma so there was a third word in there it was oprah keanu kiana oprah oprah uma you know you know you know the rhythm of comedy right so and that never happened because i think uh it was a missed shot rob could tell the story better but anyway that that's another thing an exaggeration of this combination of oh uh ratings are down oscars was supposedly a disaster yeah and then and then the um morty yeah the producer was was let go and now what you know sharks are smelling blood you know hal retired what's that hal gurney retired too yeah they're barely retired right oh yeah and uh so so but but on the from a press point of view so anyway this is what leads to so i get there just at that what happened was and i owe my job there to rob burnett and mitch simmel mitch samuel for for putting me up for it and rob for really making the case for me with dave which was incredible um but i remember being there it was less than a year and there was i forgot what the sitcom was but one character was was trying to console another character in a sitcom and in doing so she said like like i had you know if you were my buddy david letterman i would be saying dave don't worry about the low ratings and i was like attacking from with it like like that was like such a sore subject in general but for his own network to use it as a punchline i couldn't believe what i was seeing right this was me getting trying to get ahead of it right yeah so they went understandably the show was really upset rob was upset dave was upset everybody was upset yeah um and i had to get to the bottom of it like they wanted an answer they wanted what how does this happen right and i think it was like again it was leslie just got there unless he's trying to put out all these other fires and you know it takes a while to instill in everyone like this team spirit you know because the west coast is the west coast and then you know they're dealing with different producers who don't work for cvs who might don't give a about letterman they're just producing sitcoms and scripts and trying to figure things out right um and i remember um needing a tape of it trying to i remember bringing it up saying okay this is going to be a problem right yes and i had mitch by my side which was awesome and i remember at the time i forget what what her name was the head of the current department she was upset i think even upset with me for making a big deal about it but it was a big deal and she pulls a tape and she says you've lost your mind because it never happened and she shows me the scene and it doesn't mention dave at all it's like have i like am i going crazy and i remember was one that i saw the show hadn't seen so i was the one that brought it to their attention okay so i want to get ahead of it you don't want to absolutely you want to give the bad news you don't want to like be yelled at for someone else finding it before you could tell them and i i'm like okay like i'm losing my mind it turns out there were two versions of it the the producers which is not unusual they know yours yeah they got one version yes it doesn't and they went with that one so you know that led to like a top to bottom review you know we don't dump on our own people you know we don't you know we shouldn't even have to there shouldn't even have to be a rule but it was like you know every every producer on the lot needs to know if you're delivering the show for cbs you know we're not going to be the punch line well and and exactly the opposite was happening uh up till that point when all the momentum was rolling like crazy dave goes out to california and you guys are popping up on other franchises you're like you know here's a scene on friends where they how amazing is that yeah yeah and it's really great that cbs was okay with all that like again you know you got to let him do it but he's doing it in a controlled funny manner you know as opposed to it but but that just illustrates how um mainstream of a news story was that dave's ratings are low that now a sitcom no one's watching can make a reference to it you know because oh yes no one's saying what does it mean consoling dave about ravens i don't get that joke like everyone got that joke because his ratings were low so yeah so that was the environment that i was that i was uh there um you know what i started you know what absolutely and i've talked about it on this show uh with four or five different people along the way uh the thing that blows me away and i mean i can't wait to have bill carter on here and talk to him about this too because i mean i don't know if there's a more educated uh mind on this subject on all of the like the the entire late-night world of everything out there the thing that blows me away and and i love that i'm able to talk to you about this because you are uh entrenched just as deeply you were part of it the fact is the tonight show was a juggernaut like a juggernaut no network ever could put up something that would withstand the tonight show ever and they all tried throughout for decades to me the story is okay there's the there's the the cbs versus nbc uh landscapes and all the things that you and i are talking about right now which is true we're talking about the idea that letterman could be ahead of the tonight show for an extended period of time where the cards were stacked against the fact of the matter is no franchise had ever even competed with the tonight show and the fact that cbs okay if it turned out that there was a million viewers over there versus over here or whatever the fact of the matter is just ten years prior an extra million viewers we don't care we're still doing backflips in the street because we actually have a franchise that could take on the tonight show and to me i'm so glad dave didn't get the tonight show because he would have had to be the the standard bearer of the franchise that he loved so much having been handed the mantle from his absolute uh uh you know his is the maestro that he followed in the business johnny carson and he would have had to be the guy that dealt with the dilution of of three networks to four networks to uh to more so to to cable and and satellite and all of the dilution that happened um and he would have had to watch because the landscape was changing anyway which would make it harder to have that kind of a stranglehold instead he went over and he created something and built a franchise and by the way here you go cbs look at what he gave them he gave them a franchise now that once he handed the reins back to them now they have uh they're an absolute player and right now the dominant player in late night to me that's all because of david letterman's insane ability to draw people in and to connect with people and the fact that he is a broadcaster not just a comedian and all of that stuff the fact that he could even compete with the tonight show is insane yeah and it's so i agree that um i'm i'm i agree with you that i think this it was better that he did cut the cbs even though he had to go through a lot because when you think about it the the tonight show was a natural progression from studio 6b where he was at you know like now we're not we're in a place where we all know but it's very hard to make that your own um because of of the history with johnny carson and those curtains like what would he have done wise i love that he went from this practically college radio show of a tv show right yes to an exaggerated like like the tonight show was almost more of an official coronation than the ed sullivan theater which to me felt like an over-the-top exaggeration you know it's like i'm going i'm going from college radio to the number one station and the to for the perceived number one thing yeah and and the fact that the ratings matched it was was a coincidence and amazing and and great maybe it should have been a slow build but i always i liked the over-the-topness that the ed sullivan theater gave him absolutely and and i mean uh over the years um i'm pretty sure it was conan's last appearance where he said this but there was a point where a guest said to him i'm almost positive it was conan saying okay well yeah and you've got this theater here and dave just like right naturally just said i love this theater and and and he proclaimed that out and the audience laughs and saw that place had an energy to it it had a real uh i only i only you know entered in stores twice um as a as a uh as somebody who got a chance it was honored to watch the show happen live but both times it's like you talk about you know for a sports uh analogy it's like uh the biggest home ice or home field advantage uh that you could ever have is that building that building is unbelievable it's so it's so exciting you think about the the beatles and elvis presley and what's great now there's there's a talk about youtube channels there's we're talking about the letterman channel but yeah there's the ed sullivan channel now andrew salt was a friend of mine bought the the the library at the ed sullivan show and he's been uploading videos not just music but comedy performances uh and i i love on the ed sullivan show there was there's a performance by i want to say jack jones this guy was saying the love boat theme where forgot the song he does but he goes into the audience there's a lot of ones where they go into the audience and you see it you go oh it hasn't changed i mean that's the same theater physically it's exactly the same uh structure as dave so that that was exciting always being there remember the early uh cbs shows before i worked there but he did the ghost event sullivan would appear very first episode very first episode in there he did i loved that i i loved that so much i'm a guy who like again western canada so to me i'm so removed from the situation i i don't understand how there isn't a movement to rename that theater the ed sullivan david letterman theater um i i think it's so historic and you have these two titans of broadcasting and the fact that dave paid reverence to that by having people who performed on that stage over referencing it all the time you know ringo starr sitting there with dave paul playing on the marquee yeah you know the ghost of ed sullivan like you said i love the fact that they embraced that no i love it i think it might have come up at one point and dave turned it down i like that it's the end zelda theater because i actually i associate the end zelda theater with david letterman isn't that funny i do yeah and i think that since you're all about trying to keep the flag going let's give that a break let's leave it then sullivan because look what people should be googling who the hell is this insulting guy because oh that's a good talk about a rabbit hole i'm telling you the the the androsoft website for the ed sullivan show is amazing yeah it's absolutely incredible with all of the archives that's really cool and it'd be again in a perfect world i don't know the nice thing again about about uh the pants thing and we're talking like me and a few other people who want to be part of this the idea that that that it's amazing that pants is independent you know they can make a deal with a with nbc for the old for the old footage and all that stuff but at the end of the day it's not a network driven thing that pants can kind of be an independent thing on its own it'd be really cool to see him to see walter work with uh who is it that that started the ed sullivan channel who did you say it was andrew salt okay so andrew it'd be cool if andrew and walter could work together and you know okay here's the beatles first performance and here's now uh every uh after effect trickle down from that where paul or ringo or whatever the good news is here's the good news though the fans could do that because you could put a playlist together very easily you just put them all there you could do it i could stop talking about it oh man let's do six degrees of ed sullivan i'm talking about the beatles here's a proud moment this is one thing that i did that i'm very excited about i i could say this legitimately and back it up i booked the beatles on the late show with david letterman the actual beatles john paul george and ringo and here's how i did it it was six so wait uh probably was 2004 so i want to say that i'm horrible with math the 30th anniversary of the beatles being on the ed sullivan show right okay the 40th 2004 would have been the 48th uh and i remember thinking oh god that's such a big thing and other than talk about it what can we do you know we have nothing letterman really has nothing to do with the beatles except for seeing them on tv like everyone else at the time but i had an idea and i knew andrew salt was gonna release a dvd of of that um of that show so i called up i said hey and i didn't even know if the show would be interested but i wanted to tee it up so that i could back it up yeah and i said to andrew hey andrew would you ever consider if if letterman holds up your dvd to just plug like hey we got this thing you know would you give us for free uh the the rights for the beatles for that because he owns the video rights to play that video on on during the show that night he goes absolutely so yeah rob and dave agreed and it was great so you go back i'm sure it's somewhere in the archive you know that leonardo goes you know fourteen goes tonight on this very stage of videos ladies and gentlemen the beatles and then you know we just ran the video but it was cool we i think we pulled the screen down i think jerry put the screen down so people in the theater could see it not just on the monitors but at the moment so walter dawn we know you're watching at some point either way guys if at some point we can make that work if it's not out there if we can make it out and get it out there let's do it so was don giller still doing his letterman stuff right that hasn't stopped him well i uh i i don't want to tell any tales out of school uh what i will say is that it's very cool to see that dawn giller has the right to wear the pants hey i got a couple pants jackets myself but uh i've been unofficially welcomed into the family it's nice to see that he's been welcomed into the family as for the minutia of what it is that they do in the background i i don't want to say anything out here but no no no yeah i think but the fact that he does work for pants is is is a is a cool thing and uh i certainly hope moving forward that there can be a mechanism where uh you know walter don and i would love to insert myself in there as well where we can take moments like this and insert them into the podcast or or whatever um that would be amazing but but uh as a fact checker for us and as a supporter of our what we're doing here don we appreciate you so much is amazing i remember oh he was amazing long before i met him yeah and again i met him through shecky um there was a great village voice village a few of the village boys yeah there was a big new york newspaper yep counter um uh and i remember they do a big piece on this don giller guy who had every episode on video today and i'm like oh my god how cool is that because you know dave really um that's amazing i think he for people like don and me and you and shecky if he wasn't working for dave is that way the dave was like the grateful dead and we were deadheads you know collecting the tapes you know every show was a jewel you know and i made this case in an interview years ago before i left before david off the air basically saying that and i think it's true that letterman invented youtube in that when you think about like a letterman show is almost like a rabbit hole of youtube oh there's a pet trick there's a music performance there's a silly viral piece of comedy like like think about it you know yeah and and because they were always uh stuck together because it was a 45-minute show that aired once and whatever you know it took nerds like us pre youtube to maybe extract i used to do that with sctv that was the other big thing oh you got i'm making a canadian very proud right now saying sctv mixtapes if you will you know where i had like a beta i'd record sctv and letterman on beta because that was a higher quality yeah then but it was only an hour right measuring up to 90 minutes only an hour i remember and it was very difficult picking the best but okay this highlight moment i gotta put on this this compilation tape and thinking about it that's youtube you know and absolutely because it's all a la carte it truly is and that's why it's such a kick seeing him on youtube and all of these you know separate elements yeah and and and the thing that i love about it too is is walter and then they're doing it right um because they're well well because letterman broke the fourth wall like the whole reason i feel like i can do this show is because i was invited into the show i was invited to the show over a viewer mail i was invited into the show because the cast and the crew the cast of the show was the crew um you know people i think people don't realize many of the fans that biff wasn't an actor like he was the stage manager and there were times where there might have been frustrations and poor biff like it's tough to get julia roberts out of her dressing room when i just was on stage during the comedy piece you know it's like poor jerry has to navigate how to balance one of his top pet guys on the show is actually on the show yeah oh absolutely i had i had jerry on the show it hasn't come out yet uh but at the time that this one is released jerry mulligan's uh show will be will be released and i mean how many appearances did he have you know with chris elliott or wearing a crazy costume or doing all these things while he was a writer it got so much easier he said when he retired when he retired uh in no4 and and then it's okay yeah we're gonna use jerry for a piece tonight and then just you know a town car would arrive take him to the show and it was but can you imagine the breakneck speed he he talked about how sometimes a top ten list oh dave's holding the audience because they didn't like the top 10 list and threw it to the writers come up with a new top 10 list on the fly because they're holding the audience like can you imagine and then being a crew a cast member of the show at the same time oh yeah uh this was this was so great i probably i think it was i hate saying it was my best appearance you know but truly it was maybe i did about a dozen yeah and this was the funniest thing and not because of me because it was the way the bit was conceived sure that i've ever done the show even funnier than when i did 14 minutes on the show doing stand-up and battle like this thing i remember getting a call from i think it was jude uh bremen who's one of the top producers there awesome she's on our hit list right there she's absolutely on our hit list yeah that's great just an amazing person she called i i would purposely get walk into the control room as late as possible just before like maybe even when the credits were rolling opening credits you know i didn't want it's a very tight space didn't want to be in the way didn't want them to feel the networks here in case they had to air any dirty laundry like whatever problems and we trusted each other at this point after all those years but still i was like that was you know just go in and get out i didn't linger right so i got a call from for about 4 30 uh chewed saying when are you coming over i'm like oh we'll be over like the usual she goes could you come over now i'm like oh god what's going on she goes no no it's it's fine uh this is just the thing that we might want you to do for the show so i go in there and i think i had done some other stuff uh little little things but uh she uh jerry foley the director um who's just another great great person and someone to mentor someone who really helped me navigate the the treacherous waters of late night tv he also he he also took the baton from hal gurney like a holy cow and kept it amazingly yeah no made it his own it's his own baton yep oh there you go yes so so he he said look uh this is the they there's a comedy piece they want you to do right i'm looking at the script and it's it's funny and and i'm going well why me like why why isn't there an actor doing this that so what happened was i think it was the stagger bros i don't know if they wrote it but but it got into that pattern almost like the old d martin show whenever there was a piece i don't even remember dimon was infamous for not going to all the rehearsals you know on the march show on the nbc and they would tape everything so he could see so someone would be standing in it was actually more of an extreme if dave was in the piece dave would be rehearsal but if a lot of comedy pieces that dave threw to it just involved the company of of actors the pre-ships right sure so in this bit it was a network executive making an announcement um it was at the height of of queer eye for the straight guy there were a couple of things going on where suddenly it just like everything was gay yeah right like you know and cvs is getting in on the action becoming you know the really gay network i don't even you can even do that piece now but that was the conceit of the joke and to explain it here's vinnie favalli right yeah and and the writers just thought it was a goof inside joke like we was talking earlier just you know make him be vinnie pavalli because that's our guy right yeah but they hired an actor so they an actor did it and they pre-taped it and they played it for dave just before the show right like around maybe four o'clock yes and here's the piece this is how how how it works and dave's only comment was well why are we using vinnie you know and the writers i'm sure were like because he's not a comedian he's not an actor he's not funny if there's a million reasons why we shouldn't use them he goes no no we should use vinnie for this and and i think i wasn't because dave i'm sure it wasn't because dave thought that he could hit this one out of the park everything's gonna be great it's almost like let's make that little weasel squirm you know because you are being cbs and when you think about it like that that isn't even something i gave a heads up to leslie about which is insane and i should have right because i'm actually speaking for cbs sure it's it's on youtube it's on my channel okay so where is your channel like i'm vinnie favalli on youtube i'm sure you can you can okay well there's a whole letter in playlist of things that i've done good viewers i'll promote that uh as well as as a a as an accompaniment to this episode on our channels and and we'll get that out there yeah yeah that's awesome so just just for edification you can see so i come out and entertainment sir you guys are all just it's so it's so funny it's so well written it's so freaking great that the crowd like they ate it up and you could tell i'm i'm stilted which i think is what made it really really funny yeah funnier like there's an awkwardness to me that's just coming from the fact that like okay let me just take a beat here and jerry was great jerry took me through the whole thing like you know you know you know slow down they had the cue cards so so wait for the left so i just i did it and but i also it looked like i really was the executive which i guess i was yes so it all worked it was a home run tv guide which now you're talking to a guy i'm embarrassed to say very much like uh frank costanza has a collection of tv guides okay people don't understand it's you're the only reason that you're embarrassed is that people don't make the connection as to how important that little magazine was for so long so i felt rude though for for nerds like that's where elaine goes he collects these you know ultimate vindication for my wife see i told you you're losing what are you doing so anyway tv guide calls and says we need the name of the two actors that are in that piece because we want to do a cheer remember cheers and jeers you know right and the public said well one was an actor the guy who was did it with me um doug i think was his name and the other one is benny vivaldi he's the cbs executive they're like oh so the week later with my picture in tv guide shows up in the chair gear so like but that gets into the whole kind of meta of it all yes about like the thing the thing about dave that i think is so brilliant he's he was able to have his cake and eat it too where where he was doing a talk show he was doing it an amazing job of a talk show and i'm talking like in the beginning on nbc it was almost more of a parody of a talk show right totally like he's doing it but he tried to maintain that comedic integrity at cbs which is harder when everything is elevated that's actually when it's the biggest orchestra but i remember him doing things like um you know at the desk okay here's how this is works we're doing mother's day cards it's paul mother's day cards you know like not a lot went into the coming up with the jingle for that but it was great right yeah and and what it's applause so here's how it works here i i've got i've got a card in my hand i got a card in my hand i am going to read you the the the the headline of the card and then i will make a humorous comment you know so he's explaining that a bit beat by beat almost like apologizing in advance because this might not be funny but calling it i'm by label labeling it i will be reading the humorous comment so that's that's the great thing about like the fact that he used me they used me for the piece because he thought in his mind the writers aren't thinking let's use vinnie rightfully so because they wrote a piece that was very very funny that might even be funnier in the hands of a of a smooth talking actor playing the network executive coming from me i look like the awkward accountant at the network you know reading it but dave's instincts were right because it was it was funny you know the awkwardness was funny there's a couple of things that the one thing i you use the word meta and it's so funny uh it's ironic um vinnie that you use that word right now because again that my 25 year old uh you know son with his with with his wife and all that they oh meta yeah they understand that word guys like us we don't understand that word but dave was meta before meta became a thing oh my god absolutely and there's a generation gap there because our generation the whole show was a mirror yeah it was absolutely it should be david metaman yeah yeah it was it was and and that's one of the secret sauces that that that changed like it made it a gen x show plus the fact again that it's it's it's a broadcaster like i i'm a broken record saying this david letterman is my walter cronkite he flat out is like i look at my dad literally literally 9 11.

and we've talked about that too like okay so so i gotta i want to ask you about that there's god there's so much uh i've got so much i want to ask you i know that you'll come back and we'll be able to do this and do this more like like this is this is magic to me um and i appreciate your time and i appreciate you opening up so much about this um yeah the 911 show i mean we've talked about this um i used to call it a tragedy don giller gave me a better word for it it's an atrocity it was an atrocity the idea that dave literally was the guy that told not just a nation i'm a guy from western canada i didn't laugh again until dave said it was okay to laugh again i don't know if you've watched that show um in its entirety but the interview with dan rather is it's when i i watch it every year that's how i i um i mark the 911 occasion as i watch the entire show and it's i've got on my hard drive i watch it you know from beginning to end um the everyone talks about dave's speech which was nothing short of a transcendent i want to remind people before you go on please like all the other shows we were dark the week of 9 11.

so so just to set the table and then i'll throw it right back to you yeah we were dark the tonight show was dark and there was some question of should we even come back to monday like like like you know because the other shows weren't they weren't sure yet right everyone was kind of looking to see what dave was going to do yeah and ultimately dave made the decision to come back having no idea what show he was going to do the kind of show he was going to do and and decided on uh dan rather and regis philbin let me do the regis part after you do the damn park continue back to you you got to shut down well no and i i would love i would love any insights that you have from the network level like like was dave the one who was making all the decisions and you guys were were behind your gut needed to hear from because don't forget we were we like all the networks were doing wall-to-wall coverage we were actually broadcasting you know the news non-stop right uh and i believe the word came down leslie dave before he could even make a decision needed to hear that there was a decision to be made like is my slot if i wanted this show is there even a place for me to do it and um were you involved with that decision or were you told that was ultimately leslie's decision directly at the very very yeah as far as yeah yeah that would be as it should be because this was like a big deal because because don't forget it's almost like oh they're getting back to regular television i guess cbs has moved on you know what i'm saying you could really you don't wanna you don't wanna make it i think yeah i think we were one of the first to start going back to um rolling out shows in prime time too i think maybe that monday because it was wall-to-wall coverage everything was preempted and at a certain point okay we gotta figure this out what are we doing here you know yeah um so so yeah i think the word came down from leslie then we passed it on to the show yeah no no if you want to do we weren't going to force it to do a show right it's open for you if you want it if you if you guys think you you have it then you we we're ready to get back to business in late night so so well and then it was up to dave to decide and then that was a big deal for all the other shows because because not only the fact that he was doing it which was a big deal means that they could do it but let's see how he does it what is his version of it and you know and if you remember it was a cold open there was just there was no loud music flag just the flag the shot of the theater and yeah and dave i think at the desk then even at the monologue dave at the desk yeah um and then and then dan rather but you know the thing the thing that people i want to remind people of that show as powerful as all that is the highlight for me and the can we laugh again credit goes as much i think to um regis philbin absolutely as anyone else we just sat there i mean and hid it out of the park it's like you know hey what point he goes i felt bad for dad over there like i want to give him a t-shirt i forgot what the joke was but he makes a comment that's almost goofing on dan's heartfelt teary-eyed response and and it cracked dave up and really um that you got to give credit where credit is due and i think dave was brilliant by surrounding himself with the gravitas of then rather yes and the looseness and the irreverence that that regis i remember around that time i want to say around the time maybe a little after um we started doing the cape thing remember the cape with paul shaffer he would be singing the james brown song he was doing it in the commercial breaks and then and then a different celebrity would come out um every week it was once a week to do the cape yeah and it went on for like a ridiculously about it i want to say over a year maybe over a year we're doing this and we're all like oh my god how long has this been going to go on because it was really just for the uh audience by the way hey hey hey dawn and uh and walter let's see some of that let's throw that out but i got two two points to make on this i remember you know i would try to drop a joke in in the moments during the like the show everyone did like very mystery science theater like especially if a band is on and they're horrible or just someone it's a guest that oh dave's not vibing with whatever and i remember um towards the end of the cape thing governor pataki was the one who did the cape and i remember going well i guess we're finally over 9 11.

you know we're like yeah this is what it's done but i got to tell you uh uh here's here's a tribute i was the last i was the penultimate person to do the game i did it you you knew they were running at the bottom of the well when i was doing it but i did it and i think they realized okay if diddy's doing it we need to close this thing down and the last one was i believe paul anka i think you could check with don dillard on that oh man that's so cool i love fighting i love going deep and talking but the cape thing was was uh paul schaefer like we talked about paul for a second yeah what what a co-pilot he was for dave just comedically perfect musically and and and you know dave's a big fan of music and you know the song that that uh that paul did it was a tribute to james brown but it was actually i think it was a blood sweat and tears song from their first album that was one of those like you know oh you know all these false endings that he walks away they do they do the the cape on it but it was i encourage people to look at compilation stuff if there is any yeah and and obama pulled together well this is where dawn's channel is so important because of the stuff that he was doing and the fact that it they've figured out a way to keep it up um and and the contrast to you know the new youtube generation wants videos you know six minutes or less or whatever whatever that formula is and all that and they're perfect contrast to each other because you look at the deep dive uh that dawn did when he would put things together the way that he would uh show the evolutions of things yeah well he once did he once did a compilation of albert brooke's appearances like like albert brooks tweeted he goes oh wow someone put this together i'm sure don was thrilled to notice that he got on albert brooks's radar right and watching the evolution not just of the person in the chair you know watching all these appearances throughout the entire run however long it was but watching dave's evolution watching dave's evolution as an interviewer his is uh the literal level of comfort um you know we're starting a new we're we're basically going to be starting a letterman podcast network hopefully we're going to get some official word that we can do it officially but it's happening either way um and and and uh the the other guy that i'm i'm starting it with he's a huge again i love the entire i've got to precurse this because i love the entire letterman run the entire evolution i adore it some people gravitate to different places of dave's career where they love he's the late night guy the innovation the basement the deconstruction of the talk show all of that stuff right for me again for lack of a better term the bottom of the pyramid is is that time but the top of the pyramid where dave is actually more powerful like he's the most powerful man in show business as far as i'm concerned i loved watching him do that and and the one that was like oh god i can't believe how late we're getting um there's so many okay good good uh because i want to ask you about stern i do want to ask you about that but there's whatever yeah there's a night that i want to ask you about talking about powerful dave um john mccain the and and i bet you do you because the network guy uh throw out the red carpet oh my gosh i love that please please the night john mccain uh tried to do his little dosei dough and it didn't work at all and you guys capitalized that was that was that was one of those it's in a nutshell what my job was and how i worked with the show so let me paint the picture we are you know he was supposed to do the show john mccain it was a big get you know he was a friend of the show running for president but it was on there it was a big booking right yep yep and uh and there was a big financial crisis going on at the time and he used that as the i won't say an excuse it was like okay i gotta get back to washington because he was still senator we got to vote on this thing so understand no one questioned it and uh the show went to their go-to guy the modern day tony randall go to oh my god we need some a warm body in the scene it was keith oprah keith always delivered it was great so keith is there uh to paint the picture in the control room i'm on the back deck i've got like like a very get smart type office phone not a shoe phone but like a 60s it's a it's a beige phone with the lines you know the very opposite right yep uh and uh it was two to my left were the two cbs technical guys um one of one of the two would be there you have to make sure everything's okay with because i'm not wasn't the technical guy so they were the technical liaison me shacky uh kathy beverkakis uh paula um another producer and jude on the end right so we're in the back deck i'm sitting there and right behind jerry all right jerry foley our incredible director and uh monitors yeah people know what a control room looks like i'm honest and it's all the different feeds but because we were cvs we had access to feeds at the broadcast center so the broadcast sector yeah we were on 53rd and broadway the broadcast center is on 57th and like 10th avenue in 10th and 11th blackrock is that what it's called no no no blackrock was on 52nd that's where my office was the broadcast said there's an old was an old milk factory believe it or not two levels but and it took up the whole block between 10th and 11th avenue and that's where 60 minutes happened and the morning show and and katie couric the evening news right and occasionally we would get those speeds that were that were coming in yeah so we're sitting there uh watching um keith oberman and we'll be back with more keith after this and there's a murmur going on and i'm not picking i don't see what's going on like because jerry because they're talking about morgan talking yeah yeah we're gonna we're gonna punch in hold on one second and then i i look at the screen and i see i see katie couric is interviewing john mccain i'm thinking this has got to be a tape this can't be happening now oh my god so i know what they want to do i applaud what they want to do right i think it's brilliant but holy you can't just do that without me just making one phone call not to stop it but to say this is happening because a heads up a heads-up has to happen yeah by doing this you know our feed is out there too and if dave's picking his nose or someone's doing something silly that you know what's to stop uh one of the other cbs shows for taking that footage you know it just becomes really ugly but this i i i think it was a great idea so i hear them say they were about to take it someone tell dave i said hold on wait wait a second right and then i'm getting like pushed back right and i and i jude and i go outside the control room to have this conversation and i said what i just told you it's not gonna happen we're gonna do this but i have to call leslie i have to give him a heads up that you know this amazing tv is gonna happen so getting back to what i said earlier as far as managing my leslie i would never say leslie what do you think we should do that's not fair to him he's not in the moment so so it's literally i get under my deck because that's the only phone that i had on that crappy little phone and i'm whispering it's like like he was supposed to be on the show he canceled last minute because he said he had to go back to washington but it turns out he's on katie cork right now dave's got the feed and he's about we're about to push it up it's going to be incredible tv all right i just want to give you a heads up okay kiddo great thanks and then boom it happens it happens and it happened at a time where somehow it got picked up i think we put it out because there was always that window of time where technology started to to get wider you know where you could actually have a website that might actually have streaming video because we went through well in 96 it wasn't there and by i want to say 2004 whatever this was it was i think we might have even given something to entertainment tonight like we were feeding it because it was your girl cause dave was oh yeah what he did with that was amazing right i remember my wife calling me going what is happening over there are you okay because i'm seeing this all over the news i'm like you have no idea but that's one of the greatest moments it was one of the great ones it was great and then and then the great thing is uh weeks later whatever yes mccain coming on and you know the road to the world goes right here right yes and you know you know what what happened there i screwed up you know that little oh it was so good and and and like you said about davis the thing about dave he's so forgiving the minute people have the nerve to show up right like i think he did it with hillary too there was a lot of badgering of hillary yep i think she shows up on the show she finally did was was the night he went in for open-heart surgery too by the way that was like another crazy day oh that's crazy the day before yeah oh my god this is like an acid trip good excellent i like i like i like that i'll take i'll take that uh for sure um okay so so i gotta ask about stern here because i can't go through if i get hit by a bus tomorrow and and this episode goes out i didn't ask you i i had steve weiner who was one of the original writers uh on late night on and then after after he left late night uh one of the projects he had is he went to work for a few years for robert klein who you know again oh my god what did he do for robert klein did he write writer one of his writers and confidants and and he was one of his boys yeah he uh um and and so um i got him to uh his episode just came out um as of this broadcast here it's already out um and he did a phenomenal job talking about these two titans um and and you know you had a front you've had a front seat for i want to ask about stern you know he didn't get the company sometimes oh my god vinnie we didn't get to um anything uh we'll do that on part two we can okay we'll do that part two so okay um but at this point are you still working with stern as well at the same time or yeah oh we overlapped for many years yeah i i see i got i started working with stern in 98 which was shortly after i started working with dave and i worked with stern up until he left for serious which was what four or six i'm not even sure when yeah i mean uh so so i want to talk about like these are two of the most important broadcasters in history and you know and and um by the way shout out to alex bennett we love you alex appreciate you love you alex and any roads that you paved that other people drove over where you know we appreciate it alex we could have alex to thank for john lennon's uh whatever gets you through the night because uh that was an expression that alex used and he and he did it on the radio often and letterman uh letterman lennon was notorious uh like the beatles good morning good morning from sergeant pepper was was actually a kellogg's jingle that that lennon heard one day and it just kind of came through and he put in the song he heard alex bennett say whatever gets you through the night and that seeded in in lenin's brain i mean so there you go yeah there we go yeah how that how he actually came to cbs so um howard stern legend on the radio in new york and it was which is interesting uh i go back as a fan with stern my first job in 1982 was working at nbc and i worked for wn nbc's the fm station w y and y they were on the same floor there were sister stations you had am and fm if you shut out your private parts right there everybody dan aykroyd bit you know with the same dj being the av am guy and the fm guy like jekyll and hyde it was amazing so my office was on the second floor which is where our studio was where uh the ninth floor why why where um snl there was a big window that looked down on eight h yep right so just to paint the picture of how cool it was like being on a back lot in hollywood right letterman was on the sixth floor but in in 1981 when i was working at nbc uh howard was the afternoon guy and their studio was on the second floor where my office was and there was a glass window so if you remember private parts where the tour is going through and they're playing you know blank-a-doodle-doo i'm gonna go with brett summers right uh that was really what the setup was like i remember often looking through the window and seeing uh the engineer and howard and they were like you know applauding and banging drums that was like it was almost like a zoo radio and like a parody of zoo radio but here's the cool thing david letterman had done the morning show yes in that same building yeah i think yeah maybe even in the same studio i believe it's the same studio yeah we know this and then that show got cancelled yep and they had a holding deal for dave um for you know to do something possibly at 12 30.

so snyder was in that building too tom snyder was doing his show so there's a lot of activity going on there yeah um and so so so that's just kind of the the there were times where dave and i i would see david the hallway and i just knew him as that amazing comedian from the don kirsh in a rock concert remember that carter should rock concert they would feature not just music but stand-ups and i remember seeing dave on that before i saw him on letterman on leno not like god yeah on carson i am sorry old age is catching up with don't be uh there were times where so so dave was just really kind of like like george costanza working on the penske file going into an office and just waiting for for for i guess you know to find out what's going on right but we would find ourselves both watching howard stern do his radio show not even talking to just just like like everyone else it was like this is one of the novelties that cool things are working there yep oh okay so howard becomes howard bigger bigger goes to uh k rock yeah which is owned by infinity well karmazin the general manager his patron saint the the guy who supported him all those years at a certain point uh group was it viacom or it was viacom at a certain point uh we buy infinity yeah we merge yep and no karma's in now i'm like wow i work at the same company as howard stern because we're we're all in the same family i remember seeing uh mel in the building in blackrock so blackrock is where our offices were and i remember introducing myself to him saying hey mel so excited that you're you know that you're part of this i love howard we got to get him on cbs and i'm just saying it like you know what'd you say you should put them on i don't i have zero authority should have like nothing nothing no agency at all to even say this it's like me talking to walter right now it's the exact same there's no okay that's nice but i think belle said and you are you know oh molly had a late night how are you you know noah's very approachable he's that guy right he goes well we should get together one day we should talk i'm like oh awesome whatever so long story short we start conversations i i bring leslie and i say listen you know like maybe there's something we could do with howard you know so we have a meeting leslie myself and mitch meet with howard and don and and and talk about a saturday night show a cindy more of a syndicated show not a network show but more like the the way situation works like you know we own cbs owned stations where we can guarantee clearance in maybe you know a third of the country but the biggest markets you know you hope the stations pick it up so uh we ended up doing that and and i remember so so that's how i started working with howard okay so when you work with howard when you're in his life you could absolutely remain anonymous on the air hope this is very likely that he will talk about meetings because he's very open that way sure but i was like i think what he liked the fact that i was not your average network executive right and i think you were a fan first and it showed but he also liked the fact that oh wow letterman's guy yeah is working on my show like that was kind of like i don't know maybe he didn't need the legitimacy and it was also just kind of like an exaggeration but yeah i am letterman's guy and i'm working on your show and i remember one of the first things i did with howard that he really really liked i remember thinking we were just talking about what the show was going to be mitch howard and i would meet frequently frequently we'd meet in the studio after the show and that's when i really started to learn about his work ethic i'm like this guy moves up like at five in the morning you know to do his show at six and here we are it's like one o'clock and he's still like you know he would god if you remember but his radio show would go on well past ten o'clock sometimes to eleven eleven thirty and we're having a meeting and so in talking about the show i was going with this it sounded a lot like the e-show you know this is really gonna confuse a lot of people because howard's making a big deal about like it's like wrestling right yeah i'm gonna go against snl we're gonna kill lester now and i'm like i'm not really quite sure we're gonna beat the e-ratings at this point you know because we're not delivering uh anything new right so so i remember the first thing where i think he was impressed with my thinking was okay we're trying to figure out what to call the show i said howard i know what we have to call the show let's just call it the howard stern radio show so like i like the idea of meta again i like the idea of let's just call it what it is our tv show was called the howard ster radio show there was something kind of fun about that and he loved that love love love that so so we did the show and i started to appear on it regularly because it was all part of calling in with the ratings and calling in from the bus and all the things that that that people might know me from from the show and then at one point jackie martin jackie the gentleman left and howard said hey vin why don't you sit in jack's chair for a week you know just to just you don't have to like just and i'm like oh come on i wanna joke something like just be yourself you know i could turn to you i could and it was like a life preserver for him it's just like just someone to go to so it was amazing so i'm sitting there i got fred to my left i could hire in front of me i would always come in with an agenda one time i came in with uh q ratings let's talk about q ratings you know like you know what that was a thing at the time you know and and so i always i never took it for granted i was prepared for it um and then and then it got to the point where i didn't have to be in the studio i would be in frequently but then i would call in or they would call me you know and that was my relationship with that and i think at one point so one time um howard did a tirade against letterman because of some bad information that he had yeah and it was a very wrestling-like but you can't tell when you're on listening on the radio you don't see the wink you know and i went in to defend dave and howard would just rip me a new one and it was actually very very funny and and uh dave called me to thank me which i thought was like really really cool i think someone must have told them hey vinnie really defended you on oh which was which was nice but then it's ironic that they've become best buddies now you know that they're they there was always a regard for each other in fact dave was quite surprised because i always thought we had a regard for each other i was really surprised he did that but this might call back to you though saying that dave forgives people you know especially when they when they when they sack up and they they come on up and say and stern stern has done that like how many times have you heard howard stern apologized for uh for the things that he's done today in the past i mean howard has been that you know dave just but it was it was an amazing uh experience working for those two guys and the the thing and i try to apply it to anything any project that i work on my big takeaway from both howard and dave they were surrounded two things they were surrounded by an incredible staff right who worked tirelessly uh and knew what the brand was i don't want to reduce dave or howard to a brand but they knew what it was that they were working for right and um but the other thing was those two guys worked harder than everyone else and everyone else worked really really hard but they were they led from the front if you're the ceo like you own this thing it's like okay i'll just come in for this show and i'll leave howard would be there i remember working with howard and and then i was helping him develop the websites the early days of internet stuff and and and we were on the phone for hours and texting and emailing and then i probably got a saturday like i remember aol messenger remember that yeah i remember saying hey video are you up yet and it was like six the morning i'm like hour like i got to it like then so sorry i missed this i'm thinking all right the weekend we gotta both have off right he was tireless unbelievable hardest worker and the same with dave dave was was the first one there and the last one to leave just i talked to somebody off camera um about this because i remember when i don't know when on the run it might have been oh 405 it might have been after the heart surgery um but but there there came a time where dave stopped coming to rehearsals and it made the news and and the person i was talking to off-camera was saying that how frustrated they were hearing that because they made it sound like dave was being a little bit diva-like or they were god it was it was but he was still all the things he was still doing uh like how hard his how his work ethic was still and dave would even go out there and say oh yeah i've been phoning it in the last he never phoned it in that never no no and that all that stuff all that stuff like even when i did my bitten you know he yeah in the early days of cbs he would be down there at the desk throwing the football to mike mcentee you know killing time back and forth and then it's like a ready to go and then they'd run the the bet you know the cbs executive comes down to the stuff and he'd get a kick out of it what he liked he didn't like whatever but then it got to the point where you know this guy i mean remember how how much weight he lost when he came back like it was like maybe he came back too soon actually it's like that was like a major major surgery obviously and you know the decision was made it's like well listen unless you're physically in any bit you know that needs to be rehearsed we could just tape this stuff and just show it to you and by the way show it to you in the dressing room where you're getting ready for the show what's up running through the monologue and sharpening that you're it's not like you know he was a part of the way in and by the way he weighed in and said why are we using an actor let's have vinnie do it you know as an example there you go and so so um not to get off howard stern here because i mean you got two again titans of broadcasting who in many ways uh could not be more opposite in their presentation uh one who is open about absolutely anything and everything and and willing to talk and gleefully uh openly about these things you've got this other guy with that um you know the term is i guess midwestern sensibility where where um you know a lot of things are kept private and and and you know but at the same time they have all of these other characteristics their ad lib ability their uh interview uh prowess um again work ethic and all these things that are exactly the same uh fearless as well and and also can attract people uh like you wouldn't believe magnets uh a lot of that yeah a lot of their guests were fans of them like people would be on howard and and one thing that was really great um um and i know howard appreciated this when when howard stern did on serious the howard stern years like a kind of this long series about his life uh i got the call from from his producers hey we'd love dave to to to you know do some stuff for it right and i was like you know i never guarantee anything that's always a tough sell but dave said yes and it was great and we recorded dave talking about howard and he gave howard credit for for for being the inspiration for dave using his own mom on the show you know that all came he said because howard would do that on the early nbc show wnbc radio shows his mom would be on the air and dave listened to all that uh i thought that was great i uh um god damn i wish i wish uh that this hasn't been so much time because i want to keep going and there's just so much meat on this bone um if there was a comparison that you could make between the two uh what would that comparison be and if there was any different major differences between the two what would it what would it be i i'd say very little differences uh they're they're not even two sides of the same coin maybe the brand of comedy might be different sure but but it's the same they're the same they're uh i think the biggest thing is they know who they are like they know like when something rings false if you pitch them a piece of comedy or um they not only do they know what what's right for the show but again their closest people know what's right to take to them you know if that means i love that i love that um and and this won't be the last time we talk about this stuff this is uh this is a conversation that's way bigger than this than than one podcast um i've got a i've got we've got a commercial commercial we're gonna shoot okay uh real quick um and then i'm gonna ask you about what you're doing now and any any of the projects that you have going on right now because i think it's good to promote that and then i got one final question on the way out this is uh the commercial you're gonna like this we have one uh only sponsor with the letterman podcast i'm not going to do commercials for dick pills and all that kind of stuff i'm not at that place we're trying to get this thing official and and that's what we want to have happen so i'm not i'm not doing any of that stuff however there is one sponsor who has made their way uh through to us and we said uh abso lutely the hell of the uh there's one sponsor for the letterman podcast the letterman's podcast is brought to you in part by the hello deli rupert g and the hello deli and we're so delighted by this it's it we can't even tell you um hey everybody uh has your late show with david letterman mug broken has your last late night with david letterman show uh t-shirt gotten mothballs in it and and now has the little holes in it fear not you can actually still there is one place that you can buy official late show with david letterman merchandise and it is at the hello deli rupert g and uh and his business partner may nestled within the womb of the ed sullivan theater uh are still serving amazing sandwiches and soup if you're in the new york area go see them but if you want late show with david letterman merchandise or you're a fan of rupert and you want some rupert g t-shirts and things uh please go to hello deli.com uh here's a guy right here who has probably frequented uh the hello deli more times than i have mcdonald's in my life um so anyway there's our there's our plug for rupert right there really kind guy right vinnie like god took the word and made it into a man like so unassuming and so not uh business oriented like there were times where like wait a second your your your deli is in a building that has 400 some odd potential customers are going to be at let out around 6 30 but you're going to close at six okay i get it i love it but i love that about him that's what made him so special i remember when dave installed this uh slurp slush machine yep that was great yep good times um we just appreciate rupert so much and uh and and uh he and his girlfriend irene and early adopters of our show really really supportive of what we're doing and we couldn't be happier to be linked up with rupert is just a hell of a guy and he's so nice he'll take selfies with you he'll do whatever i don't know if there's anyone in new york that takes more selfies with with people that on a daily basis averaged out than rupert g i mean just the kindest person in the world um vinnie you've been generous with your time here i want to talk about what are you working on now so obviously that phase of the career uh has evolved into where you're at right now what are the things that are that are keeping you or waking up in the morning with a spring in your step what are you working on now well the big thing that i'm working on i've worked on it for the last year and it's probably going to be another year and a half before i'm done it's epic uh i'm working on the history i'm writing a book on the history of christmas music going back to the beginning of time like right like the oldest carols up until now uh it's a deep dive i finished the 70 i thought i was done with the 70s and 80s because i i chose those chapters because there's a lot of music it's all original music so i'm i'm you know it's it's the 70s has a hundred songs of which maybe the average person might know you know 20 of them right from that decade the stories are fascinating the imagery is incredible so i'm working on that and i'm like right now i'm doing this who knew the 60s the 50s and 40s each of those decades alone has about 300 original christmas songs each year yeah and so some of them are incredible that people don't know about so what i'm i'm i'm sorting it all out and basically what i'm doing is i bring feature-length stories yeah anywhere from like you know like the jingle bell story was like 30 pages like who knew jingle bells was written by um by a person who fought for the sound of the civil war civil war who was for slavery and the song was debuted as part of a blackface minstrel show like the lyrics wouldn't suggest it at all no which is why it's so popular but its origins are are very very much of that world uh so yeah so i'm i'm finding all this stuff it's fascinating and when it's done it will i'm hoping it will be like ken burns civil war documentary that kind of epic project like multi-volumes and a podcast series and documentary so that literally keeps me up at night um obsessing on it and trying not to get too overwhelmed so i'm doing that and uh i just hosted co-hosted by my buddy arbel who uh who was the true founder of comedy central we did a podcast series uh that's available wherever podcasts are streaming uh called uh constant comedy and we talked about the oranges because because it was um it was the 30th anniversary wait no the yeah the 30th anniversary of comedy central comedy channel we launched that in 1989 it was actually started as a comedy channel so doing that i'm producing a 911 uh event uh in new york on monday the 12th what's outside johnny the cast from come from away uh just like a big like uh fundraiser event and that's it and talking to you and well hey and i appreciate that an open invitation anytime it's it's of course clear you would have a podcast you're a an incredible broadcaster in your own right and i just i appreciate this so much um oh okay before we before we leave i promised shecky uh that i would ask you about um a phone call original phone call with the lady who would become your wife uh about the original phone call yeah well that's that's back with the howard stern days right yeah yeah well um this is me sharing or over sharing with howard something this is joshua the true fan that i am so remember gary's tape remember the gary apology tape which was amazing content for that show gary you know hello hello hello uh so i remember uh thinking oh i shouldn't left too hard i got my own skeleton in the closet you know and they were a series of videotapes that i made when i was wooing my suit to be my eventual wife uh and they were basically just you know hard on your sleeve you know early days of video the beta cabinet camcorder uh video love letters uh she rated but silly and uh some a little bit cringy more than a little cringy and i remember having them and and howard i shared that with gary that i had done that saying you don't feel so bad did that and gary in typical stern fashion pulled it out at a key moment at a time when we were all beating up hungarian so they go vinnie you shouldn't talk you got your own stuff and hours are like what wait what so i i i had to buy a beta machine on ebay because i didn't i had the tapes but i didn't have a way to play them and i remember playing them thinking how bad could they be right and my wife was that debbie was dying like these are i can't believe i married you these are so creepy they're so cringy and embarrassing and uh howard was like i want the tapes i'm like nah you can't they're just really bad biting me so i was like all right and i gave him just you know maybe 10 minutes of it and the rest is history because he plays them all the time i love that yeah so that that's the story thank you rick wait till i dig up some of your skeletons i think i might actually have real skeletons in his closet so we have to be careful well he might but they were probably used in in films from the 30s yes exactly from hammer films that's right that's right thank you so much for this today i've got one uh obvious uh dude you're amazing i appreciate this so much i think you can probably see uh i i kind of wear my heart on my sleeve too when it comes to this i think you can see the actual generosity and gratefulness pouring out of me right now thank you for this i your your your generosity is is unbelievable um we we go out of the show the same way uh when we have folks like you as a guest um obviously we like the entire evolution of dave we love that he's doing the long form uh the tom snyder-esque uh the stuff that he is doing right now with the with with folks um if there's three people that you would love to see on my next guest uh and dave kind of do an hour with with the produced video uh in the middle and all that and just just a phenomenal job top to bottom is what they're doing right now if there's three people you would like to see him talk to in long form who would those three people see dave dave talk to three people oh don't worry about pop culture don't worry about it just year from your heart if there's three people that you would love to see on the next my season of my next guest who would they be oh okay give me a second and then you can edit right you could tighten this up sure sure uh i don't usually but you know did he you know did did he have dave chappelle on uh he did did they talk about was it dave chappelle pre um the the trans controversy it was it was it was uh right around the time of kovid because when dave went out there and did the show he went out to the to the farm and did the show there and everyone had the masks on and all that right um but he but chappelle certainly uh you know i i i think it's actually fascinating watching that episode through the lens right now of what's happening here and it just shows how damn strong a guy dave is dave chappelle is and and how he stands up for his convictions yeah if you watch that episode you can certainly see why because convictions are something that have been a part of his life for his entire life right but it would be cool to see a ps to that like if you pick chappelle again to me yeah that'd be great yeah i would do i would do chappelle now without even dave challenging him but just helping dave does that great thing of help me understand like he like he that's almost his way of i'm not sure i agree with you so help me it's my curiosity with you he comes at it with curiosity no agenda i actually i'd like to see that version now yeah i'd love to see will smith now yeah with that because i know we had will smith again three three oscars that would be uh fascinating and i'm trying to figure who that third would be i don't think it should be an entertainment person because he was so oh i you know who i would love oh god bob dylan oh yeah i would love you ever seen a picture of there's a great uh picture on the an internet of letterman liberace and bob dylan like just it's a black white photo they were all i guess on one show uh but i am such a huge fan of dylan i think dylan is is is is a hero like he's the guy he's a national international treasure and the thing about dylan is i'm i'm as much a fan of his interviews you know stuff that you you know from rolling stone and as i am of his music because he's so insightful he's so smart absolutely and i don't know what kind of an interview would be i don't know if he would be vague with dave or whatever i would i would that would kill for that could not agree more and there are there are polarizing uh folks like that um you know tom waits is a guy who's like that as well you know and and have history they both all have history with with dave's shows and and i think that that would that's a phenomenal answer yeah that would be incredible yeah absolutely um vinnie favali if anybody wants to find you search you social media presence anything like that what's the best way to get a hold of you uh twitter instagram is vp for volley which is not for vice president east coast it's vincent peter from volley so vp favali on twitter instagram and then vinnie favali on facebook youtube or my website vinifavalia.com perfect um safe to say not a weasel not a pinhead um the perfect guy to to take over when you did take over and and uh with all the ups and downs that we have seen i'm i'm so grateful that you have been willing to share uh some of these stories and i can't wait for more um i i just support i want to support every project you're doing as well thank you so much this is this is really cool it's been a real kick for me vinnie thank you and i'll be happy to to come out again and talk not stuff related to me just talk about dave if there's if you ever do a deep dive in an episode or uh the will it float off shoot you know like whatever whatever whatever whatever you guys want to do you know i uh i appreciate that like you wouldn't believe uh i'm gonna do the quick outro here and then as soon as i hit stop you and i can say our goodbye privately but um there we go that's why we do what we do this is a this is a perfect example for anybody watching why we do what we do the content of this show is exactly it we love uh taking up taking some of these moments that have happened in the past um and were thrown away so quickly because there was another show the next day and and and and and dusting them off off the ground blowing them off and going oh my god look at these gold nuggets look at all of these things plus the story behind the story um you know we celebrate the greatest body of work broadcasting work in history that is the work of david letterman and company the company just as important or almost important maybe 51 to 49.

there's dave and then there's the company as well all of the people are the family that put this together a prime example of that today everybody this has been another episode of the letterman podcast with mike chisholm coincidentally i am mike chisholm our guest today vinnie favali thank you very much for coming and watching this uh thank you and good night overcoat and underpants