The Post Mortem of Tina Fey with special guest Irene Hoffman

welcome once again to the letterman podcast my name is mike chisholm i'm very excited to be here and talk about things all david letterman and company uh that is what i will bring to the table every time i do this it is a you know what we're going on to i think this is like the 14th or 15th episode now we've got some more in the can 15th or 16th episode uh that we're doing and i just got to say i'm getting more excited about this and i make this commitment to you the viewer and the eye holes the listening and the air holes i make this commitment to you there is our guest right there she's in greece everybody our second repeat guest irene hoffman is here currently the most viewed most listened to episode we have put out at the letterman podcast but my commitment to you is that every time i come here i will be grateful every time i come here and do this i will be excited uh i'm having a ball doing this and i'm having a ball watching the community and listening to the community grow thank you for everybody who has reached out and given comments of support and those who have also given constructive criticism and we haven't had any haters yet the haters are coming i'm sure team team team leno team leno's going to hear about this show and they're going to be like oh yeah i know right yeah team leno's gonna be out there and they're gonna come back and they're gonna not like this show but that's okay because we're all about peace and love and looking at the history of the body of work of david letterman and company before we get to the meat of the show even though we have a sunset in greece happening right now i have to do a little bit of business and that business is this this podcast is brought to you in part by our friends at the hello delhi go to hello deli.com and you will see what all the fuss is about nestled right in the womb of the ed sullivan theater the hello deli sits and has sat for so long and rupert and may and you can go see them if you live in new york go and have a sandwich come on and if you don't live in new york but you uh broke your letterman mug some years ago look at this mug with all these pencils or or your hat you know your hat isn't uh where it needs to be t-shirts all of that stuff late show with david letterman merchandise is at the hello deli also rupert t-shirts and hey you know what rupert he packages these things himself you know once you order a shirt and ask him to sign the receipt then you get like double the value you get a receipt autographed by rupert g and you get a shirt from the late show with david letterman anyway they are our uh sponsor partners we are so excited about that but enough of this tomfoolery enough of this belly who it's time to get to this greek sunset irene hoffman you are back we are going to do uh a debrief we are going to do a postmortem of tina fey you talked about it last time hey how does it feel to be our most viewed at the moment uh podcast i'm startled startled but i do i it's so sweet because most of the people who viewed are my former students and what a payback the pay pay at the time wasn't good great payback now and i need to say something just before you start i'm not seeing i'm not senile yet but i didn't i didn't keep a journal and the more recent tickets that i had for this show were separated from my early tickets the ones we were allowed to keep right and they were boxed in before the fire and i have not de-boxed those tickets so when i i might get a little hazy and when i put the vip band back where it was in my stack on your original podcast you're talking about when you were on the original podcast just go to vip yeah yeah yep yes it was it was it was in front of my david crosby ticket which i also had a vip passport and now i'm racking my brain as to whether we had to wear the vip bracelets so i don't ever want to say anything incorrectly it's just that i should have kept a journal i should have had things more orderly so i'm going to tell it like it is pretty pretty darn right but a little this or that i don't know well you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you this here um it's funny how uh this this podcast is essentially for the most part based on folks memories and it's it's crazy how fallible folks memories can be um but that's what i that's what i love about what it is that we're doing here i don't get me wrong i i get the dons to fact check a lot of this stuff and i appreciate him for everything that he does that guy is a walking encyclopedia he's a walking wikipedia he's a [ __ ] letterman pedia i don't know what you want to call it but that's what he is and uh and and and that being said it's charming listening to some of these people go back and come from their point of view and how their memory uh the snapshots that their brain took and it is it's a special kind of tapestry myself so i love that but you know what it's great you did a great segue uh without even knowing it or maybe you did know it you devious bastard um irene is a gigantic enthusiast of david letterman which she was on already uh she talked about the 40-something times that she has been to the show and then she also mentioned a very special episode that she got to go see which is why we're going to do this postmortem of tina fey today uh irene was in the audience irene had an interaction with dave we're going to talk about that tina fey is greek irene hoffman before we get going to do the post-mortem of tina fey uh tell tell us all where you are right now i know rupert was very insistent to me that uh that we get to show a little bit of your hideaway here on the letterman podcast um and uh he and i were were talking talking yesterday about uh we can't wait till we're enjoying uh an evening beverage uh over what it is that you're looking at right now where are you right now and what is behind you um behind me is a a mountain that has a little mountain over to this side but it's separated from us golemnos greece we are part of the dodukanese which in greek zlatika means 12.

uh these 12 islands that are very south of where tina phase mama's from because she's from mainland and we're way down close to crete and um this is a small island and yet among the the 12 islands i would say next to rhodes which is the capital of the chain of 12 islands um we are really thriving and it's a lot to do with the tarpon springs and ohio colemians worked immensely to be able to summer here and then the group of australian immigrants who went to australia and made their fortunes they do everything in their power to be able to be here from june to all the way up to september right now there is a cloud behind the mountain my grandmother would be so sad because from june to august there's no clouds that's as she used to always tell us um but the climate has changed and the humidity has gotten higher and so it's easier to not do anything with the hairdos but um it's a gorgeous island and we have 35 000 residents and there are people from tarpon springs who um are from other of the 12 and there's only like 150 people on those islands so you have 35 000 people here and and it's mainly of i i don't know if it's volcanic it's a rock and the mountains that you cannot see and i told you some people put their chairs instead of watching the sunset to this massive huge mountain that gets illuminated by the sunset and you know rock climbers it is they were they told us on the airplane that it was number two in the world and number one in europe for rock climbers and i told you they hang like spiders and it terrifies me but they know what they're doing okay okay we're gonna unpack this a little bit just for our listeners uh because we've got a listening audience as well as a viewing audience so um the factoids that that irene was giving you about greece uh are to do with the fact that if you look at irene right now behind her you see this beautiful bay with a mountain in the middle and the sun is going down and uh and and if she were to move the camera left or right she's not gonna but if she were to move the camera left or right you see all of these white houses it is literally when you think of greece and the greek isles uh and you think about the white buildings on the rock with the blue sky and the blue water around that is exactly where she is right now nestled in a crown jewel of paradise um that uh don't call it a bay though okay because it's mass over this side it there as far as the eye can see is the water is the sea okay paradise what a place you get to be for a few months every year and uh and i mean how cool is it to just say oh i summer in greece like that is a very cool thing we lucked out i told you we lucked out my grandmother had many properties that were neglected for decades and then somebody called and said you know the squatters have taken a quarter of an acre of your of of your argos property uh you might want to come and legally claim these uh uh properties i get that phone call i get that phone call and and i'm like uh pardon me really what come get come get your land in greece overlooking a bay not a bay uh overlooking this beautiful holy [ __ ] like um okay so so we're gonna move to the to tina fey stuff here but needless to say um you have uh you know we're we're gonna have some fun candy and i are gonna come out there probably next summer rupert's gonna come out there um we're all saying hey let's get dave and his people out there what a beautiful place i love my i would love my fairy godmothers to come because i owe them so much and i know that they would call this paradise it's pleasant you need to know that it's very country peasant this is this is summer property here there they live in near the port they come for the summers here and it's very it was very primitive very primitive they would even camp at the at the water's edge but um we got something far more than absolutely a country home what a blessing um and how's the tarpon fishing out there is it good um they they have over farmed their fish fish and they shouldn't have but the tarpon fishing is a is a is a an inside joke that's going to come not in this podcast it's going to come on one of irene's other appearances like i said earlier uh in her first podcast her stories have stories and that that one there has one to do exactly with with mr david letterman uh that's a beautiful inside joke that irene gets to gets to whip out any time she wants um okay so we uh knew that we were gonna have you back here um you know like i said rupert really wanted to do you to have a podcast with that in the background he you know we showed the picture of you and him in front of that uh beautiful beautiful landscape uh and seascape um on your podcast now uh now we've got you here and when you and i were deciding okay how can you and i do um a focused podcast because that's really what members of the community are going to do here we've had rob cates on twice you're on twice as the community grows members of the community are going to be part of the letterman podcast that is an element of our show that we're gonna do uh in tribute to the fact that dave made everybody a part of the show um outside of the studio as well as inside of the studio and that's what we want to do here as well we want to celebrate that by having members of the community on the show here and we're going to do things like the postmortem we chose tina fey because greece was a was was a part of that um she is uh she's got a beautiful greek name she's got a beautiful greek heritage and she talks about that she talks about in the episode that she was on uh back in season one of my next guest needs no introduction she talks about her great grandmother and the and and some of the the um eccentricities of that culture and how that uh you know shaped her life um but it's not just the greek connection it's serendipitous um you know it's kismet it's whatever you want to call it uh it's like we manifested this moment you were actually in the audience and you actually had an interaction with dave um at that episode of my next guest needs no introduction i did yeah i did fantastic oh you want to hear it well okay so you um you kind of set the stage we did a good job in the first episode of setting the stage for this um you were dressed in cocktail attire but you had the big puffy coat over top uh because it was like 20 something degrees outside um what was the name of the do you remember the name of the theater you were at um you know it's a shame on me and it's probably on the ticket but it is a it's a college yeah it's a college and um evidently they use the auditorium because tina fey talks about her daughters doing their recitals there but it is a college and i don't know i took a taxi there it was about three minute drive from where i was staying at the hudson so i i can't tell you i forgot okay but it's a college auditorium in the heart of new york city mm-hmm okay um and and and you mentioned it already tina fey talked about how she's connected to the theater they were in um and this is it's cool going back and looking at this because this is um season one of my next guest i believe she was the fifth of of six or seven if you include the bonus episode uh uh episodes um of that season uh they were definitely getting their feet wet this is an episode where dave talks one-on-one with tina in front of an auditorium of what probably 300 people a few more maybe yeah it was bigger it seemed it's well i don't you know what you might be right because they did not they didn't have a balcony so but it was a large auditorium so perhaps three four um one of the things that uh um a stark contrast from my next guest or from from late show to my next guest is um the production and now obviously it's a very different production you know and they were experimenting in season one where they would sometimes sort of have two guests like they'd have one guest they would talk about something and the thing they talked about dave would then go and shoot a remote either in the geographic location or maybe with some of the other people involved right um when he went to chicago and he met up with um funny guy yeah yeah in the in the president obama episode he went and uh um and and spoke with uh it was john davis um uh congressman uh was it congressman john yeah don't ask me names i lose names now i'm losing them too but anyway that that's what he would do so in season one that's many of the times that's what you would see the clooney episode he went and saw george's family um and this episode here he went back to chicago had some greasy fries and uh restaurant from the athenian room there you go and the baked chicken they would because usually the greeks will put the potatoes in the pot and bake the chicken and all those juices get into the potatoes except that they're all very crusted on the top we've got motor scooters it's past um what do you call it siesta time so now people are we just there was a bunch of i'm glad to see a bunch of tourists that were just walking here but we'll hear motor scooters a lot too oh we're okay with that we're okay with that so so you've got a culture there that actually uh embraces siesta time like it's a real thing there oh yeah one to four you need to stay quiet around here after that you can start up but the motor scooters are usually respectful of the sharp 4 p.m then you can hear them lightly you know get we're out of debt in the street and the dead end is a gorgeous beach so a lot of a lot of families like to they will go during siesta time too because it's a you know they can frolic on the beach and our village is extremely quiet and it's very it's just an old-fashioned tiny little village you go around the mountain and that's where all the kids are whoop-dee-doing so it's like two different worlds whoopty doing is a letterman word i love that um i can't wait till uh candy and i come out there with uh with you and rupert and it's gonna be so much fun because after the siesta okay you gotta power up because you go dancing far into the night at where you're from as well right that people don't eat what they'll do is get a snack um when they wake up and they will get their you know feta cheese and olives and a little bit of bread just you know for a snack and maybe some coffee they they like to drink turkish coffee which is pretty close to mud but anyway they also um open shop again from six to nine so at nine o'clock they will go oftentimes to nearby restaurants and people don't eat dinner until nine or ten o'clock and if there's music they stay till 1 30 in the morning so and yeah and dancing and which i you know i have my radar out i did contact one of my girlfriends and she said come with me on monday night because that's her favorite uh um musicians she loves them and i said yep i'll join you and then other friends of mine are coming in the next few days and once we get our group because we're part of the dance group in tarpon springs then we start planning where we're gonna go dancing awesome um well you know what i keep going back to greece because uh it's just so beautiful there and it's beautiful watching the sun setting right below you um as we do can you see it oh yeah it's great it looks it looks beautiful uh you're you're surrounded with a pinkish hue uh so so our audio listeners can uh understand what's going on i told you i told you i'd be backlit oh yeah no backlit with with uh with god's lighting it's absolutely gorgeous um okay so let's get to this episode i i uh i love just hanging out and talking with you about this stuff this is great um i i want to create a culture in our community here where um there are you know sometimes we just shoot the [ __ ] a little bit sometimes it's uh life stuff sometimes it's a lot of technical letterman stuff depending on the guest and all that and kind of make it like the three ring circus there's something for everybody out there who consider themselves an enthusiast of dave you are um a phenomenal uh example of just a cheerful life-loving member of our community and i appreciate you sharing this part of your life with us here um and again at rupert's insistence that was so fun watching him you've got to have a podcast with irene in greece you got to see this place he was so taken with it um oh yeah okay one more question before we get to the tina fey episode when was the first time you brought rupert out there what was his reaction when he when you showed him uh what comes along what the one of the perks of being in a relationship with irene hoffman is well he he i think he had a fascination from what he heard from me and what maybe because he loves to get on the computer and just you know explore when you enter the port coming to on the ferry boat um to this island it's very beautiful because again those whitewash houses are just they're just lining up the mountains but it is very dry and um you know i told him i said now for a moment it might look like beirut and there's nothing against beirut except that i think dry and and i said but you'll have to wait because you drive and it's about a 10 minute 15 minute drive from the port and you drive around and you see these houses and in dry land and then you turn and it's the turn and i told him i said wait for it please just wait and then the car turns and i said now you know why we come because this i'm very low i'm very low and very close to the sea yeah there's homes and the friends of home of ours have homes way up and their view is spectacular but i'm only 60 seconds to the water now we the car is way up high and so as soon as you turn that curve you see this bowl and the bowl is the houses that are in the mountains but then the bowl is this immense sea sure that is just unbelievable you gasped and my uh brother brought her his girlfriend and he said the same thing i did he said now you know why we come because it's very high very high and then you uh zigzag um down to where we live and we're we're right here okay so oh there's one other thing i didn't get to the last show can i can i uh can i can i tell everybody what your pet name for rupert is yes yeah it was my uh nephew who started it he actually actually absolutely thought that was his name and he said i'm not going to say it but no you said no no you said it's better if you say it okay my nephew and he's a really sharp kid but he was i don't know he was only five or six years old and i took i would take my mom and and my sister and her kids and my daughter and he just very casually said um is your friend root beer going to be a coming to see us and i said what did you say and he said your friend you know your friend root beer and that's it stuck the first time you and i were on the phone and then rupert came and joined the conversation yeah he said hi root beer i was like what are you kidding me oh that's what we call him you call him root beer and you like it was it was organic and it hit me like a like like cold water in the face i was like that is the most adorable thing that you call rupert root beer um okay my nephew okay your nephew started it um tina fey now this was a phenomenal episode uh of of dave talking to i i i have always been drawn to very smart uh brilliant uh funny women tina fey when she was on saturday night live she wasn't my my cast growing up but she was not too far removed from my cast growing up my cast growing up was like sandler's group um and and and so and i i have a oh i love phil hartman so much so she's a couple she's a couple cast members later but you see her and jimmy uh at the at the weekend update i was immediately drawn to her as an on-air talent um but then you know it's funny because along the way she became the head writer of saturday night live and um you could see the writing of that show i i don't i want to be very careful when i use the word improve shift definitely shift right and and um she sat down that's one of the things that she talked about with dave it's about a 40 somewhat minute episode but again this is a a big difference from the late show um the late show as you will attest to and i think you and i maybe even talked about it they ran that thing tight as a drum like they basically filmed the clock to clock man like it was it appeared like they were shooting a live show and when they screwed up it was like minimal they would keep recording dave would just direct traffic oh yeah okay yeah no we missed there let's just pick it up right from here and he would start and immediate repair yeah immediate repair yep and if you missed it you missed it like it was that fast the the the my next guest was a very different very different experience totally different setup because there was no pressure of oh i blundered let's do that again it was a conversation but i i don't know if you'll uh indulge me but you know dave grimes and that's part of the hilarity for me whether it's oprah's diaries or you know the journal that he would keep or that you know night after night he would carry something and hey those are really nice drums where'd you get those drums and see i like family guy for that same reason because they'll stretch it but anyway there were um six rows empty seats and dave came out did his thing we laughed and we you know he got us comfortable talked to us about his his uh son's class you know meeting but he kept going back to these six rows of seats where i was in row seven and um they were empty and he said you know an entertainer can become insecure when he doesn't see you know the immediacy of the audience right there and he said i was accustomed to having the audience fill in the seats but i don't understand those seats are empty then he'd leave it go back to some some other joke um and then back to those seats all before tina came out except that it was also and i'm not i hope i don't get in any trouble for this it was also a kind of an assessment of netflix feeling their way because the as you called it the production the tight tight ship of late show wasn't quite there yet over on the netflix side and he would make jokes about you know he says i don't run the show here this is you know i'm not in charge here but he's continued to grind over those empty seats so when um it came just before tina fey came out he did and he seemed because i've seen him sometimes not so much in the mood to do question and answers um and sometimes he's been very much in the mood well that night he was or that late afternoon if i could respond to that the the fact that you would see him night after night after night after night if you went to a thursday show you're seeing a double taping uh for late show i'm talking about now and then here you've got potentially months between times that dave addressed an audience i would assume that when he came out to see you uh or you know when when when uh he came out before the tina fey episode it's been a while since he's had a crowd in front of him so and he's talked about how much he loves that so probably enjoyed playing with that uh for that reason i would think yeah and he seemed uh very cheerful about it and um he did ask and i can't remember where which which i number i was in the lineup of questions and i had my hands thrust so high and of course i was on row seven so the six rows in front of me were empty and i just had that hand way up high and he said yes ma'am i said i don't have a question i just want to sit in one of those seats that you're grinding about down there and he he you know he was almost open armed and said please come on down um and i said okay and the puffer coat because i had just passed several people over top of cocktail attire though uh over top of the cocktail attire but i didn't take the well i did i put the coat on so i could exit the row uh putting it over around over my arm would have swatted you know too many people as it was excuse me pardon me excuse me pardon me and i'm sure the puffer coat hit several um but i got all the way down and a really handsome buffed guy with a headset and a netflix t-shirt and he was really uh muscular very nice he said he whispered to me and dave's watching the whole uh training yeah yeah you're you're the centerpiece of what's happening in that theater right now and he's just enjoying the process of it happening he's interested in what's transpiring and so he whispers to me we have to leave those seats empty they're going to be um still photographers crouching uh down between the rows taking the still photographs of this episode really nice and i said oh okay um and i i looked up at dave and i said i can't be and he said well i tried i d i did try and i went back to my seat with excuse me pardon me with the puffer coat on but i wasn't upset because one the netflix man was wonderfully nice and two dave was interested and and he made the gesture of well i certainly tried and i was really nice so use uh um an amazing episode afterwards we're gonna get to this but you saw about 90 minutes of which the public only saw about 40 something minutes of we're gonna get to that in a second here but when you think back to that night that interaction with dave uh was that the highlight oh i can't say that i was i was titillated by every single move gesture i looked at tina fey a great deal but i and i don't you know i know he doesn't like it but every chance i get to study dave that's what i want to do i find him so so fascinating and tina fey was lovely and just a side note here stomatina she says has a greek italian origin and she may not know this but right here on this island my grandmother was an italian citizen with an italian passport in her youth um because mussolini was the boss here for eight years she wrote and spoke italian even though you know she was from here greek so that crossover might have happened that way but stomatina is a greek a greek name too um and then i did a little you know scouting and uh found out that her mother is from the port the main port of athens and it is a city it's a city in itself and um so they're mainlanders and mainlanders usually have a little more refinement we're the hillbillies actually in intellect and and gumption no but in isolation of this island we're like from the hills of tennessee okay so with the name with the name um irene hoffman colon greek hillbilly would that uh would that suffice that that's an accurate description and the as rupert was getting to know us because he knew that we stayed at the plaza but he also knew that i was getting the snacks from dollar tree um he would say he said i don't know after maybe the third or fourth meeting he would just like that same inquisitive way he said are you and he hillbillies absolutely i said i'm not afraid to venture and and typical of this island and my father's island because i'm i'm a half and half i claim this more than a little south of here my father's family is from the island of carpathos and um they're known for their business acumen we're known for for loving to eat food and dancing but you know if you when people from this island who i'm sorry to say the government constricts but when they when they're given an opportunity to venture out oh my oh my word they're either uh high high scholastic uh achievers and then they or they take uh positions in extremely high paying jobs that don't require the scholastic intellect they're very it's this is a very cool island and the people are really cool so but if you could hear some of the way that they say a word here yep the word for salt sock like you put on your foot is the way they say it here is kracha they just they we're hillbillies what's the word for white us gotcha that's white socks oh uh calza calza is the correct way to say sock and actually it's so hard because there's endings depending on what the word for sock is it could be except it's not it's gotsa but anyway there's the endings and i messed them up and the and none of the islanders ever ridicule me because they know that i'm that i'm trying well we'll say okay so so say white sox again one more time hospital the reason i say it is because of course the biggest misconception in the david letterman lore is that he always wore white socks of course wearing gray socks um and including that night uh with tina fey um i love seeing i love seeing wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait because he's wearing two socks it would be astra gold thank you for the correction buddy because you have okay so singular okay so aspra calces is what dave was famous in my mind i just that was the era i loved when he had those two thousand dollar pair of shoes on but he had the white socks on and they were and he would take every opportunity if somebody called him on it to say that they were gray and i love that uh again these grinding jokes these running jokes that happened um so dave comes out sits down in this show here not in the same again the production very different than the late show it was a 90-minute show that got paired down uh we're going to talk a little bit about that um and also um you're not seeing dave in the big suit like you alluded to with the two thousand dollar shoes and all that you're seeing him more the way that he would dress you know that this is how i dress when i go to my office i'm the i'm the the the sport coat with either a dress shirt or a t-shirt and the jeans and the and the in you know uh for him i love him i love him casual yeah that casual yeah even seeing him a few weeks ago at the uh um that's my time with david letterman same thing and he also did the same thing even then so we're like five six years later uh or four years later maybe um and and he's still kind of given the little digs about the the production the netflix production versus um you know his family production at home at the at the ed sullivan theater there was not i'm gonna tell you and i have been to jimmy fallon and um i won't talk much about it except you can buddy it's okay we got no beef with fallon no no i have no beef with fallon i he actually he was as friendly with the staff and i saw one of the uh former late show staff members out on that stage but he was super friendly with everyone but i'm going to tell you something wow the experience and jimmy i love you i really do but the experience of that show f-l-a-t yeah yeah in contrast i've tried to i've been to fallon too and i've and i've in other shows as well and i've tried to explain to people uh the late show and when you go into that ed sullivan theater it's a theater it's a rock concert they play the full songs uh they played the full commercial breaks they play it like it's live yeah and you watching um this episode here where it was much more casual again you know about 40 minutes of material cut i want to talk about some of that material with you tonight they started the show talking about um you know the origin of of tina's name and and things like that um you know going back to the greek connection and whatnot then they kind of moved on to her beginnings improv things like that it was fun to see dave and tina do uh a little bit of mockish improv wasn't it but was that not spectacular because tina fey is brilliant genius when i'm not as dumb as i look how could you be and seen if that wasn't a perfect skit i don't know what i um i i when she said that to him and and dave sometimes will will let the joke hit and then it'll take a second and then the big smile shows up or the the reaction shows up because it's almost like he's playing with it like am i gonna am i gonna come back am i gonna let this one sit and as he did that uh in that part how could you see yeah and it was it was that was it um and it's so nice she knew she knew that was the prize moment if you if you continued it you'd lose that that brilliant i'm not as dumb as i look pause pause how could you be exactly if if they went any further the the brilliance of an improvisational skit that he didn't even realize yeah he didn't she knew he didn't but he loved it all indications were that he loved it oh that was a great little moment um i love that i loved her talking about her time on saturday night live anytime behind the scenes stuff is the stuff that i just love and many of our audience are are on the same page when it comes to that where we're almost more excited about what's going on behind the curtain and behind the scenes then what's that you know what's you know what is spectacular and what i told you earlier but what was spectacular was that she i've heard a couple of my students had gone into modeling and reached the top and then walked away simply because because she tina fey was in a world of hard party indulgence and she was as straight as an arrow and i laughed for a prolonged time when he said well do you vape she said vape um how about pot she goes i've never smoked pot she said i'm i'm just when nancy reagan said say no to drugs i said copy that okay i loved it now to survive in a milieu of craziness forget the the urine in a in a jar forget that just to just to go into that environment and be as straight-laced as she is i love it i do too um i hear i hear them i hear the kids going on awesome and they're you know most of them these some these are not greek kids a lot of them are german and scandinavian people we won't hold that against them no you know but guess what wait a minute hold on a second i'm gonna tell you right now okay i thought the mother i thought the mother it was speaking greek but we do we do have visitors now and that's really nice for the island we like it more quiet but they need they need the you know visitors um i uh going back to to to the the conversation um with dave and tina about that that time and her her ascension into the world of entertainment and comedy uh here's the thing i love about dave and and we're gonna be uh this is where okay i i'm we're still in the infancy of this show so and and this is a casual episode with just two members of the community just going back and forth that's what that's what the post-mortem episodes really are um and and and there's lots of tidbits but there's also lots of little rabbit holes and asides and that's just what we do and uh so so but this is a good time to kind of talk about the tone that we're setting and the expectations that we're setting on the show we are not a show that focuses on the scandal of anybody involved really with with uh with the inside baseball of things we don't do that um we are the most scandalous thing we're going to talk about is like a reaction to things that happen on the show sarah palin being a a good example now because tina played sarah they talked about that in the episode i love that she was able to reflect on that the thing that she said about that uh with the with the mark twain award if we can get back to that before the show ends great beautiful little moment there um the the advice from lauren michaels uh i almost started crying yeah me too i almost started crying in the theater i mean she said that me too and and but to go back to the standards on this show that we want to set is um dave i love david letterman for talking about growth revelations um you know even you know owning mistakes um he's always done that in all sorts of ways from little ways to really big ways now we're not focusing on any of those really big ways in this show that's not what we're talking about here but one of the things that he talked about with tina here was one of the big ways and that was the fact that through the years um you know he had so many women in his production staff you cannot fault david letterman for not being dave was diverse before diversity was a thing you know and and that can go all the way back to the aids crisis and there are so many examples of dave showing inclusion in his show i will be a flag bearer of that and i've got and i can go deep on that subject i can you know what about this person with these people production all that if you look at scott ryan who wrote the last days of letterman he talks about that uh in an interview that we did at one point he's like this is a company that was ran by women and and and so but the one department or one department that women were missing um you know in the scales of diversity was his writing room and over the years people asked me about that and dave the fact that he brought he brought it up with tina it wasn't her nudging him at all he brought it up now and she said he said and and he said something like i i didn't even dawn on me that they would want to be a part of my uh ride on my dog and pony show yeah and she said it so beautifully she goes yeah we want to ride but irony of ironies a girl from here i mean you know her her lineage is from here um she was a college roommate of a girl at fsu who got a job in the accounting offices of worldwide pants she started having lunch with the writers and they picked up on her turn of something that and said you know you're funny she became a writer and her name's jill goodwin i know she wouldn't mind um and she came to meet me one day and that was really really nice in the freezing cold she came down and i didn't know she was coming but just because she started having lunch with the writers she was from accounting but they recognized something and she became a writer so she was a female writer was jill a part of the last episode of late show i don't i don't know and i don't know where she's where her path is gone now okay um she came in at the pretty much tour you know toward the mid i i would say she was she's she's younger um i would say she's uh 10 15 years younger than i am the only reason i ask is because um on the very last late show one of the things that i love to do uh is is when i talk to somebody or meet somebody who was on the show i love to uh the very last late show had as the credits rolled they had a nice long credits that honored the entire staff and and they had pictures of everyone was on it yeah and so her picture would have been her picture would have been there too so so she's in your book as well yeah our our sacred yearbook i love that yearbook oh my god i love that she's in it one day did show up in the credits one day uh when i get things a little bit technologically um evolved in the studio here we're gonna be doing a lot of changes to the studio and adding uh different features and things like that i want to go through that yearbook a little bit uh with the viewers and and tie some of the beautiful pictures inside pictures yes that any enthusiast would love to see uh i want to go through that a little bit with uh you know in certain topics and episodes um mike you do know that pretty soon we're going to be growing dark oh no we're good we're well yeah i mean i mean you know this is again a podcast with no real direction um are we gonna go ten minutes if we're gonna go another 20 minutes whatever but it's beautiful it's beautiful watching the sunset behind you this is a this was a perfect perfect idea by rupert um and so no this is great the idea though that he talked about i want to talk about things that got cut out of the show a little bit um from your recollection when he was talking about the idea of female writers and again we came from a different time my time from my childhood was different the way that letterman kind of described that feeling was if you think about the boys after school who get together in the clubhouse in the tree house that says no girls allowed yeah and boys the way that we would act was different than if a girl was sitting in there it was just different and and and i think dave almost and i don't want to put words in his mouth ever but the feeling i got when he said that it didn't even occur to me that girls would want to be part of this club was very very similar because guys in a writer's room especially back then merging in these three four decades from the 70s all the way up to the arts um you know obviously the dynamic had dramatically shifted and sometimes we make judgments with today's lenses versus yesterday's culture um just the fact that he was willing to bring it up and talk about that do you remember if there's anything else cut out from that section or was that pretty much left unedited no i and i totally 100 percent absorbed that that it just did not occur to him to have the girls included yeah it wasn't it wasn't anything and i really truly believed that he just just didn't quite think about it um but when they said now don't forget jude brennan merrill marco absolutely you know so so many so many women were involved in the the machinery of of that really tight ship yeah i i'm glad you brought up mira because obviously from the writing okay so there's this first head writer and and yeah absolutely i mean she's she's amazing she's a dream guest for this show too and and we've we're we're making some overtures and seeing what can what can happen to see if we can get her on here because you're talking about oh a brilliant brilliant mind and again i just love brilliant minds tina fey a brilliant mind um and i love the respect that dave has for that for those brilliant minds as well you know julie roberts famously julie roberts comes on there saying i think a lot of women were afraid to come on your show well why is that well because you know sometimes you can be sometimes you can be the blank blank but anyway um but something you just now said something so important um anyway uh it was prior to women coming on the on the show uh i lost it okay it's not uh the female writers in the writers room um just strongly i i i it was i said something about a tight ship i just know that over time yeah that everyone seemed to fill a slot that made it just immaculately run yeah and and every single day and that's why i loved and i love watching you know mark malkoff i love watching i i didn't know um and now i just lost his name and i love him i i was just i can't wait to hear more from him the kid who you know stumbled in and didn't do a good first presentation but we're talking about daniel kelly yes and he's gonna be delighted you called him a kid if he hears this the fact that you called him a looks like a kid and i knew about o'donnell you know i knew that he but look right now upstairs in my room um everybody knows i watch bugs bunny i just have dvds because upstairs my i have to watch dvds and i have i brought up a bunch more and i'm watching the commentaries and it was prior to chuck jones uh dying um and from robin williams to you name the uh steven spielberg um howard uh ron howard they just they are they're dissecting how tight tight uh chuck jones warner brothers cartoon became and he was a director and now i'm starting to learn bits and pieces but i didn't realize i and and actually bill chef um the writers when they went on strike they did a blog and they were just writers from across the country the best comedy writers of our time well here i am always wanting to like i don't i want to say something and i said i did the easy way out and became an english teacher because i did not realize what kind of thread they were on as writers they could be hired for three weeks and let go and you know no steady income and and then when the writers strike and i i read bill chef's essay and i said i had no idea of you know and i took a safety safe way of just having a government job and still loving everything about you know literature and and composition i loved all of that but it was a steady government job that didn't pay very much these people put themselves out on a limb and and like acting only a few make it to the a list yeah you know and and i oh boy i'm gonna i'm gonna say something now that i absolutely loved the simpsons for the first five years because the writing was exquisite it was the story unfolded without any push whatsoever the the message unfolded just so naturally and you know those a-list writers they they do so much and to have them all work together and then you've got your lighting and then you've got your camera people and again i was so fascinating because i had forgotten that um hal was able to to shoot away and watch some somebody yawning in the audience or you know and come back to the stage you know that that's magic that's that's ingenious magic and it takes so much to have that happen to me oh boy and the huge difference between the netflix auditorium and an hour's worth of dave but dave did talk about personal growth he did i i do believe it was not put into the show he talked about his personal growth he also um said kind um empathetic words about his friend al franken and when i saw that show the tensions were still very high with the me too movement i mean it was just so rigid if i claim it it's i it's it's a fact you know and sometimes the pendulum can tilt you know and especially in a you know in hollywood or in the in the industry wherever there's a magnifying glass but also women aren't all that shy sometimes about you know if they want a job they might i'm not saying i'm not saying that terrible atrocities didn't happen oh of course yeah no no of course we're not minimizing the me too no no no no but at the same time sometimes the magnifying glass goes hard yeah yes it was al franken at a time where there was that tension was around yes and he's and and and his words were empathetic and i and i accepted them because i do know how sometimes when this surge of talk yeah you know once it's at once it's spoken or once it's out it tends to carry weight even if at times something isn't true but it's just that we've we have we haven't lightened up it's not it's no excuses are being made no or terrible atrocious behavior it's just doesn't feel quite as tense as it did i think i think we're getting used to a new normal here um and i think that the pendulum has started to i hope anyway that the pendulum has started to swing back as you know yes but changes have to be made yeah as a result there's no doubt this is this was a a to me a wonderful thing to have someone stamp a foot and say it's time it's time that behavior changes yeah and it was necessary it was necessary at the same time these people need to have a chance because my school career anything good that came out of it was because i had a flop the day before and i had 24 hours before i was gonna go back into the trenches with the same personalities to fix it having learned something along the way without a doubt i mean the the the teacher i was when i started i might have been young and considered cool because of you know being a youthful but the real stuff happens because a flub up a a flop occurred the day before and you need to fix it or go toward fixing it the next day and the next day well i think about dave over the years and i think about when michael richards went through what he went through um you know and i mean he's michael richards has gone on and apologized i don't know how many times in so many different venues and things but the thing about that is when when michael richards had his uh his moment the next night um or the first the first opportunity you know there's jerry seinfeld with michael richards on video on the late show yes and and and you talk about how uh there's empathy and forgiveness and a realization like okay you know what i did think this way or these things happened now it's this way um we're learning and the idea that dave would have brought up al franken and by the way at the time of this broadcast dave has since been on al franken's podcast and things we're not we're not telling tales of school here yeah it was a phenomenal phenomenal episode um with with you know talking about different comedy teams and all sorts of stuff it was a train episode but the fact that you talked about the opportunity to change yeah you must be given i mean that's not to say okay we wipe the slate clean on no you got to bear that burden you got to bear that burden and at the same time you start making changes and then others benefit my dad used to always say a wise man learns by them a wise man learns not by his mistakes but by the mistakes of others yes well that sounds really good but i really learned when i hit my head against the wall i mean if i see somebody else sitting his head against the wall i can i can glean something from that but when i hit my own head wow wow and and and i'm so glad when chair said on 20 uh she was with um diane sawyer and i was so just shaken by what she said and the next day i went to school and i said cher says that she hasn't learned or gained anything from aging other than aging she was she has the same mind and spirit and that she had when she was 21 and i said kids i would give anything to trade my youth with you to trade my energy with you my looks with you but i wouldn't trade what i have gained along the way because the realizations i've come to the the introspection and the i can't i wouldn't do it i just wouldn't exchange it and i can't subscribe to uh i'm exactly the same way i was at age 21.

uh-uh i wasn't i'm not so i do believe that is the case with a lot of these these people and yes it needed to happen and it needed to be severe and harsh because that shakes people okay i i love that and and i love how uh you know you and i didn't really pre-interview this at all we just said okay let's do it um and i love when that happens and and and a conversation takes shape uh and has a theme to it and the theme of this episode um just like it kind of was with with tina i think is growth and and learning and and things now i want to go back to the letterman of it all uh and the my next guest of it all because um you know one of the things that that that letterman nerds would uh you know we speculate when we talk you know when we get together at a denny's and we just shoot the [ __ ] about this stuff you know um okay so clearly the editing of the late show had a certain style late night had a certain style all that the um the idea that in my next guest uh the question would be this i wonder if dave has a hand in the show after the conversation is done or once the conversation is done he basically has people who understand his style um and and and they are maybe a part of the editing or does not at all or does netflix just do it completely at that time i only was going by a gut feeling he wasn't a captain of the ship at that particularly at that time i'm not saying because i don't know i have no clue at all it did seem that it was not totally in his hands to be driving now i would agree with you there um if i could talk to one of the producers or or and ask that question whether publicly or i'd ask it on here for sure but even if i could do it privately if they didn't want to talk about the inside baseball too much i'd have that question i would ask the question because there's two two parts of this episode that um make me think that dave and dave's people didn't weren't all that involved with the editing uh the number one yeah at that time number one is al franken's name being cut out because you were there you heard him talk about him now the second one is is um the fact that you know tina's compliment to dave you know she she started to compliment him no stop like and then then she finally got the compliment through you know talking about how it was a dream that she would even meet him and all of that stuff yes to me that's something that if dave had the editing his hand on the editing wheel he wouldn't put that in there i seen and i i don't know i i'm that part that didn't strike me so much what struck me is that dave had a huge admiration for her body of work and i hadn't realized that she had i i watched all of um 30 rock yes and i thought she was amazing absolutely and i thought the alec baldwin dynamic and all of that always all those moving parts there i was fabulous but dave understood it from an angle that i didn't and this is what i was about to tell you what i what i the reason i think my letter got into this blog is that these are writers who are in the minutia and i said when i watch dave i want to be entertained and i am i just go in with la la la la la don't wanna i don't need to know about you know how this light has to go here or that part i put all of that aside because i go in and i sit back and i say i want to be entertained and i am and it's because of writers like you and it's because of dave and his wit sharp wit and and he's brilliant just such a brilliant man i'm so in awe of him and he's gonna hate me if he ever sees this but um don't worry he will never see this okay all right okay because this we can assure you that's one of sherman a sure uh assurance that we can give everybody uh dave will never see you he'll not see this no absolutely not well let me tell you something i have never ever seen a quicker wit quicker wit and and off off from a weird angle as well it's not just a quick response yeah it's a fresh it's a fresh response it's off of it it's from the side it's it hits you on the side and you don't never were expecting it from that angle and that is that's brilliance and i know that he is a prolific reader and i i know that i just you know you get bits and pieces of information about the guy and you know he's smart but i i think that that letter was put on when i said look i know you guys are in there doing the little nuts and bolts but when i go i just want i i don't i don't need to hear that i just want to be entertained and i am that means you guys are doing your job that means dave's doing his job that means everybody's doing his job because it's pure pure entertainment and do it every single night i there was a early on because i should never be behind a computer but early on there was this blog and this woman came on and all she did was respond negatively to whatever anybody said and i kept thinking all right thank shakespeare because i definitely got to shut this lady down and i i don't want to um you know start you know throwing names at her that's ridiculous that's not a good way to win an argument okay how would shakespeare do it because because i learned so many tricks from him and and and so i was thinking of friends roman's countrymen speech and he uh mark anthony rouses the entire crowd against these people and he never says for their all all honorable men and he keeps saying how honorable they are and oh but let me show you his will he left all his money to you um and and he kept it one thing after another but what i did with this woman was just tell her you know i have been admiring your show and i am so utterly impressed with how you can turn out works of quality every single night you are you are an amazing talent and i went and went on and went on about how what what her work um had to to uh entail and how admiring i was of her show she stopped she stopped i she stopped i i guess it worked because i told her your show that i watch it's the it's one of the most amazing things i've ever seen i don't know how you do it that's a very cool example of intellectual kindness um where you're you're coming at it from a different angle to change the uh the tone of things but you're using um you're being almost infotastic in how you're doing it and i think that that's one of the things that we love about dave so much is that he was infotastic you went there to be entertained but you were also one of the reasons why the entertainment you got uh was so uh impactful was because it was insightful entertainment it was it was intelligent entertainment like you said from a from a different standpoint completely um and and and it's almost surprising if that means you and i spoke about this and again i'm glad he's never going to watch it but if you if you want to know who dave is you wait until he sits down after in the second segment if you want to know how he feels what kinds of things um move him irritate him make him question or ponder yep um just let just let him talk after he sits down at that desk that right there i was i was entertained by every single bit of it but i was pulled pulled so hard at that second segment and you know my friend rupert who never watched the show because you know he was a working man and and and honestly he would say i just not sure if i got the joke of what it was i was supposed to do really rupert seriously are you really being serious here but but it and but again don't forget rupert had only an earpiece he had no ability to watch dave's expression and the camera oh yeah after he had no ability he could hear sometimes if the audience was applauding but it was really going in blind and he did say you know i had i had i had some notes and then dave would start and he would go right he would go totally off the notes and i'd just be sitting there going uh-oh and that was i think one of the things that dave did when he used the everyman as as his uh as his sidekick or his device or whatever you want to call it that's something that rupert was consistent with from the very beginning all the way up like the idea that he would just look deadpan to camera and uh allow things going on in the background whether it was dave giving a look to the audience whether it was the audience laughing whether it was him and paul doing an exchange rupert just sat there patiently looking at the camera and he would just go back to it went like it was it was something that dave could depend on as rupert starr got brighter within the letterman uh mythos you know he didn't um start laughing along with it and being part of the dude he stayed consistent and i think that's one of the reasons why um you know he was there from the beginning right to the very end and beyond still a sponsor of this show because he just stayed consistent rupert has always been rupert no i know and i know we're veering from our you know and i told you earlier okay i said that i couldn't really uh do anything analytical with tina fey because she was just really straightforward and what she said was very straightforward there was no you know there were no undercurrents or overtones and issues straightforward but i i would say three quarters of the way in to the um span you know there was a quarter of uh life left to the show rupert would sometimes get nervous or sometimes he would um he would like you could tell if you watch the the segments you'd know that he would you could tell he was breathing like in a little bit of it and and dave would say rupert are you nervous are you feeling nervous um no you know something like that okay but one night he had an expression on his face and he said dave said oh i know rupert you just want to get in a cab and go home don't you and if rupert paused a second he had his hand on the gate of honor which you know and he said um well kind of the whole the whole house went down including dave including dave well kind of so weak and mild and yeah doesn't wanna you know doesn't want to hurt dave's feelings but hey since he brought it up well i'm kind of anxious to go on home now i'm gonna tell you straight up i don't know how much time we have left because my screen dimmed a little bit no we're getting to the end but it's been beautiful watching this beautiful sunset and it still looks gorgeous can you hear the boat chugging in the back you can't hear it but we can see it it's got the beautiful purple light on it and it's just it's this is thank you for sharing this with us we are moving to the close here but but yeah what were you going to say this little scooter just quietly went by he decided not to go vroom vroom except except that it's a hill so he doesn't really have to room down the hill yeah so anyway as far as the tina fey i was surprised because i did not know how long the netflix um shows ran on on tv i hadn't yeah because none of them had aired yet when you were in that audience you didn't know what to expect right no i had not tapped into anything because i i i didn't think it was available as i would have um so i didn't realize that it wasn't going to be kind of like at the show where the whole thing ran um i was pleased with the final outcome of what came on netflix i was pleased with what i was a part of in the audience um i had a i had the time of my life not only at tina fey but every single time i entered that theater i had it was the highlight of my life each and every time yeah wow um we we've lived blessed lives in so many ways that we've gotten a chance to connect uh the way that we have with with the thing that we love so much and and uh i just appreciate you being so open to sharing that so easily and and us just having a nice little conversation about this every time we talk about this stuff it just aren't we lucky though oh yeah i'm sorry aren't we lucky to live in the time of dave are we not fortunate i i would say that anywhere i could how lucky i am to be alive in the time of day yeah i i'm a big godfather fan and and uh i was watching um this is some homework for everybody uh after watching the tina fe well okay well the first homework of course is to like share subscribe this podcast that's the first piece of homework guys um like share subscribe please uh we want this community to grow that much more we want people like irene to come uh become part of the community come on the show we have these discussions these memories these vantage points that we have here so please like share and subscribe the second piece of homework is to watch the tv episode if any of the stuff here has entertained you has brought it back we didn't even get into the mean girls stuff but uh that's okay you know um i need to do homework on that though yeah no no well you especially because you were a school teacher and a schoolteacher at the time of what young girls was then now it's evolved uh to what it looks like in high school now on the stage show in broadway um you know because back then the the cell phone culture was different when the movie was shot compared to now and all that stuff we can go all sorts of but i saw but i saw it on campus i saw it on campus i saw it in the classroom now in my classroom though they knew better they knew better they knew you're gonna you're gonna hopefully you're not gonna even have it outside my door get in in in the inside the door there uh um you know i have to watch it but i saw it in real life and and any time that i did yep um oh howdy i wouldn't sit still there was no way i'd let that let it slide at all it's a beautiful the whole mean girls thing queen bees and wannabes it's a it's a wonderful tool um you know tina talking about it on the show uh uh on on my next guest was great um so well that's the other piece of homework and then the other piece of homework uh on top of that we're gonna do a watch along on this actually on youtube um don rickles uh one night only don rickles that's special on spike tv tina fey and amy poehler on that david letterman closed that show um we're going to talk about that another day too i was in a theater with him with don rickles once we'll talk about that one day we'll talk about that one day for sure that's a that's a future episode as well as the tarpon fishing uh uh inside joke we'll we'll get to that another day um and uh i i want to ask you one last question here uh oh so that piece of homework watch the we're gonna watch as a group together uh at some point we're going to watch that don rickles special there's a lot of very very interesting things that happen in that in that special there's a teaser for something that we're going to do as a community coming up uh i have to wait till i get home though because i don't know how to access this yeah no no we'll do it at a watch party on youtube together probably in the fall i'm saying i'm planting little seeds here as the community starts to grow because in the fall our community is going to look very different than how it looks now um thank you for sharing your your summer here with us um i've got one last question here for you and i don't know the answer to it uh i don't think we've talked about this now you had your exchange with dave there's been different little exchanges over the years and we'll get to some of those in in some of your future episodes but um the exchange that you had with him with the uh with the seat and all that did uh any of your fairy godmothers clue in did they know that that was you having that exchange with dave in that episode and have you corresponded about that with any i am so glad you asked that because i constantly wonder and i never asked i never inquired but that fairy godmother had to know what was going on at every moment you would think right you would think that she knew that you and dave had a little exchange there or at least um you know who that was dave because if she did not and i and i could see off stage on my right-hand side i could not see off stage on my left-hand side right but there were folks standing not a fairy godmother that i noticed but my guess is there's a problem a possibility but i've always i've always been so curious as to dave you know who that was well and this is where you and i are different i'm a shameless self-promoter and and the first thing that i would do is go to the person and say hey did you see that i had the interaction with dave you didn't and it's because you are so respectful of the process even after late show with all of the the the guidelines and the and the rules that were set up under that you were very respectful of that um but even after even afterwards though with my next guest you were still you're still that way and you're just so classy irene i appreciate you i appreciate how enthusiastic you are um is there anything else you want to say on this episode before i close it up no no but we've just got loosens to to tie up later on yeah well we will and uh it's perfect thank you very much for sharing it with us say one more thing with us to say goodbye to greece and the next time we see you on here will probably be when you're back stateside again but uh thank you for sharing that beautiful sunset with us we couldn't have timed it better as to where things are at right now you're lit still perfectly uh and we get to see the postcard sunset behind you what a what a great piece of timing that we've done here and it's and it's the breeze and the temperature has got it's probably around 70 degrees but i do want to i do want to say the word for closing out in an evening for good evening is callispera yep gary with an l all irene thank you very very much for uh for for opening up your stories being so vulnerable and yet still respectful um uh you know your your paramount concern i know you won't say this but your paramount concern is that you don't uh say anything that will ruffle any feathers within the worldwide panel i don't want to and because you you you respect it so much and i appreciate that about you very very much um i love our friendship i love that it's uh how it's growing the way it is and um and and the the idea of next summer i mean we're in this summer and there's some great things happening this summer already but my appetite is so wet to come out there with candy and and rupert and and and have that uh that evening scotch that he and i keep talking about about what's behind you um thank you very much for sharing everything thanks for being an early adopter member of the letterman podcast community uh everybody out there okay so you know your homework like share subscribe go the extra place write a nice comment hey go go go hello deli com hello hello hello dash deli.com go there buy a mug buy a shirt buy a hat uh you know interact with rupert uh we're talking about him so much tonight interact with that man we are so pleased to be doing this that has been another episode of uh the post-mortem of tina fey on the letterman podcast my name is mike chisholm thank you and good night