Fred Graver

hi this is Rupert G from the hello Deli and you're currently watching The Lettermen podcast welcome once again to the Lettermen podcast my name is Mike Chisholm I am excited uh I don't know broken record talking about how excited I am I'm shooting a separate intro here now for most of our shows I like to have the guests work on with me when I do the intro sometimes it just doesn't work out um our last episode with suhan being an example of that uh but that's the exception to the rule I like to actually have the guests involved in the intro if possible because I always start the intro by um well what I would like to say you know edifying uh the guest and showing them the love and care that I have for um for for them in their place in the greatest body of broadcasting work in history which is that of David Letterman and Company some would call it pandering uh it's not though it's it's literally coming right from my heart um And the emotions uh the logic and and and and and regard on an intellectual level coming from my brain for these people and I like them to hear it because I think it starts the energy it starts letting them know um uh you know either if it's research or or or or care that I have for them in their place and they it's cool when they hear it and and sometimes it's fun to just kind of get them feeling a little bit off shocks before we we get going and again this is a group of people that are just oh my gosh are they ever um is it ever tough to to get them to kind of even admit um that they were you know did something great most of them will never admit they did something great some of them will admit that they were a part of something great uh which is which is nice but you know what all good today is uh we are we're doing the intro separate because of I'm truncating it now I I'm doing the intro beforehand I'm actually staying pure to what the introduction is um let's just see uh how right I am about the things we're going to talk about today today we're talking to Fred Graver Fred Graver um worked at Letterman early on again late night he's a late night writer worked there till 1990.

this is a dude who and I'm a broken record in saying this I am not the first to say this many articles have been written about this guy about just the crazy stuff that he has done throughout his career everything from we're going to talk this if I have my way um this episode we're going to talk about I want to talk a little bit about the um the Lampoon the Harvard Lampoon uh because he was a part of that uh with a pseudonym uh very interesting to me and then he moved over to late night with David Letterman left uh became part of Cheers uh wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure book and so if you're a gen xer like me a choose your own Adventures are you kidding me like the guy wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure book I I want to talk to him about a lot of these things went over to uh has done a whole pile of things um the Jon Stewart show which I love the Jon Stewart show and I know many folks who well there's not many folks who listen or watch this show yet but a bunch of people who actually listen and watch this show and uh listen to and watch this show and are part of the community like our cult uh fans of the Jon Stewart show I love that uh Fred worked there um and then also has some crazy uh um Adventures within broadcasting to when the infancy of Twitter and Twitter TV and things like that now he's working for Microsoft just lots of uh this guy has a ton of stories and um experience and I'm very very excited to talk to Fred now he wrote for Dave for for you know years nearly a decade and the crazy one the one where they were really making their bones um and and and and and solidifying their place in history um you know making they were they were mixing the cream and then enjoying the cream you know as far as I'm concerned from 93 on don't get me wrong they work their butts off after that point as well but they really made their bones in late night and Fred was a huge part of that um a lot of the remotes that Dave did and I mean he talks about how they are like a choose your own Advent Venture uh you know because you don't know what people are going to say or respond to Dave or or or that kind of a thing and it's real time happening and and and he is um likened that uh those two things together whether we get to that in this interview or not I'm not certain but I I do hope again many of these first timers who come on the show what we're doing here is we're creating uh we're setting the table and and getting a lot of the background stuff done so the second third subsequent visits visits we can talk about the actual bits in some of the memories and things like that as well so uh I hope you love what we're doing here once again the Letterman podcast is brought to you by the hello Deli um I am sufficiently caffeinated now oh I've been asked this question actually a few times here uh in our trip to New York but then even since uh from some Letterman folk um they wonder about my energy and and I think candy talked about it a little bit when when she was on um a couple episodes ago uh I Am Naturally energetic um but Fred's got a heart out I'm shooting this intro because he's got a heart in and a heart out we've literally got one hour and I want to just get to it with him and so I normally wake up uh extremely energetic I look outside it's a brand new day and I'm excited and it just it's just for whatever reason that is how uh my wiring was set up that being said um even though I loathe it anytime I drink uh coffee um I I I I'm like a little kid that does the gist I don't enjoy it whatsoever every once in a while when I know I need a superpower it's kind of like Popeye with spinach to a much lesser uh less dramatic degree I I can have some coffee and suddenly my energy just goes like next level so I have been sufficiently caffeinated with a a Nitro cold brew here I'm ready for Freddy uh as the uh as the fat boys said um this is going to be a very cool interview that uh just Delights me in my AI enthusiasm for David Letterman and Company I hope it does the same thing for you without further Ado the Letterman podcast is pleased to present Fred Graver all right Fred's here uh Fred this is the first time that we're meeting up right away I really applaud your courage at ripping the lid off the steaming Cesspool that was late night with David Letterman it takes a lot of courage to dig in and find out what the truth was so let's talk now let's get it out and let's Let The Healing begin oh I don't know about courage but the steaming Cesspool um it feels like okay talking to writers is one of my favorite things because there are the vocabulary it's almost like a whole bunch of people mostly men uh but I can't wait I hope I can talk to you yeah we can talk about that we can talk about why that was yeah well no I mean I don't want to get into that so much I mean I think we all know that the culture has evolved in certain ways and entertainment but pushing you're going to support the patriarchy well I don't know there is a lingo yes well and that's just it it's like it's like sometimes when I'm talking to one of you that that that that you use almost like you're it's you guys using David Letterman as a sock puppet and and because I hear his words coming out of you guys but then of course he brings what he has to it we're gonna talk about you with remotes especially I I can't wait to talk about that so okay so but but there's a yeah there's a little bit of a Chicken and the Egg thing going on right um it you gotta and I'm sure you've I I know that you've covered this but you you you have to go right back to here's Dave at The Comedy Store yeah on Sunset living across the street in in uh what then became the Mondrian Hotel but was a uh uh some kind of SRO at the time with George Miller and uh a young woman named Meryl Marco yeah who got Dave and and weirdly enough Meryl had no interest in really television like she was interested in television and and people can go back and look this up she came from an art background right huh she had a nerd background so she was like oh namjoon Pike video experimenting with video this is interesting yeah and so she saw something in Dave and it was and we could talk about this too like the age of irony right and and so you right off the bat You've Got This brilliant writer conceptual person Merrell and you've got this brilliant brilliant performer and writer Dave yep and and so the first group of people that were hired well there's a bunch of people hired for the morning show yeah and it kind of scrambled let's bring Gerard who knew Merrell let's bring them in right now yeah it was the hiring of people for late night which somehow I think through Jim Downey became a let's bring Harvard Boys in here yes so there is that ironic Harvard influence and you got you know Steve O'Donnell and and and Joe toplin and and uh uh uh God I named a ton of people I'm really bad with names and I should have written them down before we started um all good then you have some of them a top and Max right some of them left right after the first year uh to go to something called the new show yeah that Lauren Michaels was doing thank God for the new show I wouldn't have a career if it wasn't for Lauren stealing people from the new show and my friend Kevin Curran who was a Harvard boy yeah boy uh and I heard that Dave was hiring yep uh we wrote a packet and and here's I'm getting to your your observation here sure um we went in for an interview um and we were told you'll be lucky to spend 10 minutes with Dave right and we walked in with uh we were originally going to bring my mother brought me up right and she said you know always bring a gift um so so and it is by the way that Midwestern sensibility I think they clicked with Dave right I was like oh you know I grew up in Chicago I went to school in Indiana yeah and so but originally we were going to bring a salami um and we did we forgot and and we're walking down Sixth Avenue and this was in the uh early 80s yep and uh uh you know people would sell [ __ ] stolen [ __ ] right on the sidewalk definitely and there was a guy selling walkie-talkies so I we bought a pair of walkie-talkies and brought them up and uh not knowing that Dave would just like immediately go Oh this is great yeah with batteries in them I bought we got batteries with we brought batteries I think we had to go to Radio Shack and I think we had to give them our address which is that's a whole problem um so we bought batteries Dave puts them in and the first thing we can hear are the taxi cabs on 6th Avenue Whatever frequency they had and that was and we were there for 45 minutes uh uh talking about the Midwest now and so so your answer is um no it was there was a sensibility that was really strongly developed by the time I think anybody got too late night right maybe in the morning show they were still figuring it out but we were hired because we could speak to that yes and I think the the the kind of unbelievable thing except for the right except for like say the writing staff of The Simpsons like we that are that that team that stayed you know after the new show Exodus we were there for eight to ten years yes that's insane in television talk well especially that show especially that show with what you guys are doing uh we have a shorthand on the show here where we talk about how you guys um and and every once in a while ago but you guys your team what you guys did was every single day you were in the mine and sometimes you hit massive massive uh uh gold uh huge nuggets Boulders of gold and then you happily dropped them down on the ground and continued to mine and some of those gold nuggets or diamonds haven't been really even picked up uh since then because there was another show the next night and the Breakneck speed of what you did was just well phenomenal and and I mean we use that word a lot on on this show too it was just phenomenal it was I can't yeah it's so funny um we were doing this show and so a lot of that was the organization of just having uh uh either either Steve or or Gerard was the head writer for a little bit yeah or Meryl was it you know we had a board and the board had two weeks worth of cards on it and we knew those cards needed to be filled and the way those cards worked um even even the pace of coming to work we came to work people who are writing monologue jokes got there early maybe 8 30 9 o'clock in the morning and maybe they've already started at home I know for a while I was writing monologue jokes and so I started home and then come in around eight eight thirty tough to get a joke on the air at that point because at that point it's opening remarks and there's what three maybe maybe three yep yep yep um and uh everybody else showed up around 10.

right and you stayed from like 10 to 7 10 to 8 if you had something on that you needed to work on so it was Bankers hours right right there's this peop those guys upstairs at SNL you know on Tuesday and Wednesday night they didn't go home yeah right but Dave had this kind of like look we have to just keep doing this we're we're running a marathon not a Sprint and and so it's so hey so there's that and then there's the cards right there's the board we know there's like a coat maybe there's a cold opening yeah there's opening remarks there's an Act One Piece there's a guest there's an Act five piece maybe there's something at the end and you gotta fix you know and there's originally there's four shows a night right yeah so a week about four shows a night Jesus um and so you just always kept your eye on it and and you knew um I think I think you know for I would say everyone on the writing staff and this is kind of true on writing staff's period successful television writing staff everybody was kind of a self-starter so they were like it wasn't you know it wasn't uh tooth and nail competition but there is competition oh for sure you wanted to make sure that you were earning your keep right well were you on the 13-week deal where your your thing was every 13 weeks and funny after after 13 weeks actually this is a better story so after 13 weeks I went to the then the executive producer Barry sand yeah and I said um yeah I don't know nobody's told me anything actually it was 10 weeks because they needed to give me a three week uh oh just in case yeah and I said yeah okay and he's like never come back here you do I'll find you if it's not working it won't be on a 10-week cycle and I will find you okay that's the best story about that is um uh first week I'm in there and we're writing and and my my partner Kevin Curran who we'll talk about in a second and I uh hey man with a stack of stuff um including the morning show which which was the show that got nominated that we wrote that got nominated for an Emmy right we came in with a stack of stuff we were ready um and after the end of the first week uh I walked into Merrell's office and I said Gee you know am I doing okay all right by the way Kevin a question Kevin would never ask anybody right but but your early 20s at this point right yeah yeah and so um Meryl just goes here's what you're doing fine here's what you need to know I don't know if you've heard this story already the name of this show is Dave's attitude problem and every night people tune in to go what the [ __ ] is bugging Dave what's bothering Dave yeah and and she goes you you you you're pretty good you're pretty good at kind of like what bothers you bothers Dave Dave yeah and and so to go to to jump to the remotes yeah right um because you were a big part of the remote like the remote they got to the point where Dave could not walk the streets anymore right so that was because the remote that was the problem but but so we'll go back in just a two seconds my favorite one about like what's bothering Dave yeah um there are two of them one we show up and we had something all written and scripted and the script was kind of like a decision tree we'll go into that later you know if this happens say this right um this is the Choose Your Own Adventure portion folks right there and I and I had written to Choose Your Own Adventure books so we're all good with that delighted me about that but yes please continue so Dave couldn't go because he had he had a toothache and uh I was able to find him a dentist um and we went to the dentist so what's father and Dave his tooth is bothering him he went to the dentist um the two three jokes that I remember right off the top of my head by the way not scripted at all yeah they were just like let's get the camera and we'll go and I'm like okay so first one um he's got a cigar in his mouth and uh puts it out in the sink you know in the washing spit snake um second asks if he can put some rubber gloves on too I remember that and then there's Hal's shot and Hell Master Cameron talked about the second funniest person on this on the staff is hell and um he said Dave let's just get a cutaway so here's your legs on the on the uh Lounge on the on the seat here with the dentist if you could just raise them up and lower them a couple of times which is just what everybody does when they're hurting right and we just kept cutting back the drill so so that was great um there was that one and then there was one where um uh he um had a really bad cold yeah and we decided to go see an ear nose and throat guy yeah um and I had called a doctor that I knew a friend of mine who was a friend of mine at the time again a doctor Lou aroni Who by the way was on Dr Lou oh my gosh so I knew I I just want to introduce David to Dr Lou my wife and I introduced the amount of medical professionals that are in your circle are astounding Fred so my wife collects medical professionals oh there we go okay no seriously so my wife just for those who don't know uh was head of the talent Department yes at Letterman and constantly got requests obviously you'd get requests from these Charities or doctor organizations or hospitals oh could we auction off two tickets could we auction off four tickets and Betsy was always kind of like sure and your name is Dr Aha and what do you do again okay and your phone number Great terrific yeah I'm Betsy um if if any of my friends ever need a gynecologist I will uh you know can I call you so anyway so Dr Lou and and so we go and and we there's an ear nose and throat guy who looks like he's walked out of you know a production of our town yeah and and and he he's saying well let's just spray this uh thing up in here to to you know see what's going on and I got by the way shaky footage of like uh Little People in a in a cave right um and and and you probably know shecky the phrase checking footage right so absolutely so then Dave grabs the nozzle he goes let me just spray it around here um unbeknownst today the solution is like 40 cocaine um it was just weird it was and Lou told me like a week later he said geez I didn't know how to tell you this um and I don't know if I even called Dave oh you were just spraying cocaine around the room um hey Don Giller there's a clip let's Walter let's get that clip out there's there's something we can isolate I think this patch maybe it's the 10 solution but it was a lot yeah no no no no and the statute of limitation we're fine we're okay so yeah so so yeah so yeah so what do we talked about here we are he was not a sock puppet no for various reasons I did a lot of remotes yeah um I so Merrell Merrell really invented the remote form right she invented uh uh she did the probably the best one of all uh just bulbs right oh absolutely yeah we were just in New York a week ago and and on our way out to go to LaGuardia we passed just Shades um and and you're right yeah it was such an omen on the way out of New York after spending a week there oh so beautiful those places are still around by the way yeah yeah so so I went on a bunch of them with her and and it worked for me because I did have a background uh in journalism so for me there was no problem going somewhere spending a day walking around trying to find out where the jokes were uh back in the day you would take polaroid pictures and and tape them to cards and say oh here's a here's a joke here's a joke here's a joke we could do this if they say this you could say that um Dave would approve it the amazing thing for me you know we go out in a van it was Dave and and uh uh Carl the cameraman George Magda was doing sound and Hal was directing literally just a small group of us we go out we do it um Gabe would read the sheet you know two three pages leave them in the van remembered every line but of course was great on his amazing on his own and the fun part was you go back the next week and you get three days in the edit room to make something yes right so that kind of takes you out of the firing line you don't need to worry about any little cards um you're good to go were there ever any that uh that you went out and shot and it's like oh here's a here's a Surefire card uh this is something that really really Delights me I've seen uh footage of of and I've seen remotes that actually didn't make the show were there ever any that you could think of that were like yes uh there was that Polaroid the thought the conception was there uh we actually shot some stuff but it didn't get realized to the point where it made one of the cards was there ever anything any of that or was it yeah it would happen from time to time I remember one time um this is really embarrassing um I Dave was doing the thing and again I think it's they think Dave made this one up and I don't have so imagine the days with the flip wallet right so Dave and and this is important and you brought this up until I would say the fourth year of the show um we could go out on the street and nobody knew yeah he was unassuming still right and it was great like you could go out and once in a while like we'd walk into a pizza place and they'd recognize it right but it was fun like it wasn't like and then there was a time we went out and and we were near literally near a con I know this is going to sound really cliched we were near a construction site and the guys started yelling obscenities of Dave and being like like you know whatever and they've got in the van and that was kind of it it was kind of I can't I can't because I can't go to a location and they don't know who I am right um so so that was a problem and and so the one I mean there's a few that I'm embarrassed about um one uh um we went we were doing Mr curious so Dave would walk up to people on the sidewalk they didn't know Dave yep and he would say what's in your bag he'd be carrying a bag or something right and he goes well you know I can look in it and he'd flip his wallet goes because I'm Mr curious as if you're showing the badge or something and people would show him and then Dave would just Riff on what was in their bag and one time I suggested a location not realizing that it was about a block away from the outpatient entrance to a hospital and everybody who walked by us was it was ill um and and and Dave just at one point was just like what the hell really and we just we just I killed it out of there um yeah they're they're there are um there was another one where I thought it would be fun to just um go visit Pete fanovic at home um and and and Pete it just didn't work and I didn't write it well enough I really I didn't go ahead and outline it it was my fault um completely my fault we we drove away and everybody knew there's nothing there okay can I ask you a question about that um now I assume that this is not early in the Run um no now we're like five six years in here okay so at at that point because I hear this sometimes it's where um a writer might say okay like what you just said I didn't write it enough I didn't conceive it enough I didn't do this I didn't do that but I could always fall back on the idea where Dave could just be Dave and could literally you know yeah it's so gold out of strong it didn't work because we love Pete oh okay and okay yeah and and it just felt uncomfortable to the point and then the one thing that we thought I can't believe I remember all of these things it's weird I think again this is an over writing thing for those of us who were there particularly those of us who were there at the early days of our career where we were making up who we were as much as we were making up with the shows um I just remembered tons of stuff and I remember Pete had a neighbor who kept bees um and so we Dave did the whole beekeeper thing and okay and it just didn't work yeah that's nothing funny about it and and today's credit I don't know if you if if yeah if he'd even remember this but I do today's credit he had his own car he had he had driven from home to Pete's house instead of from the office but he had to go back to the office and he invited me to ride home with him and was great about like look I know they've just bombed do not worry like like let's talk about something else and and he could tell because he could tell I was just like Crush I just thought oh my God yeah this is horrifying I've dragged everybody out here yeah I had no idea yeah that's really cool because I mean so often we hear uh you know Stephanie from Carter's books and also stories anecdotes uh you know about post-mortems and things like that about after the show but the idea like what you guys did was not easy and to hear you know the the the encouragement we would hear also stories about how Dave and Merrill shielded many of the writers from the NBC Executives or any of that stuff that was going on behind the scenes uh so we hear we do hear this but the idea that you actually had that personally where where Dave was was encouraging and all of that that's a narrative that just doesn't get thrown out enough because of the other reality that you guys also dealt with the pressures of that Breakneck speed uh I love that do you remember what kind of a car it was uh that's a good one I think it's a Pontiac GTO something like that yeah it was like in that family yeah um we did a secret video so during the Run there's that big long Rider strike yep um yeah that went on forever I forget like in the third or I really it's like the third year of the show yeah um and uh the mid-80s writer strike during that time Dave turned 40.

yeah so we might Betsy and I and Hal and uh Lori Guthrie and uh uh Kevin k um Jude bet Barbara Gaines Jude Brennan Barbara Gaines uh started the original idea was just to tape random people on the street saying happy birthday to Dave and we cut it together and say it send it to him somebody gets it in their head oh why don't we have some of Dave's friends in it so now we've got shots of a telephone with a microphone hooked up to it and Steve Martin calling and and and you know saying hi to Dave um and then we start combing through NBC and there's Tom Brokaw and and uh uh you know the NBC personalities then it branches out into oh we could go to get the Yankees and and so Betsy goes to Yankee Stadium with Lori Guthrie and gets Billy Martin and and George Steinbrenner and the same exact time I'm getting Richard Nixon did holy crap so we had Nixon uh mayor Koch uh uh uh Jane Pauley all these people and um it's like your gophers and you've been digging and digging and digging and digging and digging and digging for so long in your little hole and then you pop your head up and realize I don't realize yeah I didn't realize the impact right yeah um and so send them to take yeah we just sent the tape to Dave on his birthday he gets it he's home in California and uh like a day later I just get a phone call and and I pick up the phone this is the day before the days before caller ID right yeah hello and he goes Nixon how the [ __ ] did you get me and here's the story this is even better so Nixon was in a recording studio in New York City recording some voice over for something he just happened to be in a place Frank Gannon was a segment producer on the show okay okay I could work in the Nixon White House I gotcha so that's how we got to Nixon so we're all getting into an elevator after everything's all done and and everybody's kind of crowding in and Nixon's there and and the door starts to to to close yeah um and and I got to the door a little too late and it literally said I am Nixon uh up against the the wall of the elevator not too hard but I've got an elevator and then it bounced back hard enough and Frank forever was like you [ __ ] let the door slam on Nixon you you could have reached your arm in and I said I I just didn't I didn't I I play my subconscious look at that I play my unconscious self for letting the door slam um but yeah I don't know how we got into that um that's something that doesn't matter today it will never see the light of day there's a couple of things that I did on remotes uh that a will never see the light of day and B I'll never tell you about okay well and fair enough and I've I've really thought they were they were very it got it got very um personal yeah or something yeah or or hilarious but not fit for broadcast I've heard I've I've heard a lot of these tales and and are crazily enough there are a lot of them that are recorded and there are sitting there somewhere on a tape um but but yes I I the the stuff that hits the Cutting Room floor many times is compelling I appreciate you going down that road a little bit um Fred I mean you and I can have a conversation I want to talk to you like there are so many things I want to talk to you about like I want to talk to you about what do you think about Elon Musk with Twitter I want to talk to you about things outside of the show you're really compelling when it comes to this stuff but there's so much Letterman stuff we just had Dave Rogowski on the show and and yeah talked a lot about you know again the show is positive we we celebrate uh what we call the greatest body of work uh in in history uh of broadcasting work um you know getting to 1990 when you left and he talked about the pressure and all of the things that started to to be rolling by that point there uh the Carson Wheels were in motion things like that were you feeling the pressure at the time when you left or did you just know because again out of all the writers who worked for Letterman and Company you have the greatest kind of plethora of different jobs within the industry as well did you know it was time to stop being a writer and to move into other elements of of broadcasting or uh was the pressure there where you needed to get out uh there wasn't a pressure to get out okay Dave really really appreciated people who were still there yeah um and what there was was what about this sixth or seventh year right we went to LA yeah and we did a week of shows in La yeah and we had no idea up until then how popular the show was again that gopher thing yeah and and suddenly we're driving into the parking lot at NBC and we're using Johnny Carson Studios and there's it's it's it's 8 30 in the morning and there's lines down the block to get into our show and people say what to give me your show not Johnny show your show so so yeah there was that yeah there was then agents start to Circle and start to tell you about the opportunities that are out there yes and they were good opportunities absolutely and that coincided I think with uh there's just a day you show up and you drop you know you keep using the Gopher metaphor I used to use the metaphor just like the bucket and the well and you you drop the bucket in and it just went clunk and you realized you know it really you're there for it and this happens over days the agent thing happened over years where suddenly people were like oh wait you know I think the first the first migration was was The Simpsons right yeah and I know my friend Kevin right he's like I'm gonna go work on this actually he went to work on Married with Children but is that box explosion but I've talked to Jeff Martin and I'm like really Jeff it's a cartoon how long is that gonna last foreign there was all that stuff kind of came together and then for me um I met Norman Lear um uh through his through actually through his daughter okay and and um he was thinking oh I want to go back into television he had a couple of ideas literally for late night television and uh offered me a deal like come to La spend a couple of years with me yeah it's like [ __ ] Norman leader well well we talked to Steve Winer you know when he uh you know went to work for Robert Klein like I mean Legend at that time Norman Lear was a legend never mind now like at that time yeah yeah yeah yeah so so I get it you know I also think to a degree and I don't know I mean I'm now in guessing right now I'll let you know what I'm guessing about it okay um I think worldwide pants was partly a response to worldwide pants the Ray Romano thing all of that was a response to Jesus I'm losing my writers like wow I think so to a degree right I think that's a great perspective wait why are all these guys and I'm guessing but like I it has to have occurred to him why are all these people leaving yeah to go work for and I could do this myself right I can go in and pitch a show and and say that we'll produce it right and so that that's what I think you know hindsight being 20 20 on this show we talk about this we talk about how uh you know the dream it's so funny how many times growing up our dream we don't our dreams are short-sighted you know Dave's dream was getting The Tonight Show and it was an obsession dream you know and and but with the the benefit of hindsight looking back the best thing that ever could have happened to David Letterman was him going to CBS because he walked right into the Carson deal the Carson deal included ownership and included uh production opportunities and and you look at you know some of the things that went really really well Ray Romano some of the things that went moderately well like Ed um and some of the things that didn't go as well but at the end of the day you had a lot more paints on the tray to see what you could bake on the easel and and um I think you're totally totally bang on and we've never heard it that way though the idea that I mean right now I I'm trying to pitch Pat's ideas as to you know a worldwide pants podcast Network me and a few others are pitching this idea because there's so many you guys out there I think it's Steve Young I think if some of these other other people who have these projects wouldn't it be great if there was an outlet for these amazing creatives who just want to throw something out there um you know bathtubs Over Broadway with Steve Young is the one that comes to my head right yeah right now but but the idea that Dave could do that for these folks that were leaving at the time the idea that it was plugging a hole in the bottom of the rowboat is compelling it's never been set on this Fred thank you for that perspective yeah I mean that's what I just thought right yeah um it's a great one yeah and so you know yeah and then the other the other thing that's interesting about just careers in general well first thing you know you make careers in general but but you're right the the the the the switch to CBS for Dave um meant you know and it's interesting to me how the beginning of those years everybody was like it's Dave versus J yeah I feel I feel like as somebody who's still watching the show about two or three years into it I think Dave says [ __ ] it I do my own thing I'm wondering if you know less moonves said to him somebody said don't worry about it it doesn't matter yeah you have a completely different audience yep go ahead and do what you do it's a distinct offering right um as they say in network television it's a distinct product yep yeah and and you watched him and it also those are the years when you know he became such a good interviewer oh yeah and I think that's that's The Unsung you know if you kind of look at like you're talking to me about those early years of Dave yep you know um at late night the early comic Innovation years and you end the in on The Late Show with the years of being really the best interviewer on television Barnard because he was such a good listener yeah well he's naturally curious which is why my next guest is so good because he'll go sit down with Billy eilish and many of his audience are like why the hell are you interviewing Billy no he's genuinely curious what has made her the phenomenon that she is and that Curiosity then translates to even hardened people who didn't think they would care but by the end of the Tom snyder-like long-form hour they're invested yeah watch him with lizzo I mean lizzo to me is is the best of his entire series yes right it and including so he's great with her she clearly loves him right I mean and just the fact that he's able to show a clip of her from five years ago magic amazing again there was that ownership there right there he owned that my favorite part is she asks him to get in front of the microphone and he does classic 80s Dave yeah speaking about how he hates himself I'm ugly and I was just like you're in this list I was this this this this Fountain of positivity and you've decided to sing about how you're disgusted with yourself I love that she was struck that she was strong enough and not intimidated to call him on it and that's one of the things that I love uh that these people that he interviews are all very much know who their identities are and they can call him on stuff like Seinfeld when Seinfeld interviewed him there are many times where Seinfeld would say I think you're full of crap on this or or whatever yeah and those are really compelling to me because I think Dave I don't know this for a fact but I think he craves that I think he wants somebody on the other side he wants a real conversation he absolutely wants a real conversation yes yeah because that's the uh right so yeah that's the link between the the two polls here is you're always looking for a moment that breaks through the canned nature of broadcasting yes sir yes sir could this and now you go back to actually um Merrell so so Marilyn and I bonded on who's William Wegman William Wegman with the famous dog pictures uh very early on in the 70s experimented with video um and some of his video experiments I saw I saw them at the Museum of uh at the Art Institute in Chicago yeah at a display and there were things like right you have to realize it's like so this is very early video like home video so it's black and white it's grainy here here's the camera and we'll the camera is tight on like all you're seeing is this it's William Wegman's naked uh torso yep and he's got a can of deodorant and he's spraying the deodorant onto his armpit and talking about how much he likes his deodorant for until the can Runs Out so the stuff is running down his porcelain falling up and it's looking disgusting yeah and he's just talking in this I this is so great it gives me you know and it uses all the cliches 24-hour coverage right um so he had that and then he did a really interesting thing with one of his dogs he put a dog biscuit in a glass jar um and the audience again people like in a museum just watching on little benches horrified oh my God because the the dog's gonna break the jar the dog's gonna you know like and it was that right and she and I talked a lot about that about just how hard it was to to create something on television that didn't feel like it was prepared yeah that something real Could Happen yeah well I think I think you guys did a really good job we talk about this on the on the show a lot actually about how you guys broke the fourth wall I think that's one of the reasons why uh there's a hunger for this right now folks like me who who felt like we were a part of the show uh because you did break the fourth wall and the cast and crew were not like Johnny the show business everything Show Business show business no no the cast and crew were regular folk just like us the viewer mail segments which again incredible uh mind of of of unlimited comedy uh that could come from that we were all a part of it and I think the part of you've just touched on one of the things that made us feel a part of it was you took the everyday life and things the cute things my dog does that that if there was an audience who would watch it they would universally applaud or be horrified or have an emotional response to it you guys made that a centerpiece as part of the show but had a world-class broadcaster helping the helmet so was taking it seriously and right right so it wasn't yeah it wasn't like you guys are just goofing off no you know this this isn't so yeah yeah because there was a lot of them again right this could go wrong yeah stupid pet tricks it can go wrong right um uh and and a lot of it yeah yeah there was one I want to talk for a second about my my friend Kevin please um uh so Kevin I met Kevin when we were both at the National Lampoon yeah and uh we hit it off immediately um Uh Kevin was just brilliant and unique and weird and every you know the great majority of writing teams uh have two people who one of whom is the Workhorse and one of whom is the show Pony and I was the Workhorse I was the guy getting in at 10 in the morning I'm gonna type this out yeah and Kevin would walk in and this is what the show Pony does and just go no it's this oh wow and you go [ __ ] so here's my favorite story about that um and it goes back to hey this might go wrong but it's going to be genuine so there was a fewer male question and there was an ERA in here viewer mail where it stopped being how can I get tickets to the show and got it into like oh I'm gonna write a viewer mail that gets on the air yeah and it was what do and if I remember correctly it was what do Burt Reynolds Sally Fields and I can't remember with the third person was but if somebody like and I'm carbon dating this joke and so I'm in there trying to come up with different Alternatives and Kevin goes well they all get their nutrition from a Salt Lake so we hand it in and Dave approves it and they do a card with the three faces and then you pull a plastic little overlay and they these cartoon tongues come out and there's a salt lick and and so Dave does it and it just there's just a stunned silence awesome in the audience they really don't know why this has been done and the date starts just cackling and Paul's laughing and it's just this is so surreal and then he just moves on to the next and he's just like okay now let's move on to the next thing and to me a that was Kevin just just Kevin was capable of that in in ways that were just amazing um and and and B that that was part of the thing is like oh let's you know you get you have the Randy Cohen things with the 360 degree show or monkey Cam and it's like yeah this is a recipe for this just going wrong that's why we're gonna do it it's so great and it's funny um I said this to O'Donnell I asked O'Donnell this at the beginning during one of our parts with him who's like as a writer would you rather have a wide open field where you can do anything or like a shoot that you would have to go through uh you know with some parameters and it's like okay how can we then take these parameters and be as clever as possible almost like it was an open field but the shoot is actually really important I'm gonna guess I'm gonna guess Steve opted for the shoot yeah yeah I I think I think it was safe to say that um you know even though I think we it led into the fact that that you guys didn't feel constrained by the rules of The Tonight Show and all that stuff that stuff was uh Dave and Merrill kind of shielded you guys from that but there was that those constraints that you had um yeah but yeah I mean once viewer mail was viewer mail you guys knew you could kind of do almost anything with that because that there was nothing like that on TV at that point yeah yeah um yeah you said you said a couple of things yes I'll just agree you said a couple things and I was just like oh wait and then I completely forgot what I was gonna say okay well next time now here's another thing here we have I've already alerted the the viewers through the intro that we have a heart out here and all of that um I I'm gonna tell you uh one of the things that I would love an aspiration that I have for this show is that we actually take a show and dedicated it to uh the Lampoon because and the Harvard connection um throughout all of me as a Gen X viewer who never got involved in the industry uh we've always heard the jokes about Harvard and Harvard writers and this like if you're a Simpsons fan if you're a Simpsons Aficionado you've heard these jokes all the way along um you know Krusty the Clown throwing books at Harvard writers and hitting him in the head that kind of thing um I I would I'm fascinated I would love to have some of the Alum on here maybe a few of you at the same time and time I'm not an Alum I have coasted for years on people thinking that I went to Harvard so it worked for me with Dave because I went to Notre Dame okay so where's the language because you wrote for them as a student no I wrote for the National Lampoon oh you wrote for the National Lampoon okay okay and that's part of the misconception for years for years when people when it worked to my advantage to have people assume I went to Harvard I just kept my [ __ ] mouth shut um when it worked to my advantage to go those [ __ ] Harvard boys I would do play that card it worked great for me but you wrote for the National Lampoon um under a pseudonym right I know I wrote him on your name but this is a good I I I'll tell the story as quickly as I can because um obviously the founder the two founders of the National Lampoon yeah uh we're we're um Doug Kenny and Henry beard okay and both of them were Harvard boys yep and Doug was Doug was I I met Doug once but but Doug was a [ __ ] just he yeah our sense of humor if you you can track from Animal House to through Ghostbusters yeah that is the that is mine that is all a direct connection to the to Doug Kenny in the National Lampoon and to many Gen X is a religious Journey right there what you just said There You Go Doug goes to Hollywood yeah um makes Caddyshack and then falls to his death tragically in Hawaii yeah um uh Kevin by the way lived with Doug for a summer so there you go um so so after Doug um we got any PJ O'Rourke 2 took over the National Lampoon conservative conservative humorist uh O'Rourke and then uh uh after that there was a guy named Jerry Sussman who basically was kind of just keeping the magazine running okay Jerry hired me as a copy editor um because I could copy at it I knew how to copy edit I had come up in newspapers I knew how to do that but I also knew how to copy edit in a way that wouldn't kill the joke uh right so uh if it's misspelled or there's stuff missing or whatever I know oh that's a joke that's why it's weird and I'm not like somebody going live anyway so uh and I get a bunch of stuff on Jerry leaves the Lampoon and uh Sean Kelly who was one who was one of the original National Lampoon people and I are in a room one day that room is probably a bar and we decide to create a fictional editor-in-chief that is an amalgam of all the past editor-in-chiefs and we called him L Dennis Plunkett and L Dennis's editorials at the beginning of every issue right we're always uh uh Webster defines satire as right they're just horribly pretentious and terrible and they don't begin to reveal uh how he worried about uh this was a Henry beard reference how he how his family never forgave Roosevelt uh for how he got us out of the depression because you know Mama lost all of her you know you know Paw Paw lost all of his you know Fortune right what a beautiful device and then when Mayo came into El Dennis I would answer it and so somebody wrote in one time and said um that I also had to answer the slush pile and if there was somebody who was kind of close and like we actually wanted to reply to I would reply to them and then they'd write again and I go ahead didn't work out this time thank you so much and somebody decided that they were unhappy with the way they'd been treated by me and they wrote to El Dennis L Dennis wrote back to him and said thank you so much for helping me get the goods on this Graver guy thank you I have been trying if you could just Xerox the correspondence I will get on this right away um then the guy Xerox the correspondence and send it in and then I just got a Pang of conscience and just dropped it no no I thought this is cruel this poor guy he thinks he thinks he's got it in at the Lampoon now and I said I just sent him a kind of like thank you very much this is under investigation or something like that but I felt bad I felt like like oh geez so it's probably you know morning Fred felt bad about what yeah okay there it is yeah and and so yeah so that was bad oh that's an awesome word what an awesome device that is though uh the idea that you could then be representing some like what a beautiful ping-pong of Comedy that you have there for yourself that's awesome but the the thing I learned at the National Lampoon um they were the writers meetings there were vicious and people would just say that sucks you know you'd pick something and somebody feel like that's stupid and you just go like okay I got another one yeah yeah like walk in with 10 ideas walk in with 15 ideas and hope maybe one survives which was exactly what happened what it was like at Letterman what's the classic is this anything right uh you know and and we can we can choose to respond to is this anything with with kindness or or or just no emotion whatsoever um but yeah I I asked uh uh Tommy rupreck who came along after uh he was in late show uh Great Moments in presidential speeches that was that was all him yeah and um I asked Tommy about that was there ever uh things that that you wish would have gone on and and he goes you know what the things that I can think of were in the first couple months because in the first couple months that's when you have these ideas and you're you're attached to them after a couple months you don't get attached to anything because it's one in ten one in 20 whatever it is that even get any attention whatsoever um yeah that's the life of a comedy writer the other thing that's interesting is that um Dave always remembered pitches even if they'd been rejected so so for the first couple of years I was there I suggested hey why doesn't Dave rent a convertible and drive through a car wash holy crap and and so Dave turned it down and then after the writers strike yeah I remember he mentioned it to Steve like maybe we should do that now yeah and I was shocked that he had like remembered it um there was a fatal flaw in that remote so so here's the Fatal flaw we go to Avis we rent a car Dave drives the car to Queens we go to a car wash Dave stays inside the car with Carl the cameraman and goes through the car wash yep completely miked up and everything yeah um drives back to return the car the car by the way there's two inches of water inside of the car yeah yeah the Fatal flaw is that Dave is wearing dry clothes when he returns the car foreign is is that um uh the chemical whatever [ __ ] chemicals exist in car wash water um we're horribly uncomfortable for Dave and he was just like I gotta get out of these clothes I can't wear these um and and and we all rode back and I tried I said come on put them back on no no it wasn't gonna happen I think he did develop a slight rash like over the weekend I felt terrible and the person I really felt terrible for was Carl Carl was covered in plastic tarp with the camera having to ride through the car wash um and years later a pitched okay that is that I don't know that we've ever heard that because I mean people remember that remote I don't know that uh you know yeah you can't really you can't I I never I tried every once a while to repitch something and either Steve or Dave would catch it and just go we've heard that before we've heard that before unless you have a new reason right oh wait now that blank has happened yeah yeah so we've got unfortunately I I apologize I have a day job yeah no no you're working for me you're a tech guy too like that's weird so so I'll tell you in one minute what would I do because it's weird for an old comedy writer to be doing this um I work with people at nuance and Microsoft uh who work on conversational artificial intelligence and I help write what the machine says to humans and how the machine will understand what humans say and this is a market that for this is a job that didn't exist three years ago yep but then as AI got smarter and smarter they said well maybe we need people who actually know how humans talk can you make them funny Fred we I have tried um I've been working I I do some work uh for the New York City 3-1-1 system understanding that and I keep pitching can we just have the system from time to time just go forget about it yes there you go or if somebody uses obscenities yeah right what people do they call they go [ __ ] you put an operator on uh just go like do you kiss your mother with that mouth oh see right and I keep pitching that but they won't no um I love this I I appreciate this so much um do you think your wife would do the show oh geez I don't know okay I that's a that's a big big if I don't I don't know I don't know um yeah well if you could put a good word in for me uh I will I will that would be amazing I think that she would have a tremendous uh uh perspective I don't think I don't think I don't think she will I think the only yeah the only way she might go on is if it was like her and Barbara Gaines together well I would love that we're trying to figure out a way to get Barbara on the show she didn't give me a flat out no when I saw her last week in New York she gave up my one of my best buds is uh one of my favorite people in the world is the guy by the name of Scott Ryan he wrote this book Barbara Gaines is uh featured a lot in this book and I I referenced that to her uh I said Scott got you and she goes yeah but it took a lot of work and hey I'm I'm willing to put in a lot of work it's hard you know just I think and just in general and and you know uh good for you for for tracking this trying to do you know um I think people in general are very protective of of Dave yup and of all of us yep you know and and you know regardless of the joke that I started with um it was not a hell hole no I've worked in really bad [ __ ] shows it was a family threat a generational family by the way it was it was weird it was weird that yeah and there were people who were like mad at each other and some people you know like every any family absolutely like any family but uh again because of who we were and what point in our careers we were making ourselves up as much as we were making the show up well I certainly in this show and we've made no bones about it right from the very beginning uh we talk about how we don't deal in Scandal or gossip uh obviously if there was something with a guest on the show or something like that that's fair game but we don't talk about the parts of family that you wouldn't talk about uh and that's that's me you know earnestly wanting to protect exactly what you're talking about and and with the assurances I mean we're 30 something episodes into this thing and and and I think that uh the words getting out a little bit about how our show wants to protect exactly what you're talking about here uh because again I'm just I'm I'm pissed off that the world has forgotten who Johnny Carson is um and and that's not going to happen to you guys if I have anything to say about it hey if I got I got a question for you yes sir when you watch Bill Maher yes sir is he it hasn't he like taken 90 of his gestures and mannerisms and timing from Carson I have oh that is so crazy that you have said that I was talking to somebody the other day about I'm not saying it's a bad thing no it's not but I watch him and I go it's it's shrug yeah this you know yeah it's the whole yeah I'm gonna ask Mark malkov about that who hosted the Carson podcast he's been on this show and and I'm going to ask him about that because I I was I forget who I was talking to he just had Leno on not too long ago and so I was really interested he's got a podcast now and so one of us made that exact observation that it's almost like he's trying to channel channel Carson and how it is that's crazy you just said that yes I think I think a lot of it is um it's just who we grew up I I don't think it's like a bad thing I just think it's who he is you know in the same way that if I get up in front of a group of people um and start talking um Betsy my wife points this out all the time I start doing Dave's hand gestures I start where I start picking up I using his rhythms and it's just because for years I was just laser focused on this guy yep for me it's vocabulary I have a ton of the words that I say uh came from from for words that he would say like you know oh my Lord or or just different different little things there's George here's George Miller's joke um uh uh this is a great way to finish right here what was what was yeah yeah what's Letterman's and he did it on stage so I'm not [ __ ] with him uh what what's David Letterman's idea of foreplay let's get on with it shall we we're finishing spread come back on the show I can't wait for this uh you and I'll communicate offline um later on thank you for everything that you do thank you for everything that you have done thank you we appreciate you and we will talk to you again very soon hopefully okay thank you sir all right take care take care cheers okay you know what he just uh exited and I'm just gonna keep going and finish with the outro here um I love when I have a hard time keeping up with uh with the guest uh by the way I stepped on him a couple times um uh um there's a couple times with zoom I'm starting to get good at it but sometimes I'm still fatally flawed as he as as Fred just said uh I'm fatally flawed with with over talking with somebody so I apologize to the audience about that in real time right now uh we'll just keep going in one cut um uh you're about to see my reaction now every single time I finish with a guest every time it has happened every single time I've had one of these former staffers on the show and uh instead of hitting stop which I normally do uh and then go oh I didn't have this feeling of wow what a cool conversation that was you're seeing it in real time right now uh as this show evolves um Fred Graver phenomenal again I use that word all the time because it's how I feel there's no better word I'll get a I'll consult a thesaurus I will consult a thesaurus there we go um I'm gonna blame the coffee on that one um and and try and find other synonyms to phenomenal uh that I can insert into the vocabulary um but yeah uh I I just am really grateful um what Fred talked about we've talked about on the show he doesn't necessarily know that uh that that that how many of these people are so protective of things and and as we move forward as a show uh you know as our community grows you know that's going to be a standard that we have and and I mean you know people make jokes and things like that we're going to have the standard of being as protective as as we can about the personal things about the family things um that stayed family and and that's great that's what we need to do because then it allows us to um you know talk with some Freedom about all the other stuff and why are we all here we're not here for the the behind the scenes family stuff that that people don't necessarily like to talk about we're here for all the other stuff we're here all because of the commonality uh I I reference the conversation uh that I had with Barbara in New York and and I mean I'm not telling um Candy says I need to stop saying tell and tells out of school I don't think I'm breaking any confidences when I when I say this uh one of the things that Barbara said is she she just kind of looked at me and it was just as that she was about to walk away um down 53rd Street and she said you know what we're just all crazy you know and it was in reference to the staff and the family that Fred and I were just talking about and um I don't know if crazy is the exact right word I think sometimes it certainly because we all have this they all have this excuse sense of humor and I think that many of us feel that same way I know I certainly do and um I'm just very appreciative of this family and um God for and Fred had so many things like he worked on Cheers he worked on all of these things he worked on Twitter when Twitter was getting into TV now he's working in you see what he's working in right now the the places that he has gone since the idea that Dave you know and and Company created worldwide pants for the idea that that maybe the Exodus would be a little bit different it could be uh what do we do now within the family uh I love that idea that's something that we're going to explore on the show um Fred Graver was just a phenomenal guest sorry that's phenomenal again I appreciate every single person that has watched or listened to this show thus far thank you very much for giving us a chance uh for the ones who are globbing onto the show um fantastic let's build a community join the Facebook group um and and um for those who have come on the show and who are about to come on the show we've got a couple really cool interviews I've got another one tonight another writer I'm I'm so grateful I'm having so much fun doing this and uh I I am I'm excited for the fact that uh these conversations are actually touching other people too whether it's in the dozens or right now or in the hundreds uh with all the platforms you know over a thousand every episode and and that's that's that's gratifying uh to hear that other people are enjoying this as well um please feel free to send feedback join the Facebook group let's make this a community if uh if you have ideas that are smarter than me chances are you do uh because I ain't the sharpest tool in the drawer please send them in and we will start incorporating them um this has been another episode of the Letterman podcast with Mike Chisholm um coincidentally I am Mike Chisholm our Our Guest today was Fred Graver and uh we'll see you next time thank you and good night it's the awkward moment when I say thank you and good night and I hit stop that moment in between there there's an awkwardness let's just live in that moment for a second shall we