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Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Show #3016
By Michael Z. McIntee Change Text Color:
Black | White


Stupid Human Tricks; Russell Brand; and Charlie Haden.
PLUS: a cold open; Great Moments in Presidential Speeches; the final days in office of President Bush; Don Rickles Joke That Makes No Sense; and Sarah Palin cooking up some moose dogs.

" . . . and now, tough but professional welder . . . . . David Letterman!"

Cold Open: We find Dr. Phil sitting at a desk, fake small window and city scene behind him: "The program you are about to see contains disturbing images, mature themes, adult language, awkward silences, the rants of a desperate psychopath in a cheap suit, and painfully tired comedy."

You've been warned.

ACT 1:
Monologue jokes:

- " Burger King announced they'll be selling a line of men's pajamas with the Burger King logo. And nothing turns the ladies on like pajama pants that read, 'Hold the pickle.' Nothing's classier than pajama bottoms that read, 'Home of the Whopper.'"

Great Moments in Presidential Speeches:
Bush: " . . . I find it ironic . . . . not ironic . . . . just interesting . . . . 20 years ago, Mr. Prime Minister, you were in jail . . . . ."

ACT 2:
Hey, how 'bout them Ball State Cardinals! Tuesday night on "The Deuce," ESPN-2, the 9-0 Ball State Cardinals battled the Miami of Ohio RedHawks in Oxford, Ohio. Final Score: Ball State 31; Miami of Ohio 16. Ball State stands at 10-0 and is ranked 14th in the nation by the Associated Press and the BCS Poll. There are whispers that the Orange Bowl may be interested in Ball State. Dave scoffs with a wave of the hand, "Orange Bowl . . . . pssshhhttttt!" Dave is more interested in the BCS Championship Bowl, the Big One!
Dave takes a look at some of the other big name college football teams.
Penn State - great team; Joe Paterno . . . . . the Nittany Lions . . . hey, look at that, they're 9-1. They have a loss!
USC Trojans: What? They have a loss, too. They're 8-1.
Oklahoma Sooners: 9-1.
The Longhorns of Texas? Somebody hooked 'em. They're 9-1.
The Georgia Bulldogs, always a powerhouse: 8-1.
Florida Gators: 8-1.
The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame? 5-4. Barely worth mentioning, though they were 2-0 at one time.
And let's take another look at Ball State . . . . 10-0. That's a zero in the loss column. That means they haven't lost all year.
Dave holds up a Ball State t-shirt. It has a huge face of a cardinal on the front, the fiercest robin-sized bird in all the world. And on the back reads: "Chirp Chirp, It's Bird Time."
"Chirp Chirp, It's Bird Time."
That's right, "Chirp Chirp, It's Bird Time."

There are only about two months remaining of the Bush Presidency and we're chronicling this time with a segment called, "President Bush: The Final 100 Days." We take a look.
Announcer:

"November 12th, 2008 . . . . . 68 days left. President Bush spent the day ordering cowboy boots from Zappos.com.
This has been 'President Bush: The Final 100 Days."
We are big fans of Don Rickles, who was on the show last night, but sometimes he'll tell a joke that doesn't quite make sense. That is the inspiration for tonight's segment entitled, the "Don Rickles Joke That Makes No Sense."
We watch a moment from Tuesday's program.
Rickles: " . . . . and all the Secret Service agents went 'aye-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi . . ."

Sarah Palin was on FoxNews the other night cooking moose dogs with Greta Van Susteren. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite according to plan.
We see Sarah chatting with Greta as Sarah puts a pan of moose dogs into the oven. She sets the timer and continues to chat. And then we hear a smoke detector go off; we see a puff of smoke, and then a big billow of smoke. And then an exterior shot of the house exploding to Smithereens.
You know, you can see Smithereens from Wasilla.
Dave receives word that everyone is fine.

ACT 3:
STUPID HUMAN TRICKS

SHT #1: Kathleen Black from Burleson, Texas, and Kelsey Little from Cleburne, Texas.
Trick: they can play Beethoven's "Fur Elise" on the piano with their noses. Ahh, nothing like a duet on the keyboard. And they perform their party trick with perfection. Very nice.
Yeah, fine, but can they play "Flight of the Bumblebee"?

SHT #2: Chris Clark from West Bloomfield, Michigan and Ken Krakat from Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Ken works as a courtesy clerk for Krogers. Dave shows off his supermarket smarts when he exclaims, "Krogers . . . that's the largest supermarket chain in the country."
Trick: Ken will ride a vertical, 3-wheeled unicycle/tricycle with a fork in his mouth. Chris will throw him an apple. Ken will spear the apple with the fork.
Wow, sounds like Ken does all the work. What actually is Chris' talent in all this? I hope it's reflected in tonight's check.
Ken gets up on the three-wheel unicycle (?) and can barely stay up. I suspect this is just for "show-biz" to add to the excitement. Ken claps to signal Chris to toss the apple. Chris tosses the apple and ken spears the fruit.
My guess: Ken works the night shift and this is what he does from 3:00 AM to 4:00. Nice trick, guys.

SHT #3: Doreen Keane of Kennilworth, New Jersey.
Trick: She can put her fingertips underneath her eyelids and scratch her eyeballs. Whoa! How . . . why . . . . Doreen explains how she first started this trick. One morning she was "getting the sleepies" out of her eyes . . . . and it progressed from there.
Doreen and her sister own a bowling alley in Jersey called "Garwood Lanes." Time for her trick. Accompanied by a drumroll, Doreen puts a finger under the lid of each eye and wiggles her fingers around. Yeech.

I Googled "Garwood Lanes." Wow, sounds exactly where I would want to go. 8 lanes, small bar, comfortable . . . not for everybody. Usually when I read that something isn't for everybody, that's for me.

ACT 4:
RUSSELL BRAND

Oddly interesting. The first thing you notice of the young Brit is his unmanageable mangy hair. It looks as if it hasn't been tended to since the 90s, but I'm sure it takes a lot of work to make it look like that. Russell comes off as delightfully charismatic, but his appearance tells you otherwise. I picture him as someone who is incredibly friendly and giving and sweet, but who can be stabbing you in the ear with a pitchfork at the same time. It's hard to get a handle on him.
Russell recently toured across America for a BBC documentary, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road." Russell traveled the same route as Kerouac, from Massachusetts to San Francisco. He enjoyed San Fran, and visited Alcatraz. He laughs at the Alcatraz tour. You put on headphones and the tour is narrated by an ex-warden, barking at you the whole time. And like everyone who visits Alcatraz, Russell looked out across the bay and wondered if he could make that swim. Most people think they could, but none could.
He visited Jack Kerouac's grave in Massachusetts. People left all sorts of things at his gravesite. One person had left a jar of peanut butter . . . . " . . . and I was hungry . . ." He debated whether to take the peanut butter or not and made some very good points as to why it would be acceptable. At first I thought, "Of course not!" but then I could see why it wouldn't be that bad.

Russell Brand's new film, "Bedtime Stories" opens on Christmas day. It stars the can't-miss-hit Adam Sandler.

Watching Russell Brand, his eyes reminded me of Ricky Gervais, and I was aware I may be swayed by the accent. And then later, watching his eyes dart from here to there, his eyes reminded me of Chris Rock. Anybody else see that?

ACT 5:
Announce: "Can you guess the movie star who is appearing on tomorrow's Late Show?"
(we see a faceless head of flowing hair, akin to Julia Roberts)
"If you guessed Bruce Willis, (image changes to Bruce Willis) you may already be the winner of a Circuit City gift certificate! Way to go, Champ!
We'll be right back."

ACT 7:
CHARLIE HADEN FAMILY AND FRIENDS

From his new album, "Rambling Boy," Charlie Haden, with his family and friends, performed the haunting "Spiritual."

And that was our show for Wednesday, November 12, 2008.



Barack Obama's daughters want to be on the Hannah Montana show. Well, if Barack can do that, then America did make the right choice. If he can do that, he can accomplish anything. Former Late Show intern and current associate producer of the Hannah Montana show, Brian Hall, should get on this right away. And if the Obama girls want too much money, my girls will do it for half that.

In addition to Charlie Haden's family, who are his friends on the album? Vince Gill, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby, Elvis Costello, Ricky Skaggs, Pat Metheny, Jack Black, Dan Tyminski, and Ruth Cameron.

STUPID HUMAN TRICKS: I place tricks into 3 categories:
A trick you are born with - usually involves being double-jointed.
A trick that is simply a creative idea - it isn't really a trick, but is something delightfully original. Anyone could do this, but to be on the Late Show, you need to think of it first.
A trick that anyone of us could do, but it takes lots of practice.
The piano trick is a bit of mix of #2 and 3, with more, with more a leaning to #2.
The unicycle/fork/apple trick is #3.
The eyeball scratch is bit of all three.

Michael Loik of Ben Lomond, California has this suggestion for the Wahoo Gazette, based on something I wrote about getting a "free round" at a local bar.

"Here's an idea: ask Wahoo Gazette readers for their best 'free round' stories. I had one recently: I took my wife on a date a few weeks ago. We went to a wonderful Italian restaurant and had the works. We then stopped at an Octoberfest celebration that was going on right on our way home. We danced, then went to get a beer. The young woman serving was a former student that had both me and my wife as professors. She poured us a free round. A great end to a wonderful night."
I'm all for any stories that involve a "free round." In fact, I'm for any story that will take up space in the Wahoo Gazette. I first started drinking at a local bar in Spring Valley called "Perruna'." This was before "being of age" was such a big deal; back when "being of age" was only 18. Perruna's was where my crowd of friends would go. Unfortunately, one from my crowd got banned from the bar for tripping people down the back steps during a Halloween costume march around the bar. Sticking together, we decided we all as a group would not go to Perruna's anymore. But in our limited thinking, we had no idea where to go. All we knew was Perruna's. One of us knew of a bar around the corner by the railroad station. It was not in the best part of town, and as is true with most bars around a train station, it was not filled with the best clientele. But we needed a place to go. The next week we all headed over to "The Senate" bar. We were a bunch of kids looking for a belly of beer. Seated at the bar were those three and four-times our age. We stopped at the doorway, but since our heads and bellies were empty, we decided to continue in. We found a spot at the corner of the bar. We put up our money and asked for a pitcher of Miller. The pitcher arrived along with a basket of pretzels. We all looked at each other . . . . "the pretzels . . . for us? . . . . for free?" . . . We took our beer and drank and took the pretzels and snacked. Perruna's never offered us free pretzels. We ordered another pitcher of beer. And then another. And then another, but this pitcher of Miller arrived with a knock on the bar by the bartender. We all looked up at the barkeep and wondered what that was all about. We also noticed he didn't touch our pile of money on the bar. One of us inched a five-dollar bill towards the bartender. He looked and said, "That one is on the house." WHOA! A free pitcher of beer?!! We all leaned in and whispered to each other, wondering what was going on. One of us had heard about something like this. He heard that in some bars a bartender will buy back every third drink. I thought, "What? Really?" I've been drinking at Perruna's for a good year or two and never got a free one; not after my third, not after my thirty-third, not after my one hundred and thirty third. Free beer? What a concept. The Senate became our bar of bars for the next year. I would sometimes go back to Perruna's during the day without a crowd and sit at the bar. I would sit there and order 50-cent mugs until I got a free one. I would grow madder and madder as the evening turned to night still waiting for my free one. I never got one. And that's my story about my "free round." Thanks for the idea, Loik.

Coming soon . . . . the minute it gets out of R&D . . . . the Wahoo Gazette transcripts.

CAMEO MENTION OF A WAHOO READER
Whoa ho! He's double-nickels! I have a brother who is 55 years old! How did that happen? And what must my parents think?! From Goshen, New York, on his 55th birthday, it's Bob McIntee.
This concludes another episode of CAMEO MENTION OF A WAHOO READER

Michael Z. McIntee
mikemack@aol.com

ACT 1
• Show Open
• Dave's Monologue
 Watch now
• Great Moments In Presidential Speeches
ACT 2
• Ball State Cardinals: "Chirp, Chirp, It's Bird Time!"
• President Bush: The Final 100 Days
• Don Rickles Joke That Makes No Sense
• Sarah Palin on Fox News
ACT 3
• Stupid Human Tricks
 Watch now
ACT 4
• Russell Brand
 Watch now
ACT 5
• "Late Show" Promo
ACT 6
• More with Russell Brand
ACT 7
• Charlie Haden performs "Spiritual"
• Show Close

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