David Letterman v. Phone Collection, 1984-2010 

Always been fascinated with Dave’s inability to use the phone.

Specifically remember watching the night he called the parking garage. I thought I was going to have a stroke when he axed the phone.

24:07 " A little dialing music Paul"......Paul plays "Telephone Line" from ELO

I've come to realize the 7:39 bit maybe one of his greatest works. everything comes together so well and still goes wrong.

Thank you so much for upload all of these... These are awesome... :)

Great collection!!! Damn it would have been great to get one of those souvenir phones from Dave.

Fantastic!!

That was great!

I wonder how that first joke got out of rehearsal.

Thanks Don

I remember these and wondered if anyone was allowed to keep any of those phones? That's what I use at my home.

With the last call to the most gullible telephone operator in the first segment, you can hear that the audio technician skips over the first line of the planned conversation and substitutes in the second line ('yes?') which results in the aborted call after the third line is announced too early. You can actually hear this missing first line earlier in the segment at 3:05 (saying 'may I help you?' instead of the really mean guy).

Lol “here at CBS”

Dave, are you watching these 2nd home, home movies with us too? P. S. The backup voices are quite clear and nice.

The last clip makes me want to watch a compilation of Joe Grossman bits.

All of these are just so damn entertaining! Mr. Giller! I have a selfish question. Do you have anything with Dave and his relationship to AOL? I remember as a kid laughing hysterically whenever Dave would go off on AOL. (I recall that was a thing?)

I'm looking for a clip where Dave gets an answering machine and leaves a message in his dumb guy voice. Says something to the effect of ""Uh yeah, we'll be over to start diggin in the mornin"". Only seen it one time, when I was 11 or 12, and I still quote it.

I totally remember listening to a ball game on the radio when I was a kid before falling asleep. Wow, nice at 26:07 "Hang up and don't bother the operator". Oh, the days before cell phones. When Dave destroyed the last phone and threw it threw it behind him, that reminded me I always wondered how they synced the breaking glass noise whenever Dave threw something. Maybe Don knows this one?

Don, what was your favorite period for Letterman himself on tv? For me, now, its '81 - 91. I'm glad im getting to see all the really early stuff that at times resembled weird cable access. There's nothing like it before or since. 8:15 I see Dave giving a wry smile about musician/actor Branford Marsalis but chose to bite his tongue. Model/actor/musician/comedian etc. You dont see that as much anymore. I found that pretty funny but what I found even funnier was the Indian burial ground comment @ 15:14 comparing the phone problems to the old haunting story trope. The audience barely giggles.

What I would very much like to know is, what is Don Giller's all-time favorite sketch or segment in the entire Letterman pantheon? And is it one of the Don Giller uploads?

Didn't Johnny Carson do something similar back in the day at the Tonight Show? I think it was around mid June ,1983 during STS-7, when Johnny try to call the Space Shuttle Challenger from a land line phone and wanted to talk to the first American female astronaut Sally Ride. Johnny call the Bell Operator-assisted call and specifically asked to be connected to the Space Shuttle. The operator kept connecting Johnny to the wrong numbers like " Taxi shuttle service" or "The space shuttle massage parlour" After several attempts, Johnny got hold of her in the end and he asked, "What are you doing at the moment, Sally replayed, "I'm shaving my legs" That cracked me up. It was a faked but darn funny. Would love to see that clip again.

"This won't bother you if it's not hooked up, will it." I wonder why he unplugged the receiver and threw it on the floor but I guess he explained it. I looked more authentic that way though. The first calls were just not that funny. That's hilarious it takes 7 people to make a phone call and he just ends up smashing the phone. Didn't we used to have to lease phones from AT&T since Dave destroyed so many? I still have our old rotary dial phone from 1970. I guess we didn't have to give it back.

Theater of the absurd again.