All the hubbub over Jon Stewart’s Crossfire appearance recently (which I loved, incidentally) made me remember some even less comfortable moments in talk show history. A disproportionate number took place on David Letterman-
*Crispin Glover’s demonstration of karate moves (which greatly injured his career and almost seriously injured Letterman)
*Andy Kaufman’s appearances (particulalrly with Jerry Lawler) which, staged or not, were irritating and masturbatory in the extreme
*Farrah Fawcett appearing either drugged up or in mid-psychotic episode
*Shirley MacLaine refusing to play when Letterman asked her about reincarnation and her brother Warren
*Jack Palance appearing either senile or otherwise totally out of it challenging Dave to a fight while Dave gave a “let’s please go to commercial… NOW!” look
*Joaquin Phoenix fidgety and stammering and seeming like Letterman had just threatened to kill his puppy if Phoenix couldn’t divide 432020328583.4343 by 232409.223 in his head
Some non-Letterman awkward moments:
*I was too little to remember it at the time but I’ve seen it in documentaries: a bombed out of her mind and wizened Tallulah Bankhead sharing the Carson stage with the Beatles and interrupting every third syllable
*Peggy Lee on Johnny Carson being a total buzzkill by talking on and on and on about her recent heart surgery and cardiac problems (Louis Anderson was actually trying to do damage control by feeding her straightlines or joking about her comments, but she just. wouldn’t. take. a. frigging. hint)
*any episode of Geraldo Tony Curtis on Tom Snyder going into a totally unprovoked wild rant on 1)the fact that he never got the respect from the industry he feels he deserved and 2)Billy Wilder’s comment [which came up only because Snyder mentioned Some Like it Hot trying to get him off the "poor me… I never got an Oscah tangent] that the O.D. of Curtis’s son Nick was attributible to Curtis’s own drug addiction (Curtis seems to have the same I.Q. as lukewarm Chicken Marsala, incidentally- Jamie Lee seems bright but this must be from her late mom)
What are some painful talk-show moments you remember?
Robert Goulet on the old Mike Douglas show - he was so drunk he could barely stand up.
Letterman(?) when he had Cher on and “surprised” her by bringing on Sonny, and then badgering them to sing “I Got You Babe”. It was mean, manipulative, and very bad form.
Any and all Andy Kaufman appearances - I never understood what was so brilliant or great about him. He wasn’t even funny, he was just weird and boring.
Tony Orlando crying about his stay in a mental institution - TMI!
Almost forgot: seemingly immortal troll Mickey Rooney giving an interview on the radio station of the back-of-beyond college where I used to work (he was in town to do his One Man, One Wife stage show) to a student DJ who clearly had absolutely no clue who the little piece of smegma was to begin with; Rooney, a born-again-Christian, launched into a tirade on the absence of morality from today’s Hollywood and actually said- wish I had a transcript so I could link- that there were no gays in Hollywood in the 1930s/1940s. (It’s not everyday you hear a man who’s had more wives than most people have had pets in their lifetime diss immorality.)
Sampiro’s story reminded me of an interview from two or three years back of Wallace Shawn (Vizzini from The Princess Bride among many other roles) on one of those generic Wild and Crazy morning radio shows here in Boston.
It became painfully obvious a minute or two into the interview that for whatever reason Shawn did not remember a single thing about making Princess Bride, which was the only thing the radio people wanted to talk to him about. He couldn’t play along at all, it was almost like he had never even heard of the movie.
Granted it was made years previously and it is only one of many things he has done but still…not one anecdote or anything. Really really painful and awkward to listen to.
Recently, an episode of Oprah where they invited Hugh Grant, Renée Zellweger, and Colin Firth to talk about the new Bridget Jones:
Oprah asks an obvious uncomfortable Hugh Grant about his love life, amid whoops and cheers and shrieks from the (mostly female) audience. Instead of demurring politely, he asks her–pointedly–about her own love life. Cue annoyed glare from Oprah and rather awkward moment, before topic is hurriedly changed.
Rob Lowe went on Arsenio Hall’s show after the sex tape he made with a minor. Arsenio kept badgering him and in so many words, telling him he was scum. There was this brief moment before going to commercial where Rob Lowe says, “I don’t even know why I came on this show…” And Arsenio replies “I don’t either.” Cut to a painful turn away from the camera from Rob Lowe.
But the following week, Rob Lowe was on Saturday Night Live and they did a spoof of Arsenio with Rob as the talk show host with an enormous index finger calling that one group in his audience all these horrible nicknames.
Dick Cavett actually had a guest **die ** on his show. During a commercial break, the man (I can’t remember his name) told Cavett “I don’t feel well,” then slumped in his chair.
They immediately stopped taping and didn’t broadcast the show. But the next night, Cavett had to explain what happened, and even the explanation was one of the most cringe-worthy moments in TV history.
It was J.I. Rodale, health food guru and publisher of “Prevention” Magazine. Supposedly, he died moments after telling Cavett he was the healthiest man on Earth and would surely live to be 100.
As you note, this was never aired on TV- but I’ve known numerous people who’ll SWEAR they saw it happen, just the same.
And I believe in a previous appearance on the show she called Letterman an asshole.
And when they asked Grant about some of his former leading ladies, he was less than generous. The best he could say about Sandra Bullock was that she was “silly.” He said that Julianne Moore probably hated him. The funniest was Julia Roberts. Oprah said, “Tell us about Julia.” Grant said, “She has a HUGE mouth.” Oprah, looking confused, “You mean she talks a lot?” Grant replies, “No, I mean her mouth is literally very big. Like a horse. We were doing a scene where we kissed and I swear I could hear an echo.” Everyone was kind of shocked at his comments, but Oprah kind of laughed it off eventually and they moved on to other things.
I saw an episode of Letterman where he had Harrison Ford on, I think to promote that horror movie where he was a bad guy. Either he’d recently had a stroke, or he was drunk/drugged out of his mind. Slurring, one word answers, looking around dazed…
That, and his divorcing his wife to hook up with someone half his age that happened a few weeks previously to the talk show appearance really drove home that Indiana Jones was dead.
There was also Madonna’s infamous Letterman appearance, where she kept swearing like crazy and talking about how peeing on your feet in the shower prevents athletes foot. There was more, but I forget what, now.
Paul Rudd on the Daily Show. He kept talking about diarrhea, and I think told a story about vomiting on his wife, and it was just gross and unfunny. Jon Stewart was trying to work with it, but Rudd had disgusted the audience and it was painful until he left.
Since someone already stole the Madonna on Letterman story**, I’ll do this one:
Tori Amos on The Daily Show. Apparently she got miffed that Jon Stewart called her fans “crazy”, then inexplicably and very deliberately poured his glass of water on the floor behind her chair.
Other outrageous things Madonna did: Smoking a cigar onstage, gazing at it and saying; “Just the right size”, telling Dave off for "kissing everyone’s a", and refusing to leave the stage.
A few months later, at the 1994 MTV VMA’s, they came out together to present an award holding hands. Letterman kissed her forehead and said; “I’ll go wait in the car. Watch your language.” It was adorable. Madonna also made a 5-minute appearance the next year to give him a valentine. Her next appearance wasn’t until 2000, when Letterman memorably “touched her unmentionables” and Schafer gave her a special present by having the house band play a never-released song of hers that he got his hands on somehow. When asked to name the song, she said it was her instructions on “How to be a good wife.” She would not, however, say the title out loud, which is Cook and Fck*.
What about Quentin Tarantino’s (sp?) appearance on Leno to promote Kill Bill Vol 2 where he was so shitfaced he didn’t seem to know what was going on. The one where he had the cane and was dressed in a white suit. He even admitted to hitting the bar in the green room when Leno asked him if he was feeling alright.
This happened a long time ago, so I’m not sure who the band was.
On the Tonight Show, Joey Bishop was guest-hosting for Johnny Carson. A black R&B group was doing an energrtic song and dance number. When they came to the end of the song, one of the band members just kept singing and dancing, oblivious of everyone else. They had to physiclly restrain him and lead him from the stage.
Joey Bishop apologized so profusely to Johnny after the commercial break that if Johnny was present he would have been kissing his feet. Or worse.
Did anyone else see this? It would have been in the late 1970s. I have no clue as to how I would search for it.