Gerard Mulligan

Gerard Mulligan joined me to discuss growing up in Rhode Island; early TV influences such as Milton Berle and Groucho Marx; Steve Allen's Westinghouse Show and its help in creating the Letterman show; high school writing; learning sensitivity in comedy; being an English teacher; moving to San Francisco and being a notary public in City Hall; meeting a homeless man who had the plan for the country; telling off color jokes in Catholic school; trying stand up for the first time; becoming friends with Merrill Markoe who introduced him to David Letterman; Dave hiring him to write Tonight Show monologue jokes when he guest hosted; the morning show; his love for Family Circle; wasting Edwin Newman; the morning show was NBC taking a chance, unlike now; Chicago; his daughter's art; his son's a novelist; theme nights (Harmon Killebrew), Dave says no a lot; Lou Rawls week; Joe Toplyn invents the Velcro Suit; Will it Float; Stupid Pet Tricks; Dave repeats punch lines to dirty jokes as non-sequiturs; "Where's my Bad Credit People At; What If everybody was named Phil?"; Levon Helm doesn't show up; Joan Collins and Willie Nelson decline the show; his hometown paper Narragansett News lobbies to be on "Small Town News"; "working" with Chris Elliot and Adam Reznick; Steve Young laughs so hard he falls off a chair once a year; Dave tried a teleprompter, hired Tony Mendez instead; he, Dave, and Tony go to meet Al Gore; hanging out with old writers at barbeques; Larry Jacobson needing a Japanese rabbi; discussing "Born Again" Bob Dylan with Rich Hall; our favorite musician Elvis Costello; Gerry pre-interviews Elvis in London and he "blows the roof off the dump"; Dave fires Gerry bit; not repeating bits too much unlike SNL; Kristen Wiig's Gillie; Keenan Thompson; Pete Fatovich in the control room when Elvis Costello signs "Radio, Radio"; coming on as Batman; how a joke he wrote and Dave nixed was told on Leno because it was so obvious; accidentally telling one of David Brenner's jokes; love of George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield; using his town of Nutley, New Jersey in remotes; writers coming up with the idea of doing something funny when their names were announced at the Emmys; James Gandolfini nixes turkey wrestling; The Eurythmics want to get "arrested" as a prank during an appearance; Andy Kaufman wants to commit suicide during a 1980 appearance on the morning show; people who died on stage; largest vase; Gerard impersonates leaders, stars, athletes in the "Ask Who segment"; became a notary on the morning show; Bob Sarlatte becomes a contributor to the morning show; being a big Red Sox fan; being reticent to meet idols Ted Williams and Van Morrison; anti-Semitic, racist and transphobic comments made by Morrissey, Roger Waters, and Ricky Gervais; Jews in comedy and other aspects of life.