by Jeff Dunham
I walked up the ramp and into the building. Huge painted images of Bob Hope, Johnny, and a few more of the historical NBC celebrities adorned the two-story walls. I was pointed to a hallway and led to my own dressing room. On the door was a blue card with The Tonight Show logo plus my name printed on it. It was almost too cool to take in.
This was the Super Bowl for stand-up comics. I can only imagine what a football player feels like the first time he makes it to that Big Game. No matter what kind of preparation you’ve had, no matter how good you are, no matter how confident you are, it’s still a big deal. The eyes of millions will be on you, and though most late-night shows are all taped and shown a few hours later, they’re still very much live… just like that football game. There is pressure, excitement, nerves, and energy. Johnny Carson was the true American night-light. A huge chunk of America watched Carson every night.
Freddy de Cordova was Johnny’s longtime executive producer, and he met me onstage for rehearsal to talk about what was going to happen in a couple of hours. He said I didn’t have to run through my set line by line, but they at least wanted to see my setup and be shown the order of the act.
I went through everything with Peanut and the little guys. Then Freddy called me over to “The Desk” to chat a bit. This was the desk… and the couch. What countless stars had crossed this stage and sat right here, talking to Johnny? I felt like I was on hallowed ground.
Freddy said, “Jim tells me you have another dummy in your act that’s pretty funny.”
“Uh, yes, sir,” I replied. “Walter. He’s a cranky old guy.”
“Well,” Freddy said, “the odds of you getting to the couch on your first shot are pretty slim, but just in case Johnny feels like having you over, you should be ready. Could you use Walter for that?”
GULP. What the—? Almost never, and I mean almost never did a stand-up get called to the couch his first or even second time doing stand-up on Carson. You had to earn that call. Only on your third or fourth shot was it even thought about. Johnny had to really like you as a stand-up for you to have the honor of having any kind of one-on-one discussion with him. On your first few times, you’d do your set in front of the curtain, then hopefully get the “okay” finger-circle sign from Johnny from thirty feet away. Then the curtain would be pulled apart just so, and you’d exit the way you came. I had never even considered actually talking on air to Mr. Carson.
“Well, yeah, I have a few jokes that would work. I think Johnny would like Walter,” I said.
“Perfect,” replied Freddy. “Then can you preset Walter right here behind the couch and then reach over if Johnny wants to talk to him?”
“Yes, sir,” I stammered. “He can sit on his own on the floor right there behind the couch.”
Well, that was never going to happen. But of course with a live show, they had to be ready for anything.
There are times in all our lives when sometimes things just seem to fall into place, and other times when shit happens and there’s no explanation. I look back on this first Carson appearance, and I know I couldn’t have asked for a better setup. Friday night was the night in the Carson era. It always seemed to be his favorite night, and the audience was always a little more up. Well, here I was, booked on Friday, April 6, 1990. Not only that, but the host was Carson and the guests were none other than B.B. King and Bob Hope. How the hell did that fall into place?
When Doc Severinsen and the band started up, I felt like I was in the car of a roller coaster, strapped in, heading up to the top, with no way to stop or get out. This was IT. I was in my dressing room, watching it on a monitor. Next was Ed McMahon, and “Heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!” The crowd went nuts and out The Man himself walked. I hadn’t met him or talked to him. I still hadn’t seen him in person in the hallway or anywhere. But in a few minutes, he would be introducing me.
I watched and listened. The audience was awesome. Johnny did his monologue, talking about Michael Jackson, President Bush (the first one), Dan Quayle, Milli Vanilli, and the sixtieth anniversary of Twinkies. After the first commercial break, he and the Mighty Carson Art Players did a sketch about a funeral home. Then, Hope was the first guest, and he was lucid and charming and funny. Johnny and the crowd loved him. Next, B.B. King came out and did his thing. Same result. During his number, I was called backstage to take my position behind the main curtain. Even as I type this now, I can recall that feeling and those nerves so many years ago. The audience was great and I had done this bit so many times that I knew it would kill. But none of that took away from the feeling of reaching the top peak of that roller coaster. The clacking of the wheels was about to end, there would be a moment of silence, then a suspension of gravity, and I would soon be on the ride of my life.
And that’s exactly what happened.
The band played during the commercials. As the cameras came back live, Johnny waved the band to quiet. I couldn’t see anything backstage in the darkness. Just the outlines of the stagehands on either side of me ready to pull back the curtain and let me walk through. There was no monitor, and Johnny’s voice was muffled, but I knew he was introducing me with a few credits. I held Peanut in my arms… right hand up his back and into his head, his body perched on my left hand. My case and other props with José inside were preset at the star marker on the floor center stage. I knew when Johnny said my name and Peanut’s, the curtain would part and out I would walk. No cancellation hours before. No more questioning whether I was ready. Doc and the band hit it.
The open curtain sent a blast of TV lights into my eyes and my feet were carrying me to my spot. The audience applause was deafening, but the band was even louder. This was a drug. This was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
The laughs were in all the right places and the performance couldn’t have gone better. I look back at that tape now and I smile a little bit because so much has changed in my style and comedy and performing abilities. But at that moment in time in my life and in my career, I couldn’t have done any better.
I did the final drinking of the cranberry juice-tequila-Chianti while Peanut said, “Going, going, gone!” and the crowd went bananas. Doc and band hit it again, I took my bow, and I couldn’t have been happier. I had done it. I had finally done it! Barely two months before my ten-year high school reunion.
And to top it all off, I looked to my right, and there was Johnny across the stage, giving me the all-important, crowning “okay” sign with his thumb and index finger. My insides did a leap, and I smiled and waved back. As I was taking another quick bow, I looked to the right of center camera just a few feet in front of me, and there was the floor director making a signal for me that my brain took a few seconds to understand. He was waving me not to go back through the curtain but to go to the couch.
If I watch that tape, it’s only for a split second, but I can see the horror in my own eyes in that instant. What was he telling me to do? This had never been in my imagination. I had not planned on this nor even considered what I would possibly do on the couch next to Johnny Carson.
My feet started to move in that direction and it was one of the longest walks of my life. The crowd was hip and recognized the moment for what it was. They went even more nuts. How was it possible that Ed McMahon and B.B. King were now standing up and moving over for me? (Bob Hope had come and gone.) Now was truly the test of the mettle. I got through a couple of questions about myself and my helicopter, and then Johnny asked me about Walter. This was truly unbelievable. I reached around the couch and pulled out the character who would turn out to be Johnny’s favorite of all my little guys. Walter was all attitude:
Jeff: How are you, Walter?
Walter: Who the hell cares?
Jeff: You know where we are?
Walter: Yeah, and I don’t give a damn.
Jeff: But this is Johnny Carson! (I pointed to Johnny and Walter looked.)
Walter: Well LA DEE DAH.
We did a few jokes about the show and Johnny. It was simple but effective.
Johnny, B.B., and Ed all laughed, as did the crowd. But the best was yet to come. This was toward the end of the broadcast, and after the last commercial break, Johnny always thanked his guests. I was last.
Johnny: Jeff, good to see you. Hope you come back to us. Walter, I hope you’re in a better frame of mind next time.
Walter: Oh yeah? Well it’ll be a cold day in hell before I come back here.
It might not look too amazing in print today, but this wasn’t any talk show host. This was Johnny Carson. Revered and respected, and Walter had just dissed him. I had that line in mind as we were coming back from commercial, but I knew I was taking a big chance with it. Johnny was king and I was just a road comic. But all had gone well that night and I figured I’d gamble. Johnny laughed hard, Ed and B.B. cracked up, and it worked.
As the show ended, I shook hands with Johnny and he was gone. Would I ever make it back? Would I ever have an actual conversation with Johnny Carson off the air?
As I walked backstage carrying Walter, one of the agents from William Morris greeted me. He had shown up unbeknownst to me during the taping. He was one of the older guys, and had been in the business a long time. “You know, your life is never going to be the same, kid. Remember that.”
I knew he was right. It could never be the same. But what was next?
After shaking a few hands backstage and thanking as many folks as I could, I walked out of NBC at about five thirty P.M. It was eight thirty on the East Coast, and the show would air there in three hours. I thought this was the end of a perfect day. I was wrong. At that moment, reality was heading toward me at about 80 miles per hour down the 405 freeway. I never saw it coming.
CHAPTER SIX
The Instant Family plus
Star Trek Nirvana
It wasn’t a drunken driver or an eighteen-wheeler careening out of control that almost caused me to smash my car into an embankment on the 405 that night. It wasn’t a coyote or errant deer on the freeway that brought my perfect day to a screeching halt. It was a phone call with my mother.
Driving away from NBC after my first Tonight Show appearance, I met my original William Morris agent, Dave Douds, at a restaurant in Burbank to celebrate. I was secretly praying for no big news events that would cause the night’s airing of The Tonight Show to be preempted. I couldn’t help being that self-centered on this particular evening. “If there’s gonna be an earthquake, I hope it waits at least until tomorrow morning,” I thought. I swear it was hard not to think like that, and if any other comic tells you he hasn’t had the exact same thought when in that position, he’s lying.
I found myself looking at my watch about every fifteen minutes, counting down the time until I knew Carson would air on the East Coast and in Central time. The broadcast would begin at eight thirty P.M. my time… and by nine thirty, it would be history. I somehow killed enough time with dinner, and on the drive back to Redondo, I stared at my watch and knew the minute Johnny was thanking Walter and me. I let a couple more minutes go by, and I picked up the car phone (if you’re too young to remember, cell phones back then were the size of a mailbox and most of them were hardwired, mounted inside your car) and called my parents’ home line. As usual, both Mom and Dad got on the phone at the same time. “So, what did you think?” I asked expectantly.
A few seconds of silence. I thought we had been cut off. “Hello?” I asked. Walter had used the phrases “I don’t give a damn” and “Who the hell cares,” and I thought as the only child raised in a strong Christian family, this might irk my parents. But surely they saw the bigger picture.
My mom finally spoke up: “You know, we don’t approve of you using that type of language.”
After her words registered in my brain, I almost drove off the road in frustration, and I’m not kidding. This had been such a long-awaited day for me. All those years of working so hard, all those hours of dedication to my act. I was expecting excitement, congratulations, and big exclamations of “We’re so proud of you!” But the only thing my mom did was criticize me for using two harmless, four-letter words. I know my mother didn’t mean to hurt me and I know she felt like she still needed to do “her job” as a parent. But the silence on my end now was deafening. Then my father jumped in and tried to smooth things over with “You’re a great ventriloquist!”
I couldn’t hear anything else. I said I had to go and I hung up. At that moment on the 405 in Los Angeles, I felt pretty lonely. I had just done what very few comics get to do, and I now felt I had nothing to celebrate, and no one to talk to about it. Seventeen months before, I had left my life and my close friends in Texas in pursuit of a dream. Now it seemed like an empty, self-centered accomplishment.
Even worse, I knew I had to get up at four thirty A.M. and head to LAX for another flight and another string of college shows. These gigs had been booked long before The Tonight Show, and I still had to pay bills and fulfill contracts. Being on a big TV show didn’t literally change things overnight. Remembering the next day’s schedule put me in even more of a funk: After getting on a six A.M. flight, I would land at some small airport in the Midwest, rent a car, drive for an hour or so, then be doing an afternoon show in a cafeteria at a small college as some sort of a diversionary activity for students needing a break from studying for finals. Then I’d check into some horrible little motel room, sleep, then drive to the next college a couple hundred miles away the next day for another seemingly meaningless show. Seriously? Did I HAVE to go? I just did THE TONIGHT SHOW!
After killing a few more hours, I turned on NBC and watched the broadcast. I couldn’t have been happier. Sitting there, I relived the absolute coolness of it all. Then the show ended and went to a commercial. I shut off the television. Silence. In my small, single room complete with a closet, a single bed, a small desk, and a tiny bathroom, I sat there, not knowing what to do next. I looked over at my desk, smiled, and emptied my father’s pencil sharpener. A few minutes later my phone rang. I figured it was someone on the West Coast who’d just seen the show. It was actually another longtime friend and ventriloquist, Bob Rumba. Bob lived in Chicago and made his living as a modern-day vaudevillian, doing shows here there and everywhere. He would do everything from vent, to balloon animals, to magic. My favorite bit was when he dressed up like Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show and did a dead-on impression of the Don Knotts character. Sometimes at the vent convention, he dressed up like Barney and pretended to patrol the crowd before the show or lectures began. Killed me every time.
Anyway, Bob called me that night and nailed exactly what I was thinking and feeling. “Kind of weird to go from what you just did tonight, to back to your place, alone, with no one to share it with, huh?” he asked. Bob was single as well and had lived the nomad existence for much longer than I had. “Yep,” I responded. “And I don’t really feel like heading back East to do nooners at crappy colleges either.”
The next day, after I had finished the college cafeteria show, a student walked up to me and said it more perfectly than I could imagine. “Weren’t you just on The Tonight Show last night?” he asked, almost befuddled. “Yeah,” I responded, trying to quickly pack my little guys back into the trunk. Then he really drove things home.
“What are you doing here?” It was like he had read my mind.
Peanut: It’s nice when folks make you feel like a loser for playing their town.
The next couple of years, I kept doing as much television as possible. Being on the air was the key to building an audience and hopefully extending my “fifteen minutes of fame.” After that first Tonight Show, Jim booked me four more times in the next two years, with my last Carson appearance coming just a few months before Johnny’s retirement in the spring of 1992. Johnny always liked Walter the most, and I used Walter more than Peanut or José on television simply because of that. Of course, Carson would know what works. He had out-shined and outlasted every other late-night host.
My most memorable of the appearances was with Tim Conway. Things didn’t s
tart out on the best note. Before the taping began, I was in my dressing room getting ready, and I opened what I thought was the door to my bathroom. Turns out, I had opened the door to Conway’s dressing room and accidently walked in on him in nothing but his underwear. I was mortified and started backing away, apologizing profusely, and Tim piped up, “No, no, come on in, it’s fine, let’s have a party!” Whoever was with me that day cracked up, then I did, and it was funny as hell.
The most memorable piece of each appearance, however, were the ad-libs. I never ran those extra jokes by McCawley, or anyone else on the show. It was dangerous, but never took a bad turn. For example, during one of my stand-up segments, Walter turned to look over at Johnny, who was of course sitting at his desk. Walter did a double take and said, “Hey, I think I know that guy. That’s my wife’s first husband! He paid off my mortgage!”
Most Tonight Show fans knew Carson was on his fourth marriage, and Ed McMahon, the show’s longtime announcer and sidekick of Johnny’s, was recently divorced as well, and was known to be dating a much younger woman. So I took my chances once again. While the “my wife’s first husband” laugh was dying away, Walter then turned to look at the couch and said, “Shut up, Ed. You’re next!”
Jeff: You know Ed?
Walter: Oh yeah… he’s been datin’ my granddaughter.
I never spoke much with Ed McMahon, so I don’t know how he felt about being picked on by Walter. All I know is Johnny loved it and kept having me back for more.
On another appearance during a couch segment, Walter turned to Ed for a comment. Ed was the well-known spokesperson for Publishers Clearing House. Just about everyone in the United States at one time or another had received mailings with Ed’s picture on them. So I knew Walter would have an opinion. The bit went something like this: