After a hard fought primary battle Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are now campaigning together! Reminds me of another famous political couple that fought like cats and dogs but, in the end, stuck together. If you don’t know who I mean, perhaps this joke that I wrote and David Letterman closed out his monologue with on Thursday’s Late Show (6/27/08) will clear it up:
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are now making campaign appearances together.
During the day they’re at campaign functions together and then at night they go to separate hotels - no wait, I’m sorry, that’s Hillary and Bill.
You can also watch the video of the entire monologue here.
Let’s just hope they don’t show up to a campaign event together in the same pants suit - that’d be awkward.
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June 27, 2008.
Web Posted at: 1:43 pm EDT
Ich Bin Ein Doofus
45 years ago yesterday John F. Kennedy made that famous speech in West Germany in which he declared Ich bin ein Berliner. Needless to say, it’s difficult to imagine the current occupant of the White House - whether you like him or not - being able to pull off a line like that, in pretty much any language. He may be the decider, but he ain’t no master linguist.
Naturally, that led to a joke that pretty much wrote itself. I merely put it to paper (or, rather, email) and sent it off to David Letterman, who told on Thursday’s Late Show (6/26/08):
It was on this day in 1963 President Kennedy was in Germany and said “Ich bin ein Berliner”.
Now it’d be nice if we had a president who could speak English.
You can also watch the video of the entire monologue here.
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June 25, 2008.
Web Posted at: 1:24 pm EDT
Five Years Since The Monkeypox
Five years ago today - June 25, 2003 - was a Wednesday. Just another work day. Another day in paradise for me. At the end of the day I drove home and was greeted in the driveway by Mrs. Chumworth and our two bundles of joy.
Before I got out of the car she said “Do you have something to tell me?”
I, in my normal post-work-commute bleary-eyed-haze, said “Um, no. Do I?”
Mrs. C: “There’s a phone message for you from the Letterman show. They want you to start submitting jokes or something.”
What?!
See, I had spent the previous three years submitting monologue jokes to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, freelance. I’d send in two or three jokes a day by fax. Every (long) once in a while he’d tell one on air and then I’d get a check from his production company, Big Dog Productions. I didn’t take it all too seriously.
One night in bed I was reading Sports Illustrated and saw a column by Bill Scheft. At the time he wrote a regular column for SI called The Show - but he was also David Letterman’s long time lead monologue joke writer. Since I had grown up watching - and idolizing - David Letterman on NBC’s Late Night, and since I was now writing jokes in a semi-professional manner, I figured why not send Bill Scheft some of my material? Couldn’t hurt.
So I printed out 20 pages (literally) of topical jokes I’d recently written and mailed them to Bill care of the Late Show. Like most writing submissions it felt like - and was - a real long shot. Odds are I’d never hear anything back, so I figured.
The odds seemed so long, in fact, that I had neglected to even mention sending the package to my wife. What was the point, really?
But then came that fine June day in 2003. And that unforgettable look on my wife’s face. And that amazing voice mail from Bill Scheft.
The gist of Bill’s message was that he had received my package and he liked my jokes. In fact, he had liked my jokes so much he had chosen one to present to Dave and Dave had told it on that night’s show which they had just taped! Oh yeah, and he would like me to begin submitting jokes to the show on a regular basis.
It took several listens before the whole message sank in.
I stayed up that night past my bedtime to watch Dave tell the following joke, which I wrote!
In an effort to curb the spread of monkeypox the U.S. government banned the sale of prairie dogs
I hope this doesn’t affect the price of a Whopper.
Here’s the audio of Dave telling it:
Words absolutely cannot describe the feeling of hearing Dave tell that joke, knowing the words that would come out of his mouth before he said each one. Seeing one of my all-time comedy heroes say something that I’d written was one of the most exciting moments of my life.
Since then I’ve submitted jokes to the show just about every day that they’ve taped. Dave has told more than 100 of my jokes now and it still never gets old hearing him tell one of mine.
Dave is still the king of late night, in my book.
You can see and hear the jokes that I’ve written for Dave (and also my Leno jokes) right here.
Oh yeah, and a big thanks and smooch to Mrs. Chumworth for putting up with all of my joke writing (and other) shenanigans all these years…
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June 18, 2008.
Web Posted at: 8:53 am EDT
Break Out The Champagne!
Big news coming out of Boston last night. No, not about the Celtics (did they play last night or something?). No, the really big news was David Letterman (down there in New York) telling a joke that I wrote up here in Boston yesterday for the Late Show (6/17/08).
Yesterday former Vice President Al Gore officially endorsed Barack Obama.
Political experts say this should give Obama’s campaign a much needed shot of boredom.
You can also watch the video of the entire monologue here.
Afterwards I was so excited my buddy Sully and I went out and flipped over a car and then had some baked beans and chowder. Good times.
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June 11, 2008.
Web Posted at: 10:34 am EDT
Does It Drink From The Toilet Bowl, Too?
I don’t know about you, but for the last three or four days just every nook and cranny of my body has been moist with sweat due to this god awful heat wave we’ve been having in the northeast. Naturally, once the heat starts, so do the “It’s so hot…” jokes. The good news is, while the heat wave seems to be breaking today, my two-month long losing streak of not selling monologue jokes to David Letterman also broke, thanks to one of those jokes. Behold this one that Dave told on Tuesday’s Late Show (6/10/08):
It was hot and humid here in New York today.
It was so hot today that thing on Donald Trump’s head was panting.
Here’s the audio:
You can also watch the video of the entire monologue here.
First a joke sale and now dry armpits - life is good again!
