Original subtitles

(audience clapping)

Larry: My next guest needs no introduction,

he's an old friend of the show.

I'm a big fan and, and I'm a big friend, I hope.

George Segal.

Give him a warm welcome, George Segal.

(audience cheering)

George: Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Larry.

So have you been making any movies recently?

I love all--

Big fan of yours

and I lose track of what you've been doing.

Well, Larry we have touched on this before but, but...

I've done "Direct Hit", that's with,

that's with, William Forsythe.

He plays usually heavies,

now he's playing a rogue CIA agent.

And I'm his, uh,

I'm kind of the section manager.

When will that be coming out?

I don't know.

Then I've got me, myself--

"Me, Myself and I" with, with Jobeth Williams.

Is she all three, me, myself, and I?

She is yes, it's more than a schizophrenic.

She does have another personality but that's,

you'd have to see the movie.

When does that come out? I don't know.

(audience laughing)

All right.

Um, I, I did--

But you've done these--

These are in the can.

Okay, what else?

Any others, in the can?

Yes, yes.

Now, this one is called "Down Deep".

And when does that come out?

I don't know.

(audience laughing)

Now, let me ask you a couple of other questions.

Certainly.

I looked at your house a few years ago.

It was for sale in Beverly Hills,

beautiful house. Thank you.

Uh, did you sell it?

Yes, we did.

Beautiful house. It was.

Now why, why were you selling it?

We were getting out of town, Larry.

Well, Mrs. Segal and myself.

And has she been released?

(audience laughing)

As far as we know.

No, she's still in the can.

She's still in the can.

Are you kidding,

the George Segal sequence was hilarious.

When you said that thing about his wife Linda in the can,

I split a gut.

Almost had to run to the can myself.

I love George, you know that.

But, we have him on every month, Artie.

Don't you think that's a little much?

Hank's on every night.

Yeah, well I've been meaning to talk to you about that.

Who's on tomorrow night?

Well, hold on here.

Mr. George Segal.

Why don't I find that funny, Artie? Just kidding.

You won't find this funny either. What's this?

This is a memo from the network.

They've got a whole parcel of horse shit.

They call it their fall schedule.

Yeah they want us to put like all their stars maybe.

Yeah prepared to be dazzled, Ms. Marla Gibbs.

My dear friend Conrad Bain.

John Ritter. Always funny.

Ben Vereen.

Up and tapping, thank god.

Susan Day.

Hurtful little skirt full

These are the same people Artie,

the same old faces pluggin' the same old shit.

Somebody needs a vacation.

No, when I go home at night I can't even remember what

I say to these people.

Well that's why the good lord invented video tape.

What you need is good dinner, few drinks and...

Staff meeting, that's what I want,

I want a staff meeting tomorrow.

About what? About what?

I know what to do Artie.

This is a serious problem.

I'm gonna take care of it at 10:30 tomorrow.

10:00 o'clock tomorrow.

That means 10:30?

Yeah, 10:30 sharp.

What are you gonna do?

What am I gonna do?

What am I gonna do?

Uh-huh.

What the fuck are we waiting here for?

Well he wants a meeting that's all I know.

Yeah mark my words children, somebody is going down.

They started with Jerry, they can do it again.

Really?

You really think so?

Listen Mike, is it Mike?

Yeah.

Yeah Mike, this is a, this is a tough business.

I mean I'd hate to have to be Larry,

and have to figure out which of you wonderful

kids is gonna get it right in the neck.

Of course, might not be one of us, Hank.

We didn't introduce R.E.M as REM last week.

Oh my brave, brave, Phil.

Always with the jokes and yet so very desperate.

You know what, if somebody's gonna get fired,

it's gonna be me. No.

No, it is because I've been here the shortest time.

No. Let me tell you what's gonna happen.

Larry's gonna get us in there and he's gonna

decide that nothing works on

the show and that everything needs to changed.

And then he'll take some anti-depressants

and everything will go back to normal.

Artie: All right let's get going everyone.

11:00 o'clock, time for the meeting.

Arthur if someone's gonna be fired,

I think it should be Mike.

He's been here the shortest, so you should know

Thanks, Hank.

Save it for the meeting, will you?

It's 11:00 o'clock, time for the big meeting.

I'm just getti'' a haircut here.

Artie: All right, everybody in here,

let's get in here, let's hustle. Settle down.

Christophe, c'est va.

Time for a trim later? Merci.

Hey, a haircut, huh?

No he's just checking it.

Wow, that's a great haircut.

He's just started.

Yeah I can tell, that's gonna be a great one.

Larry: Good, thank you.

Hank, sit down will you? Okay.

Chief, the floor is all yours.

Good.

Uh, listen I know I called this meeting on short notice,

but there's a serious, uh...

problem here at the show

and it's a problem that I think I can--

Why don't you give me just one second?

A problem that I think I can sum up

with one word: guests.

Yes, thank you, Jesus.

What did you think the problem was?

All: Guests.

I'm sure our capable booking staff

Mr. Bernstein, Ms. Rosatti, and Ms. Marquel

will be thrilled to entertain everyone's suggestions.

Larry: Good, good.

Yes, I'm sure, if there's a problem--

a problem with the guests, we can take care of it.

Larry: Good.

Great, thank you, uh...

Kiki. Kiki.

Sure. I know you, Kiki.

How's your--

Well, thanks. Good.

Now, uh, I know there's a lot of competition,

I know there's a ton of talk shows on and I know everyone's

after all the same guests,

but we've got to come up with some people

that the other talk shows haven't gotten or already had.

Hear, hear.

Um, sorry, but excuse me.

Could you repeat that last part?

Which part?

That part about people, um the--

Was I unclear about--

Clear to me.

Perfectly clear.

Larry: Thank you.

Let's take a look at who we have.

Let's take a look at who we have this week.

Tony Randall, okay Tony Randall is on what, every other week?

He's always-- He's on every other week.

He's great but he's on every other week.

And Jay Thomas, all right.

Who is Jay Thomas?

He's a guy in "Love and War".

Oh that guy?

We have him around every three weeks.

And who is Allan Nelson by the way?

Allan Nelson?

He's the plate spinner.

He was a regular on Sullivan, 30 years ago.

He's older now, he started using Chinet,

but people still flip for him.

Phil: Uh, Larry excuse me,

um just so that I'm clear about all of this,

this is a booking problem right?

This isn't a writing problem?

Artie: Phil, shut the fuck up.

Artie, please I'll handle it.

Phil, shut the fuck up.

Artie: Thank you.

Now listen, we've got to find some interesting,

provocative people that I haven't talked to yet.

There's got to be some out there.

Hank: To talk to.

Some creative booking if you don't mind.

Yeah, let's see some fresh meat.

All right, all right, Mike you know what,

you know you're new here, I'm gonna let that one slide,

but I-- Hank put your hand down.

You know what I am serious about this.

Either we-- we find some new guests,

or we're gonna be looking for new staff.

I know that Larry said that he would

welcome input from anywhere,

but come on get on with it.

Robert Conrad. No, no, no, owes me a favor.

Pick up the phone, hello Bobby.

That's not what we're looking for.

Neil Diamond.

We're looking for something new, Hank.

You know new, new.

New, I'm gonna work on that.

Sorry, I got it.

Kiki what've we--

Oh!

Raymond Burr,

with whom I once had the honor of playing golf.

He's in the new "Perry Mason" show.

Hello, Perry.

Nope. Ah.

I like the documentary-- the woman documentary maker

and the libertarian candidate. Oh, who else do we have?

Who was that?

The performance artist, Tim Miller.

Extremely avant-garde, very hot.

Performance art, you know that's

a bunch of dog poop.

What does he do, get stark naked?

Is that his act?

Cover himself with chocolate syrup?

He's a very provocative monologist,

who talks about his own life as a gay man in America.

Larry: As a gay man? Is that what you want?

Is that what you're looking for?

I just, uh, I, I--

Is he funny?

Funny? Listen to this.

Listen.

"A garrulous assault of anecdote, humor,

"observation and social comment,

"punctuated by movement

"and channeled through life experience."

Good, book him.

Suddenly, I'm thrown out of

my father's penis into my mom's body,

I'm surrounded by thousands of squirming creatures,

I am swimming upstream,

one queer little spermlet, fighting the odds.

A hideous sperm that looks like Senator Jesse Helms

tries to catch me in a net,

I elude him and quickly find

a willing lesbian ovum.

We agree to power share.

We fertilize, there's an explosion

of creative electricity,

the drums build their tempo, five, four, three,

two, one and ecce homo, behold the fag.

(audience clapping)

Tim Miller, Tim Miller.

Tim, that was wild.

Come on, have a seat.

(audience booing)

All right, all right that is not necessary.

Mr. Miller.

It's okay, it's nothing I haven't heard before.

Obviously, he cares about what he did out there

and I apologize for our audience.

Let's try and stay open.

Hank: That's right, let's try to stay open.

Open. That was great, I enjoyed it.

Thanks.

I think these people just aren't used to seeing this

sort of thing on a talk show,

I think that's what makes us a little different.

Yeah, I don't, I don't really do a lot of talk shows.

The format's not so--

so receptive to the new forms of expression.

That is true. That is true. It's very true.

That is true.

Man: Go back to San Francisco!

I'm from LA.

(audience laughing)

All right, I got him.

You know what, uh, there's a little thing in this country

called freedom of expression.

I don't think we wanna allow

Mr. Miller not to express himself, do we?

It's not what this country's about.

What the fuck was he doing out there anyway?

What, I warned you, didn't I?

You said nothing.

I warned you with my eyes.

I heard nothing, I saw nothing.

Okay that was not the tape I saw,

It-- I-- Uh,

the tape was not that gay.

I don't have a problem with the gay thing. No, no.

It's just that he's out there, he's talking about butt plugs,

he's talking about his father's orgasm.

Okay I know, I know, okay.

So I'm just trying to figure out what you want, right?

How far we can go?

That is too far.

Great, so now I know the boundaries

and we can pull back.

Please, pull back.

All right. Let's pull back.

We can't air that, can we?

Oh hell no, we can't. Psychotic freak.

I'll have them rack up a re-run immediately.

I get that, I do, but I think

Mr. Miller is probably,

you know, gonna want an explanation.

Oh, horse shit.

I'll talk to him.

I'll lay it on the line.

I'll say it was my decision,

it was my mistake.

We both think you are terrific, Timbo.

That's not the problem,

the network simply will not let us air it.

Because?

They're sensitive about many topics,

many or all of which you touched upon.

Is that a correct representation

of the situation, Larry?

Yeah. Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well what do we expect right?

The television network's model of corporate cowardice.

Well, you'll fight it right?

Fuckin' A! You're damn right.

What, what you said out there about freedom of expression,

they'll have to listen to you, it's your show, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

His show.

Okay, well thanks.

Thank you, Timbo.

I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this.

Good, good.

Okay, thanks. You're really talented.

Bye.

Great, terrific, keep it up.

You think he bought the network thing?

Entirely.

Yeah?

Well we're not completely lying,

I mean, we-- The network's

not gonna let us air this thing right?

Well let's get on the phone right now

and get this over with. Okay.

Listen to me Melody,

the man said "butt plug" three times

and you and I both know you can't--

You can say butt plugs? Since when?

Huh, well that's hardly beside the point, isn't it then?

Are you looking at the transcript that we faxed over?

I can't believe you're serious Melody.

Oh fine, fine, bye.

Good news?

The network says that it is our decision

and they claim to find no problem with the piece.

What do you mean they have no problem with the piece?

They're hanging us out to dry.

Fuck me.

Now Larry, the East Coast affiliates are going to need

a show on the satellite in about fifteen minutes. Fuck.

Uh, you want to air it or not?

I don't want to be any part

of cutting this guy from the show, Artie.

Well, you want me to make the decision?

Well, I'd like to participate in some limited capacity.

Okay, then I'll make the decision.

I'll count to ten, and if you agree with my choice,

don't say anything.

All right, fine,

if I don't say anything I agree.

We're cutting him and we're putting on a re-run.

One, two, three, four--

I agree.

No, then you're not supposed to say anything.

What? I got excited, I had the answer.

You confused me, what the hell?

What, what do you-- Let me count. Well go ahead.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

We're cutting him, do you agree?

Well, if you didn't say anything.

The network forced us to put on a re-run,

okay, that's it.

What?

You know, I just find this very strange.

You do? Yeah.

Didn't you just start here?

Yeah.

That explains it.

You know, Artie, I told all my friends

to watch Tim Miller last night.

Now, why would you do that, Phil?

Because I haven't seen anything that good

since my college roommate had a nervous breakdown.

Haha, well it was a network decision, it's out of our hands.

Now scoot the fuck along, you two.

Hank: Look at this, you try to do your best work

and this is the thanks you get.

Liz Smith.

I don't want to hear any of this.

No, no, no, "Sanders cans performance by Miller.

"Late night funny man Larry Sanders couldn't take the heat last night

"so he threw Mr. Miller out of the kitchen."

I don't wanna, don't, don't tell me anything.

One more, one more,

oh, Army Orchard, "Sanders censors

"performance artist appearance.

"When contacted, network officials

"claimed no responsibility for Mr. Miller's unkind gut,

"saying they had no involvement in the decision."

Let me see that.

Right there.

God, rat bastards would eat their own kind,

but I wouldn't believe that Army...

"Mr. Miller set a stinging rebuke

"in Mr. Sander's direction,

"calling him the Jessie Helms, of late night television."

Well, hell, that's not so bad.

Yeah, but how do you think I feel?

Two articles about the show

and I'm not mentioned in either one of them.

Larry: Let me see them.

I didn't, uh,

I didn't see you sitting there.

I'm sorry, boss. We didn't know you were here.

You see, you start reading that shit

and your brain doesn't have any cognizance of anything.

This will soon be forgotten, Larry.

Well your new season is-- well we can talk about this,

we don't need to talk about the life.

You look great, your plastic surgery is great.

Thank you. You've openly talked about the--

I've openly talked about it, what did you get done exactly?

You got your nose done? I had my nose done,

Yeah and?

And my eyes.

And your eyes.

And uh... And your cheekbones.

And my whole face.

It looks great, your whole face.

(audience cheering)

That is great.

I've always been afraid to build.

Now listen.

You know um...

You know, I just have to say something.

I mean generally, I think you're really funny

and I'm not saying you're not funny but--

Yeah?

You um,

Something on your mind?

Yeah and I thought I'd really be a hypocrite if I didn't say.

Is this about the surgery?

I'm really sorry.

No, this is not about the surgery.

I was kidding about that.

No, no, you could never hurt my feelings.

Okay.

Um, well, why did you uh, you know that guy Tim,

the Tim Miller guy, the comic, the gay guy?

Yeah? Right.

You know, that you censored off your show?

Um, you know I'm just kinda offended that you did that.

I mean, you know.

Well, first-- Comedy is the last free speech art form, Larry.

Yeah.

You know, if you're, like, supposed to have

this cutting edge talk show right?

I mean, if you're so square I might as well do Leno.

(audience booing)

We had-- we had the guy--1

If you're gonna be that square and censor a comic,

you're a comic, man, and you censored a comic.

Man: A good comic too! A really good comic.

Oh, so now Tom's going to-- Would you...

No, I know the guy!

He's a friend of ours.

Tom isn't booked. Tom!

Listen, all-- all we're saying is, you know,

remember when you were a comic, you're workin' the clubs

and everything before you got the talk show and everything?

We try and stay in touch with those roots, and this guy--

I'm not-- you know, this guy Tim Miller--

He's an innovator, he's like-- he's like,

you know, he's in the vein of Lenny Bruce.

He's like the first.

Yeah, that's right, and you know how long

it took you to become a regular at the comedy store? Yeah, yeah.

That's right, 'cause Mitzi messed with you,

and you're doing the same thing to this guy.

And I'll tell you right now, he's a good guy, he's really--

He's a nice-- wouldn't you like to see him on the show?

(audience cheering)

Look, I'm sure we'll have him back again.

It was just one of those things,

I'm sure if he'd done some of the material that he--

Yeah, I just thought you had more balls than that, you know.

Somebody's gotta do it.

No, no, I gotta speak now,

This is my friend.

I know this man, I have to interject.

He has... He has balls.

I gotta say, I gotta say.

But they're little tiny ones.

(audience cheering)

I uh,

I hide them behind the desk, that's all.

Did you have a big battle,

did you want him on the show?

Was it-- did you have to fight the network

or something like that?

We uh, we had him on.

There was some, evidently, miscommunication

about the material he was gonna do on the show, we were more

than open to him and he came on and I'll tell you--

You didn't want to put him on 'cause he did gay material.

No, that has nothing to do with it.

Mr. Sanders, would like to make amends, Timbo.

That must make you feel quite special.

Yeah, I'm all fucking aglow.

And don't call me Timbo anymore, okay?

Oh, quite right, that's inexcusable.

May I call you, Tim?

Yeah.

Is that a yes?

Well Tim, Larry,

he wants to ask you to come back on the show

and do something we can air.

Or do whatever you like and we can tone it down.

Am I uh, is this uh, the right expression?

Okay?

You gotta be kidding.

I'm not kidding.

Look, look,

I never should have gone on your plug fest to begin with.

If you think I'm gonna go on again that, you're even

stupider than I thought.

Well, let's not leave angry.

I'm not angry at you, you guys are just puppets.

I just don't want to appeal to the lowest

common denominator okay?

That's all television needs,

it degrades everybody on it

and everybody who watches it.

Now, Tim.

No, fuck it and fuck television,

I don't need it.

A hideous sperm that looks like Senator Jesse Helms,

tries to catch me in a net, I elude him.

Then, then I quickly find a willing lesbian egg,

we agree to power share, right?

And then we fertilize.

There's an explosion of creative electricity,

the drums build their tempo.

Five, four, three, two, one, and ecce homo , behold, the fa.

Come on sit, Tim Miller, funny stuff. Very clever.

So now uh,

I can't believe that's the same piece of material,

they wouldn't let you do on the "Larry Sanders Show."

I did this piece and it seemed great and they didn't run it,

ran a repeat instead.

I think they just, they freaked, they got scared.

Turn it off.

You know, Tim's great on this show,

he's got a story to tell.

He's telling the story about how we screwed him on our show.

So, it's still a great story.

You know I, I think that the thing that makes this country

great is that it's a free country and people come out

and they express views a little bit different,

but that's what it's for.

If they don't like it, they can change the channel. Definitely.

You did a terrific job,

you are welcome here any time you want. Great, thanks a lot.

Turn it off.

Larry, Artie, I've got a great guest tonight, I mean that,

I finally found the boundaries, huh?

This one's in the pocket.

Great.

Congratulations,

so you're not smoking which I thought was a delight for you.

Well, it was but as I say, it's, it's just kind of fallen away.

All right, not every-- just the cigars I hope.

Just the cigars, everything else,

everything else is right there.

Good, good, because you gotta have something to light.

I'm so happy to have you here.

I'm so happy to be here, Larry.

Tell me about your new projects.

Well, actually next week uh,

I think they re gonna be cranking up "Burke's Law"

and guess what?

It's gonna be Gene Barry again...

No. and his son, yes.

Who else is in it?

Um, Angie Dickinson.

Terrific.

Gerald McRaney, Dom DeLuise.

Woman: Whoo!

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Dom DeLuise.

Well, I am too, I love Dom, but you know,

you haven't read the script and if I had my druthers,

there was this comic I saw on the Leno show the other night.

A guy by name of Tim Miller,

who would have been sensational in his place.

He's the kinda guy that would be perfect on this show,

you should book him.

♪ ♪