My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman

Howard, tell folks who don't have the benefit of living in this area

to hear your show, what they would hear.

- You don't play music, so what do you do? - It's been described as honest radio.

You know...

We talk to people on the phone. We're ourselves.

It's like your show in the sense that you don't come on here

with a lot of phony hype and you don't...

You have people on with pets and then the bird gets lost

and we let anything happen. You know what I mean?

- You make a lot of phone calls. - A lot of phone calls.

We call people who write us hate mail.

I know you're on the air right now and I appreciate you coming down here.

Gonna have me on again? I want to be a regular like Marv Albert.

I think we can work it out.

I'm here.

How are you?

Thank you. Oh, that's very kind of you.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Welcome to the theater.

Thanks. Do you feel all right? Are you happy to be here?

By God, I'll change that.

It's a...

This is... I'm very excited about this program.

I assume we all know who the featured guest is on the show.

This is interesting.

We've been having a debate all day.

And I'm going to ask you folks to participate in the debate.

How do you think things are going to go tonight?

How many of you think things are going to be a shitstorm?

Now let's get to the point here.

A couple of months after I retired,

I got a call from the people who operate Sirius Satellite Radio.

I don't know who the guy was.

Maybe he was a high school kid. I don't know.

And he said to me, "Dave, if you ever want to do anything on Sirius,

call me, you can have your own show.

You can do whatever you want.

Anytime, five days a week, two days a week, seven days a week.

Think about it. It would be great."

And I said to him without hesitation...

I said, "If my next guest had not been born,

I might consider this offer."

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Howard Stern.

Howard, how are you?

How many of you bet on shitstorm?

You know, Dave, I only wore this...

Today is a beard intervention.

This is what you look like.

You know, you were laughing when I walked out.

Right.

Did you think I looked good in this beard?

No, you looked like...

I know Ringling Brothers has shut down.

- Yes. - And it looked like a remnant of that.

But, you know, I thought for sure when the Netflix show started

that you would in fact lose the beard and I think Netflix was betting on it.

And, uh, but you know... Look, in person, the beard isn't such a presence.

- Am I correct? - Yeah.

But when you see it on TV, I said, you know, "I'm excited..."

By the way, I am honored you asked me to be here.

Thank you very much for being here.

But...

I said, "It's, like, Dave's show

and there's Dave, there's me and the beard."

- Right. - And the beard is here.

People can't stop talking about it.

And I think you should shave it.

Raising hands, who says shave the beard?

See...

Oh, keep the beard?

- I like it. - You like it.

Well, in that case...

I'm actually envious of the beard and I'll tell you why.

You bring up a mildly interesting point.

How did that happen?

And the beard was in some way intended

to ensure that I would never work again

because I thought if I do this

and I begin to like it, which I do, I like it,

and I forget that I have it, because I don't have to look at it,

there's nobody in their right mind going to consider me

for any kind of job for the rest of my life.

Well, the people at Netflix were nice enough and perhaps you're correct.

Perhaps they thought I would shave. Or here's the thing.

Maybe they remove it digitally.

Hair by hair.

Yeah, let's take it out.

In a way, I relate to the beard because of my sunglasses.

Whenever I go on TV, and that was not my career plan to be on TV,

it was always radio.

And, you know, when I'd go on TV, I'd wear these dark glasses,

feeling it made my look better

or that my face would be more handsome.

And I'd watch these shows back whenever I'd go on and I said, "It did me no good."

I'm sitting indoors in a dimly lit room with sunglasses on

and I still look no better.

Well, you know, you look better now than any time that I have known you.

That's enough. That's enough.

One wonders if there has been some work done.

I don't care. That's your business.

No, you can see it's all falling apart.

It's all caving in.

You know how long you and I have known one another?

How long?

Well, it's pretty much to the month since 1984.

Wow. Now I'm gonna do some quick math

and figure out how long that is, if you don't mind.

Now, math happens to be... I'm good at it. This is how I do it.

This is 2018.

- Right? - It's 34.

- Oh, you gave it away. - It's 34 years.

- Let me check your math. - Yeah.

The way I get to it is, you say 1984 and I add ten immediately.

- Yeah. - That brings us to 1994.

- That's right. - That's ten.

- Yeah. - 1994, then 2004 is 20.

- Yeah. - Now here's tricky, 'cause I get confused.

2004 to 2014 is another ten. That's 30.

You're absolutely right. That's 34 years. Good for you.

- Now... - I love to show how I do the math.

Speaking of math, you realize that all of that will be subtracted from the show?

Wow. But really for you...

I guess the premise of this show, although who knows what this show is...

You know, I don't even know what I'm doing here,

but I thought the premise was that...

You're choosing six people

and I'm way more fun than Obama already, I'm sure.

- I mean, this is fun. - Really?

Oh, for God's sake, yeah.

I mean, if I have to hear about Clooney and how he helps people all day

and all of that bullshit, I'll just run right out the door.

This is fun. Now we're having a good time.

Clooney and Obama didn't wear a beard.

Now, a couple of things I've always wanted to say to you.

I believe that you not only changed comedy in the United States,

you changed the culture of the United States.

- I don't know, but... - Yes, clearly.

You just... Go to any town anywhere

and they have a team of people

who are pretending to be you.

And the comedy from the genesis, yourself, has caused great change.

Now, I read things about your childhood

that I found frankly stunning and unpleasant.

Was this hyperbolic or was this accurate?

- That my childhood was unpleasant? - Yes.

"Raised like veal."

Yeah, well...

Yeah, I was raised like a veal.

It's very confusing, my childhood.

You know, I think certainly... My father was a radio engineer.

My father held radio people, announcers, people who, you know, were actors,

he held them in high regard.

What year are we talking about here?

Oh, gosh.

You know, well, I was born in 19... 82.

So...

No, we're back in the '60s when I became kind of aware of this.

Early '60s. My father would come home from work and he would talk about the...

My father would talk like this.

My father had... His parents were immigrants.

I don't know, my father was always trying to speak proper English,

so he would talk like this very much, talk about his day.

And he'd say, "Today, I worked with Vincent Gardenia."

I'd go, "Yeah?" He would always tell me about Vincent Gardenia.

And Raymond Burr came in and did commercials in his recording studio.

- It was a big deal for him. - It was a big deal.

He would talk about his day.

And I saw that he appeared to not really be interested in me at all.

I don't think he knew a thing about me.

Sometimes I didn't even think he knew my name,

but the way he held people, these actors and voice people...

- He had such reverence for them... - Right.

...that I was like, "Oh, my God, in order to be even noticed by my father,

maybe this is the way I could do it."

So beyond the desire to please your father,

was this something you had an interest in?

I was five years old. I knew I wanted to be on the radio.

- Is that right? - Yeah, I knew it.

I didn't know how I was going to do it.

And this was something he reminded me of my entire life.

- Yeah. - When I was growing up, I'd say,

"I'm going to be a millionaire one day," and he would erupt.

"How dare you say this!

You have never worked. You have never made money ever.

How dare you! You're not a millionaire. Let me see you make a dollar.

You can't even mow the lawn!"

There was a lot of anger and I was just a kid fantasizing

that I would be a big deal announcer.

But my mother would say to me--

Tell me about your mother.

My mother would say, "If someone's going to be on the radio,

why not you? Someone's got to do it."

- So, you know-- - She was a little more encouraging.

- She was a little more encouraging. - Your sister, what role did she play?

I don't remember. I was a narcissist to the tenth degree...

I was a tenth degree black belt narcissist.

I needed attention so badly that I don't recall ever being in the house.

In fact, I made... Dave, it's the truth.

I made a movie called Private Parts about my life and...