‘The Tonight Show’ starring Johnny Carson had plenty of comedians over the years. Every star comedian seemed to get their career boosted by a visit to Johnny’s stage.
Johnny welcomed Gary Shandling to the show for the very first time in 1981. Gary walks out and thanks the audience. He says, ‘I had a great day today. I went to the bank.’ He pulls out a bank pen with the metal chain on it, and the crowd laughs. He continues, ‘I got this cool pen. Did you get your free pen yet? You just yank these, and they pop right off. I got a desk calendar too.’ The crowd loves it.
Gary says, ‘Then, I went to the laundromat cause they have free clothes at the laundromat! I love going there cause you always see people wearing the last thing they wanna wear. You ever notice that?’
Gary talks about dinner, saying, ‘I went to dinner at my friend’s house last night, and he has one of those… what’s it called…a baby!’ The crowd laughs after he purposely stumbles on his words. Gary continues, ‘So, the baby loads up his diaper,’ and the mom says, ‘Isn’t that adorable? Brandon made a gift for daddy.’
Gary makes a disgusted face, and the crowd laughs. He says, ‘Now I’m thinking this guy’s gotta be real easy to shop for on Father’s day.’ Then, he talks about how his dog has nightmares and asks what a dog’s nightmare would even be. Gary quips, ‘Would it be them drinking from the toilet and the seat falls? I mean, that happened to me, but I didn’t have nightmares about it.’ The crowd claps and laughs.
Then he says, ‘All dads, after every meal, unbutton their pants and lower their fly, and you can always tell how good the meal was depending on how high the fly is. One time we were finished, and he stood up, and his pants fell down. We were in public. All those other dads must’ve been thinking, woah, what did he have?’
The crowd roars with laughter at Gary’s entire set. He finishes and walks off to huge applause, and Johnny says, ‘It’s nice to have a new guy come in and have lots of really funny material.’
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