AUDIENCE SHOW AND TELL: “These people, dressed as they are, come from all over the United States to make deals here in the marketplace of America, ‘Let’s Make a Deal!’”

A&S#1: Debra Smith of Elkridge, Maryland.
She’s a mom of 7-year-old twins so I was rooting for her. What does she have for us? Debra can make the sound of a monkey. And when did she learn she could make the sound of a monkey? Says Debra, “It just came to my throat in the 7th grade . . . . in Catholic school. Ohhhhhhh! It didn’t make sense until she said “Catholic school.” Now it makes sense.

Debra takes the starring role and performs her monkey call. It reminded me a bit of Lancelot Link.

A&S#2: Joyce Hamlin of Rapid River, Michigan.
Joyce is from the upper peninsula of Michigan. Dave shows great interest in the upper peninsula, which gladdened me since I suddenly have grown interested in the area. Dave asks, “Is it cold there?” Joyce answers, “almost as cold as in here.” Dave checks his blue card and roars, “It says nothing here about your telling jokes!”

Joyce’s trick: She can stack quarters on her elbow and then snatch and catch them in her hand. How many will she stack? “First five, then twenty.” A gasp is heard from the audience. We appreciate an audience that feels involved with the show but, come on, attempting to snatch a pile of 20 quarters is no reason to let out a gasp.

Joyce piles up a stack of 5 quarters on her elbow and snatches them out of the air. She then does the same with the stack of 20.

I haven’t tried this in quite a while, and when I did, I was only successful some of the time. The trick is to quickly jerk your elbow down, leaving the quarters suspended in midair. Then before the pull of gravity starts to work on the stack, your hand should snatch the stack

A&s#3: Casey Baines of Perth, Australia:
Ah, Perth. That’s near the Indian Ocean, is it not? Casey says it is. The last person we had from Perth had no idea. Since she’s from Australia Outback, Dave asks if she ever saw a dingo. She says she has. Dave says he was once attacked by a dingo. And we have a clip. Tonight the clip was there lickety-split. The other night, after months and months of no mention of the dog biting Dave, he called for it out of the blue. Finding it and getting it on the monitor took about 5-10 seconds. Tonight it was almost immediate. In fact, I think it was up before Dave even called for it.

What does Casey do for a living? She’s a lifeguard. And what is she doing in New York? She is hiking around the world with her boyfriend.

HOW DO THEY DO THAT? It seems everyone across the pond, and especially those in Australia, can find the time and money to leave work for months and travel around the world. No matter the job they have they always seem to have the means. Me? I can’t find the time to play a round of golf. Show and Tell? Tell us how you manage to travel around the world on the lifeguard’s salary!

Casey’s trick: She can peel a banana with her feet. Casey takes off her shoes and sits down in the aisle. Grasping the banana between two toes, Casey peels the banana with her other foot. She made it look too easy. Nice job.

I was a little disappointed there was no callback of the monkey caller and the banana.

Everyone’s covering the Presidential debate tonight, even Spanish-speaking Telemundo. We have a clip of their promotional announcement. I couldn’t make out what was said but I did pick up, “flip-flopping tight ass and el moron grande.”

JOHN TRAVOLTA: He’s got a 747 in his front yard. I have a broken down Chevy. John celebrated his 50th birthday this year. What kind of party was it? Barbra Streisand sang him “Happy Birthday.” (I wonder if Barbra included the “cha cha cha”?)

Later in the show we have a 39-year-old college freshman football player on the show. Did John ever play football? John says he was the high school quarterback back when Joe Namath was the man in the NFL. And since John looked a lot like Joe Namath, let’s just say things were pretty nice in the lunch room and after the games. It was during the games that John had trouble. He didn’t like to get hit. His whole motivation was not to get hurt. If no one was trying to tackle him, and if no one was on the field, John admits he could throw a pretty tight spiral. It’s when all those other elements are added into the mix is when he runs into some trouble. What he really wanted to do was play shortstop for a major league baseball team. Did he play baseball in high school? No.

John stars in the fireman film, Ladder 49. It opens Friday. I’ll be asking my firemen friends how realistic the movie is. I remember years ago Dave had on LATE NIGHT a welder to critique the performance of that dancing welder in Flashdance. If I remember correctly, he was pretty adamant about her poor welding performance. “She didn’t know what she was doing. Her hair was all coming out the back . . . you would never see a welder doing that.” It was a lot of stuff like that. I would like to see a similar critique by a New York Fireman.

Of course, every fireman movie has a firefighter rescuing a citizen from a high rise apartment. Swinging from a rope, they crash through a window below the fire. It’s in every movie about firemen. We saw that scene the other night with Joaquin.

TIM FRISBY: He’s a 39-year-old freshman football player for the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. For the past 20 years, Tim “Pops” Frisby has served in the United States Army as a Ranger-qualified member of the 82nd Airborne. He fought in Desert Storm and in Kosovo. Tim, a father of 6 ranging in age from 6 months to 16 years, will turn 40 in February. He played in the team’s 4th game this season after his eligibility questions were met to the satisfaction of the NCAA.

This weekend, the Gamecocks travel to the Crimson Tide of Alabama. Lou Holtz and his team are a 2 point underdog. Two weeks ago South Carolina lost to Georgia by 4 points. Georgia is ranked 3rd in the nation, so it looks like South Carolina is a pretty good team. You can watch the South Carolina/Alabama game this Saturday on ESPN2 at 6:00 PM EST.

ACT 5: Now it’s time for a Late Show Apology.

The LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN would like to apologize for last night’s program. It was 10% louder than normal. We have fired the person responsible – Technician Steve Kaufman! Tough break, Steve.
This has been a Late Show Apology. Tell your friends.

And that was our show for Thursday, September 30, 2004. Wahoo EXTRA!

You can tell it’s autumn. John Kerry’s face is changing colors.

32 pages of rules for the debate? Come on. Some rules include:
No touching.
No roaming.
Must stay at least 10 feet from each other.
No opening statement.
No pulling out notes.
No pointing or naming anybody in the audience.
No interrupting.
No asking the other guy a question or soliciting a pledge of any kind.
No orange faces.
Temperature must be set at industry standards.
Each lectern will measure 50 inches from the floor to the top outside edge.
And on and on and on.

John Kerry is already working at a deficit as he broke the “No Orange Face” rule.

I believe the rules for the debate should be the same as the rules for the WWE World Wrestling Entertainment. “What are the rules? THERE ARE NO RULES!”

I wrote about Nescafe’s Taster’s Choice instant coffee the other day. On the side of the container was a 4-step set of instructions in how to make instant coffee. I thought that was unnecessary.

Making The Perfect Cup:
1. Boil water in kettle or microwave.
2. Use one heaping teaspoon of coffee per cup.
3. For best results, pour water over coffee.
4. Stir and savor.

“I particularly like Step 4. Stir and Savor. Had they not told me that, I might not have known to savor! I'm thinking if you need to TELL people to enjoy the product, something must be lacking”

“The Tasters Choice instructions say that because if you dump the coffee in the water, rather than water on coffee, the coffee floats, and you have to stir it longer to mix the coffee with the water.”

Interesting? No. But it did fill up a couple lines in today’s issue of the Wahoo.

The baseball playoffs are about to start. As a Yankee fan, I’m not as confident as I have been in years past. I really don’t want to play Minnesota, the Angels, or the BoSox. The only team I feel comfortable against are the Oakland A’s, and they’re due to beat someone. I don’t want to play the Twins or the Angels because they remind me too much of the “old” Yankee teams of the late 90s. They play the game the right way; smart, patient, opportunistic. The Red Sox? They have Schilling. Somehow that’s good enough to win 4 games.

I’m not fan of the reality TV. Come to think of it, I’m not much of a fan of any regular non-news and non-sports fare these days. But about these reality shows where one by one the contestants are kicked out: if the voting is done by the producers of the program, then the thing is rigged. We are being manipulated. Let me explain. Be warned – I haven’t watched more than an hour and a half of all the reality shows combined. I’m making my point based on the commercials I see on the TV and comedic extras we do on our show. In Survivor, each person is voted out by the other contestants. The voters are involved in their own survival. They don’t care about ratings. They only care about their “reality.” I can accept the voting process on Survivor. A person votes based on their own survival instincts. In The Apprentice, Donald Trump makes the decision. His eye is on the ratings. Firing person “A” when person “B” is obviously the person who should be fired will get the critic tongues wagging and fingers typing. “Shock” follows . . . . and a lot of publicity, so of course there will be at least one “surprise” firing during each season.

And in shows where the home viewer does the voting (are there any besides “American Idol”?), the producers determine what scenes we see at home. They can pretty much determine which way the vote will go by what scenes they decide to air.

Don’t forget to vote November 2nd. How will you make your decision on whom to vote?

Denise brought home the movie Monster the other day, starring Charlize Theron, who won an Academy Award for her performance. Good movie, though a definite downer. She was great, as was Christina Ricci. One thing puzzled me about Theron’s performance. Was she trying to look and act like Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice?

FRIDAY’S CBS MAILBAG
LETTER #1: From Jenni Brinson of Chico, California
“Hi, Dave, Have you ever been to a reggae festival?”
LETTER #2: From Michael Rasmussen of Denmark:
“What is your favorite tool?”
LETTER #3: From Leeta Cooper of Lewis, Delaware:
“Do you have any parting words to Martha Stewart before she goes to prison?”
LETTER #4: From Kristin Antill of Aleppo, Pennsylvania:
“Who does your hair?”