[0:00]Jim, you've worked in late night but this is your first time as a guest and thank you so much for doing this because I I know you normally don't like to do this. No, not really. I like to I like to be out there or back there. Yeah, but they're doing this as a favor to me. I just want to let everyone know things that Jim Dony has has written. What I know? No, I know I do. Yeah. Uh Chippen Dale's sketch with Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley. The Chris Farley talk show. You were the head writer of weekend update with Norm McDonald. The head writer of late night with David Letterman. Wrote for Dana Carvey when he played President Bush, not going to do. Not going to do that and you wrote for Will Farrell when he played President George W Bush and wrote the word strategy. That is that's the one.
[0:51]That's some that's some of the things you've done and some of the great things you've done. Uh I I first met you at at Sat Night Live uh when I started in uh 98 do do you remember meeting me? I remember Jimmy um Jimmy sent uh jokes to update when I was working on update with Norm McDonald and um I think we used some of them. And then we a few years later Jimmy was hired as a feature player in in in the cast in like 98 and you called me wanted to have dinner with me in 2000 because Lauren had suggested that Jimmy take over update and and and you want my opinion and I said, you know, I don't know if you want to do update. It's uh it's it's a personality act. It's like we would you would lose you from sketches, you wouldn't be able to do characters and impressions and everything. And it's like if if you wanted to do like a like a talk show or something down the road update would be okay, but I I I urged Jimmy not to do it and um Now I'm the host of The Tonight Show. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. You didn't listen to my dreadful, dreadful. No, you always gave me the best advice and you were always there and I'm very charming and very nice to me as a nervous kid which I didn't know where to turn. I you answered every question and I appreciate that and I've known you now for 25 years. Uh and uh gosh, I'm I'm lucky to be friends with you. This is us at the SNL 50th party. The 50th anniversary party. This is me and you. Oh yeah. And you were you had an eye patch and that was a real eye. That was a real eye patch and uh it was not like a a Nick Fury kind of thing. It was um I was uh I had fallen off the stage at Radio City a few days earlier when when I was doing a a thing with Bill Murray and um the my my eye I they said I almost lost the eye. And so when people were coming up to me all night long going, Jesus, the eye patch really it's like snake skin or something and I um Well, of course it's you. I would lift it up and they go, Jesus, put it. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh my gosh. Uh I I want to uh I also give you props because you're also a good actor. Uh you're in one battle after another. If you if you haven't seen this movie, it is going to win and should win every award. Uh Paul Thomas Anderson directed it. Uh Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn. Uh the whole the whole cast is phenomenal. Um and then you're in this uh because I guess you're you're friends with Paul. Yeah, I um Paul Thomas Anderson, I'm I'm like the junior most member of his little rep company. So like every 12 years, he gives me a call and says, hey, yeah, I need you for this one thing. You crushed it. You're so good in this and this I I know Paul Thomas is a genius, but I think that you wrote this line. But just tell me if I'm right because I think I'm right. I think I know you. But did you write semen demon? No, I did not. What? You did not. That was in the script. Oh my gosh, that got applause. That was that's in the script. You know maybe I you know what maybe I did write it. Yeah, yeah. I got a standing ovation. Everyone, oh, wow. All right, I thought I knew you. I guess I don't. Uh but you're also uh people might know you from from uh Adam Sandler put you in uh Billy Madison. You're the principal in Billy Madison. And the yeah, you give that speech, yeah. Yeah, and now it's a big meme online. Uh did you write any of this? I did write that, yes. All right, you're there you go. I was I was in uh Toronto doing another working on another movie and Adam said, hey, there's a part I'd love you to do and and um that speech. I have to remind myself what it is. Yeah, I used to when Chris Farley used to um suggest ideas at writers meetings uh I would just say um thanks Chris. Everyone's now dumber. Hope you're proud of yourself. Yeah. Um and so I sort of mined that for for that film. Uh a lot of this is in the documentary uh uh Downey wrote that uh are you nervous doing a documentary when they come up to you? You're like, I don't want to do a documentary. Well, um the tough thing is when there's there's nothing to shoot when you're when you're doing a documentary about a writer, you know, there's a writer coming up with an idea. Doesn't look interesting on camera. Yeah, it's um and and if if you track someone like 24/7 so you're so you're with him and or with him and the other writers when you know, yes, you might get a few seconds, but it's a really low density thing. No, it's not. It is so fascinating and you got all these great people talking about you. Maya Rudolph, uh, talking about you. Uh, David Letterman, uh, saying great things about you obviously, Lauren and Saturday Night Live. Um they were very kind. Yeah, but I mean but I mean writing for all the stuff and being on Letterman when it first came on. What do you what do you remember about? I know in the documentary said like your mom turned you on to David Letterman. Oh yeah, I was um I was working in the summer of 1981 I guess. Uh I was working in Long Island with uh Al Franken, later Senator Al Franken on a a script with Tom Davis and my mom called me and said uh asked me if I'd been watching the David Letterman show, his morning show and uh I actually had and I knew who he was but she was telling me, oh, Jim it's so much. It's so so much funnier than Saturday Night Live. Sorry, but it is. You know, she knows that you write for Sa. Oh yeah, she knew. Thanks, mom. And anyway, um, so Dave called me when he was starting up late night in 82 and asked me to come in and meet with him and I I went just to just to meet him because I was a fan and uh he offered me head writer and I couldn't do it right away, but I I was still finishing up that script but uh I I joined the show a few months later. You were rarely on camera but I have a clip here that I'm going to show of you actually being on camera with Dave. I think I I know the one, yeah. Do you know do you want to set do you know? Yeah, it's we would do a segment called uh viewer mail where we take actual letters and just use them as an excuse to do some sort of goofy free form thing. And and I had been on the week before in order to uh avoid doing laundry, the the writers would just wear college t-shirts that have been sent in. We'd get like boxes of them uh uh every week and so I was wearing one from the University of Waka at Steben in Wisconsin. And we got a letter about that. Yeah, here we go. Here's a Jim Dony on late night uh with David later from 1983. Dear Dave, on Wednesday, June 15th, I saw your head writer wearing a shirt that said University of Waka at Steuben. I was wondering how he got it. I live in Waka and have been uh have seen those shirts here but never expected to see one on your show. PS, does anyone there really know where Waka or Steuben is? Well, uh, J, let's find out. uh, Mr. Dony is Jim. Jim, could you come uh Yeah, Jim. Um, I'm sure Kathy would be uh interested in in knowing uh where you got the the t-shirt that said Waka and Steuben and so forth. Um, I've never even heard of the place. You you didn't go to school there? No, never never heard of it. Yeah. Uh, then how is it that you were wearing a shirt that said University of Waka at Stanford? Am I in some kind of trouble, Dave? Uh, no, Jim, no. This is just a we're trying to find out the origin of the shirt and so forth. Where where did you get that shirt? Well, um, I don't know but uh, sometimes I I wear shirts without really reading what's on them. Come on, that's how you do it. Uh, thank you again for coming on and thank you for always being nice to me and always rooting for me. Uh ever since I know you and he still do, yeah. I love you, buddy. That's Jim Doney right there. The documentary. Dony Road that is streaming now on Peacock. Steve Martin and Alison Brown are performing when we come back. Stick around everybody.
