No, Getting There Is Not Half the Fun, At Least As Far As Comedian David Brenner Was Concerned

What could possibly go wrong when you travel? Only about 12,000 things says comedian David Brenner.

In this 1990 interview Brenner riffs on his book If God Wanted Us to Travel...
Get your copy of If God Wanted Us to Travel... by David BrennerAs an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.

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#Travel # humor # comedy # stand up

But when I hear some of my jokes, it's like some other guy
in the room told it. I go, that's funny.
And then I realized, hey, you said it.
Comedian David Brenner today on NOW I've Heard Everything.
I'm Jules Thompson. You heard it said that getting

(00:26):
there is half the fun. Well, the people who say that
never met David Brenner. He was a well regarded
documentary producer for many years before he turned to stand
up comedy in the late 1960s. And since then, David Brenner
had a more than 30 year career in stand up comedy in which he
became a very popular, hugely popular guest on TV talk shows,

(00:49):
including The Tonight Show wherehe was a guest for over 150
episodes and a frequent guest host for Johnny Carson.
So David Brenner did a lot of traveling in his day.
Now along the way he accumulateda lot of stories, the good, the
bad and the ugly. And those became the basis of
his 1990 book that he called If God Wanted Us to Travel dot dot

(01:14):
dot. Now, I've been a big fan of his
for years, so I jumped at the chance to have a few minutes
with him when he was on a book tour.
In just a moment, our conversation.
Well, we may not own a DeLorean,but we are about to take you
back in time just a little way. This interview is from the 30
year archive of national radio personality Bill Thompson.

(01:35):
Enjoy. So here now, from 1990, the
author of If God Wanted Us to Travel dot dot dot David Brett.
Whose idea was the dot dot dot? I came up with two of those dots
and the third dot I think was mymanager.
I had it if God wanted us to travel dot, dot, and he said

(01:57):
just has a better balance. I want a third dot.
He contributes greatly to my career.
Is there a risk when you put a book out that has on on the very
cover it says outlandish tips and hilarious anecdotes?
Is there a little pressure on you now to come up with
hilarious anecdotes? Yeah, because I didn't write
that part. I wrote my name and the title.
I didn't write that part. The publisher wrote that part.

(02:19):
I think the publishers should come out with the hilarious
anecdote. I they do that to sell.
But I think that I think it is funny.
I think it's very funny. I would say, I would say very
funny anecdotes. I don't know how hilarious they
are, but they're very funny. I will attest to that.
They are indeed very funny. How did this the idea for this
book hit you? This is the weirdness, OK?
This is how I get in trouble, OK.
I am sailing along the coast of Turkey with my childhood

(02:41):
friends, the Bird and the Bird and his wife, Marsha.
We've been together since first gravy to each other.
I'm kidding around. You know, when we first landed
in Rhodos, I'm doing numbers on the airport.
And then my usual self, you know, when I'm in a funny mood
and he's he's screaming. And he always screamed at me,
though since first grade. He says, you know, you, you
ought to write a book about travel.
I mean, you've done so much travelling and you're so funny
whenever we travel. And it clicked in my head.

(03:04):
So now here's where I get in trouble.
So my ego says that's a great idea, David do it.
So I go to my manager. I said, hey, Steve, I got a
great idea. He listened, oh, that's a great
idea. Now we go to a an agent, get a
literary agent. He says great idea.
Now I said, let's pitch it to a publisher.
That's a great idea. Now we pitch it to the publisher
and the publisher says great idea.
And they all say great idea and they draw up a contract.
That was a great and now I got to write the book and I hate

(03:28):
writing books. Welcome to publishing.
Yeah, I I just wanted someone tosay of authority, great idea.
And I would have left the office.
I don't have to write the book, but then I wrote the book, I
think. I think it was a great idea.
What's it's, it's one of those broad areas, you know, Yeah.
Kids, marriage, travel, Yeah. There's a lot of possibilities

(03:48):
in there, aren't there? Yeah, that.
See, you know what the beauty ofit was?
I first thing I did because I hate plagiarism of any sort and
even a hint of it. So I went to a bookstore and I I
said, well, I'm going to get allthe humorous books.
After all, this is the fifth largest industry in the world,
tourism. I'm going to get all the books
written, the humorous books written about travel.
What a meaty subject must be. 51st bookstore, nothing next big
bookstore, nothing. I said, well, I know what I got

(04:09):
to do. I got to go to the travel
bookstore I go to that specializes.
So I go to the specialist travel, not one humorous book.
I said, will you look up your regular?
It's a humor, travel humor. They said nothing's been written
about it. I came out of there and I said I
not only have a good idea, I have a goldmine.
The 5th largest industry in the world.
No one's there. It's like no one ever told a

(04:29):
joke about government or being married.
Can you imagine that? Someone thinks, you know, I
think I'm gonna kid around aboutbeing married.
You're kidding. I never thought of making jokes
about that. I you know what a goldmine he
would have. So that was so I think, I think
it's a goldmine. I like its style too.
You don't have to sit down and read the whole book all at once.
You can. You can come back.
It's like it's like bathroom reading.
You can. Come it is.

(04:50):
It's the bathroom. I write bathroom books.
But you know why I do that? I want to tell you what I write
a book. The the kind of book I would
like to read. I write a book that number one.
I read it for an hour one day. I pick it up two weeks later and
read it for 15 minutes. I read it on the plane.
I read in the bathroom. I read it while I'm waiting for
a television show to come on that and I laugh and it's light

(05:12):
and I'm having fun. That's what I like to read.
So that's what I like to write. Where do you like to travel to?
I like to travel everywhere. I am going to China tomorrow.
I'm going to be in China for 19 days.
I, I love to see this world. I don't like getting there.
The whole book is about, you know, hotels and buses and
trains and cars and and and and flying and all the things I

(05:33):
hate. But when I'm there, I'm the
greatest traveller. I love every church, go to every
church, every museum. Oh, look, a cobblestone.
Oh, it's from, oh, someone stepped on this 700 years ago.
Let me take a picture of that cobblestone.
You know, I'm not kind of idiot.So I'm going to China, But I, I,
I'll tell you where I love the I'll tell you the surprise one,
the surprise of all time. Surprise of all time for me was
Turkey. I didn't want to go to Turkey

(05:54):
and I thought I was sailing. I'm supposed to go to Greek
islands. The boat was not registered in
the Greek waters. We couldn't go.
It was either cancel the trip orgo on the coast of Turkey and I
said, well, I'm not going to cancel a trip.
It's a four week trip sailing. I love the sail.
Turkey was the greatest. I mean, if you want to go to a
fabulous country, really it's got bad press in that movie.
I thought I did it in jail. It's great.

(06:14):
That was the surprise of all time.
Was the Turkish coast fabulous? The the things that I think
impressed me most Egypt and Kenya.
I did that as a one trip and I was blown away by first of all,
the the history of Egypt and stand there and know what went
by. I mean, they walk through the
tombs and I mean the civilization that once wasn't
that, that there's no remnants of it today.

(06:36):
I mean, where, where are those people?
I mean, why we're not happening to those Egyptians and, and see
what they did. I mean, come on.
I mean, Egyptians are great people, don't get me wrong.
But hey, they're not building pyramids.
So and then when I was in Kenya,the thrill of me and I went on
19 safaris living in a tent. I went 19 safaris to stand and
do a 360 with your eye and not see anything man made, not even

(06:58):
see the a jet stream in the sky.To see nothing but nature and
animals and know what the world once was and what probably it
should have always remained. That was a thrill to me to.
But now you've been talking about destinations.
I thought getting there was halfthe fun.
Getting there is no fun. My whole philosophy of travel is
it's vacation doesn't begin until the last hanger goes up in

(07:20):
the closet you unpacked. First of all, I have about.
I swear to you, I write in the book.
It's true. I have over 1200 things that
could go wrong. I'm serious.
I am. I am the most nervous traveler
in the world. First of all, I am positive that
if I'm home, my alarm won't go off.
I have a backup alarm. I have a backup alarm.
Then I'm positive that when I get out, if I get a cab, the cab

(07:41):
won't come. If the cab comes, the cab
driver, the typical New York, you know, and New York's the
only sit in a world where the initials TJMRZPL are not the
license plate, but the name of the guy who's driving.
So odds are he doesn't speak English.
Now, I'm lucky he does speak English.
I tell him to go to the airport.He doesn't know how to get
there. He doesn't know how to get
there. Great.
But he goes to the wrong airport.
All right? He goes to the right airport,
but he goes to the wrong terminal.

(08:02):
He goes at the right time. When I get there, the plane has
been cancelled. No, the plane has been
cancelled. It's late.
No, it's not late. It takes off.
It takes, but it crashes and then we go from there.
I'm I have all the things that can go on and I think about each
one as I'm going by. So that's why getting there.
You got to be kidding. It's the worst part of it.
After this short break, David Brenner explains why coming home

(08:24):
is no picnic either, you know. AI is not just for 22 year old
coders. A lot of us older adults are
drawing on our life experience to find unique and creative ways
to use AI at home or at work. Got an AI success story you'd
like to share? Tap the link below to visit our

(08:44):
YouTube channel. AI after 40 and let's keep
learning together. Now back to my 1990 conversation
with David Brenner. And all the things that'll go
wrong when you come back, when you're coming back, it's just
like a reverse. I had the best 1 though.
I'm going to tell you one I never had before.

(09:04):
This is a new one. This started the book.
If you want to know the exact line that started this book.
I just remembered I was waiting in the airport in Rhodos.
Now, first of all, my bags. I'm out at the point now where
my bags aren't arriving, right? My bags are not arriving.
I'm staying there. My bags will arrive, but on
another airplane. My bags will arrive on another

(09:26):
airplane, but I'll have already left this country.
I'm going through all these things, but a new one happened.
Right now I have my bags arrivedand nothing that was inside them
is with the bags. I've had my bags arrived, but
everything that was inside them is but a few feet behind the
bag. I've had that.
This was a new one. My bag arrives, I see my bag but

(09:47):
I can't get to it. It is stuck it is hooked on to
some piece of metal at the top of the conveyor belt.
Now I'm there bags are hitting and I'm praying it gets bumped
like a pinball machine that my bag gets bumped and I started
doing I said this is a new one it's now 12,842 things that go
well, I never had that before inmy life bro.
And then finally when no flightsare coming in a man was so kind

(10:08):
as to climb up that slippery thing and get my bag.
That was a new one, and that's what kicked off the book because
my friend was on the floor when I was running around the
airport, going or not. Now, when you come up with all
the kinds of lists that you havein here, like that list for
example, how do you do you just sit down at the typewriter, put
yourself in a trance, say a few mantras or whatever they do, and
then start typing. You're close.

(10:30):
What I do is I sit down and I think about the well, let's take
a list. All right, let's take a look.
Now, the things that you you hate to hear.
Like I sit down and I get a stream of consciousness.
I get a typewriter. And if you were in the next
room, you'd think I'm copying something with a typewriter.
I just, and I started like things you would hate to hear.
You hate to hear if you're in a car, someone say, I thought you

(10:52):
were listening to the directionswhen they gave it to us.
That's one of the things you hate to hear.
The other thing you hate to hearif you're flying is a pilot.
Come on and say, is there anyoneon board who can speak Arabic
calmly? You hate to hear that One that I
hate to hear is hi, we're on ourhoneymoon.
That means this boring couple isgoing to haunt you through your
things you hate, right? Or you have someone say that is

(11:14):
not our currency. We do not have a monkey on our
$100 bill. Things you hate the well, what I
do is I sit down and literally type the typewriter is clicking
away, clicking away and then it starts to slow down.
If you want the other room, you hear a couple clickings, you
know, then you hear the minor click, click, click, click and
then nothing. And then the paper comes out of
typewriter. Not only am I finished and I
won't think of one more joke that I will not remember

(11:36):
anything I typed, if you came inand said here's $10,000 cash,
tell us out of this list how many things on the list.
I'd say, well I've got 120. All right, tell us three things
you typed on that list. 3 jokes you said.
I wouldn't know because my retentive mind is not hooked up
with my creative mind. Same thing on stage.
I come first time on The TonightShow.

(11:57):
I came on stage and a friend of mine said to me he owns this
place, Pips and Sheepshead Bay where I first started.
He was like always with me, George Schultz.
And George came up to me and said, David, I don't know where
you came up with that bus routine.
It's one of the funniest things.I never heard you practice it
because I was always practicing.And it's called it's a what bus
routine? He said that whole thing on
buses in Los Angeles. I, I don't know what he was
talking about. I had to go home that night,

(12:19):
watch The Tonight Show and tape it so that I would know the
routine. And, you know, and it's like,
I'm like a joke savant. That's what I am, a joke savant.
But how? How convenient.
That way you can entertain yourself.
Yeah, I know I crack myself up sometimes.
You know, I had lived so much that I crack up on stage
sometimes. I think that's so funny.
Like someone else said it that comes that's a gift from my

(12:40):
father. My father was the funniest man
in the world. And that that little person that
he put into my brain that that controls that humor section that
that my father gave me. And I had nothing to do with it.
Just a gift. Just like, you know, I'm 62, I'm
62 because of the jeans, you know, whatever were in my jeans
that made me 6/2 and I'm and I'mfunny because it's in my jeans.
My father was so funny, and I don't know how the whole thing
works and I don't want to know how it works.

(13:02):
But when I hear some of my jokes, it's like some other guy
in the room told it. I go, that's funny.
And then I realized, of course, hey, you said it.
Don't laugh because you said it.Weird.
Yeah, that was that was always the thing I always used to laugh
because Red Skelton would break himself up.
And Steve Allen and I finally got to ask Steve Allen once why
he broke himself up. And he said it because I think
faster than I can react. And he said I just keep going so

(13:24):
fast I ad Lib something and I cracked myself up.
He's right. That's what happens.
And red's going. You know, one of the shows I had
in my career, I was working at aclub, Columbus in South
Philadelphia, my old neighborhood, right?
Come from South and West Philadelphia, and someone comes
backstage. Now tell me if you would believe
this. All right, someone comes
backstage. It's early in your career, and
they say Red Skeleton is here tosee you.
I said, yeah, sure. I said, oh, yeah, that's nice.

(13:45):
Where is Red Skeleton seated? You know, I I know the poem I
like. Red Skeleton is at the bar.
Oh, sure. Red Scone.
Major star. Right.
Major star, International star. Came to see me.
One, in South Philadelphia. And two, he's sitting at the
bar. I said, OK, thank you very much.
So I go out and I do my show. All right?

(14:06):
Yeah. Red Skelton's at the bar, Do my
show. I'm backstage.
They knock in a little dressing room.
Yeah. Red Skelton would like to say
hello. He's your biggest fan.
I said, oh, sure, send him in. I figured it's a guy from South
Philadelphia. He's wearing a Red Nose, his
glasses, his pants. Will drop his pants when he
comes in. He only demanded minds, you
know, and then walks red skeleton.
Gee. He's like a major fan of mine.
I couldn't. I was, I was freaked out.

(14:26):
I was absolutely. It's rare that I get freaked out
by people. But the fact that he was really
there knocked me out. It's like I was once, I'll tell
you another one. I was once, I was in in my
dressing room at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
And I go to the bathroom. I go to the bathroom and my
manager, Steve, who's not prone to practical jokes, knocks on
the door. David.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm in the bathroom.
Yeah. He's like opens a little bit.

(14:47):
Started by, He says, Cary Grant is outside.
Now that's an old joke. Cary Grant's going to the
bathroom. Guy turns around and says, oh,
and you're Cary Grant. What's his leg?
It's an old joke. And I'm surprised my manager
thought that. I said, OK, tell him I'll be out
in a minute. OK, Very funny.
So then I walk out. There he is, Cary Grant.
I said, guess what I was just doing.
I was living your joke. I said I was living your joke.

(15:12):
I have literally thousands of things I still want to ask, but
I'm just about out of time. Is there anything else that you
wanted to add or any question you wanted me to ask you that I
didn't? No, I think you're doing.
I think you're doing a terrific job.
Are we taping this or is this like a phony thing?
No, this is it. I mean, this is real.
This is one out. I mean, people going to, you
know, hear this and they're going to say let's get David
Berner's book. Or is this like a joke?
No, no, no, it's real because I'm very paranoid.
No. No, this is this is I'm.
Very paranoid. You know who wrote a great line?

(15:33):
I don't know who wrote this. I wish I could find the comedian
who did. This is brilliant.
I did not write this. I would never steal the line.
This is brilliant. You know what?
Reverse paranoia. It's a terrible fear that you're
following someone. I wish I wrote that.
David Brenner died in 2014. He was 78.

(15:54):
Now you can get your copy of If God Wanted Us to travel dot dot
dot by David Brenner by tapping the link in our show notes, by
clicking the link in the description below.
If you're watching this on YouTube or by going to our
website, heardeverything.com, wemay earn an Amazon Commission if
you make a purchase. And while you're at
heardeverything.com, don't miss my 2012 conversation with

(16:14):
another frequent Tonight Show guest, Gilbert.
Gottfried When I do The Tonight Show, it's like people's
favorite part is not the bit so much, but when you screw up
totally. And my 1987 conversation with
Yakov Smirnov. Somebody called me and said come
on over, we'll chew the fat. I said yeah, that sounds like

(16:36):
nacking this Russian woman or something.
Oh man. And of course, we post new
episodes of Now I've Heard Everything every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday, and you can find us wherever you find
podcasts. And thank you so much for
listening Next time on NOW I've Heard Everything as the World
Series is about to get underway.My 1998 conversation with one of
the greatest voices in baseball broadcasting, John.

(16:59):
Miller I mean, I'm the luckiest guy in America.
I mean, I've got the greatest job anybody could ever possibly
have. I go to I go to baseball games,
which I love and they pay me forit.
That's next time on NOW. I've heard everything.
I'm Bill Thompson.