Former talk show host David Letterman was a recent guest on comedian Marc Maron’s WTF podcast where Letterman talked about his relationship with the now deceased performance artist legend Andy Kaufman, and even discusses the popular 1982 segment between Kaufman and Jerry “The King” Lawler. Letterman reveals that Kaufman did tell him how the bit was going to play out before commending Kaufman for being such a professional.
Letterman: He was fantastic. He was so cool he would tell you exactly what was going to happen. He was a gentleman in that respect.
Maron: So you got to play along.
Letterman: Yeah. He would say…’here’s what’s going to happen…Jerry Lawler will come out and we’re gonna get into an argument, and then he’s going to hit me and then I’ll go down and that’ll be the segment. I said okay. And then it happens and even though I knew roughly what was going to happen it was still…oh my God…he wasn’t kidding.
The full podcast is available here for you to listen, but the Lawler bit is around the 88-minute mark.