AS SEEN ON TV: JIMMY STEWART

Yesterday would have been Jimmy Stewart's 102nd birthday.....

JAMES STEWART

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Dana Carvey

Here's the transcript from one of those sketches, broadcast in 1989 with Bruce Willis as the host:

Sprockets Announcer.....Phil Hartman
Dieter.....Mike Myers
Jimmy Stewart.....Dana Carvey

[FADE IN on the "Sprockets" opening, with the nuclear bomb and city scenes.]

Announcer: Shprockets. Shprockets. Vest German television presents, "Shprockets." Vith your host: Dieter.

[SUPERIMPOSE "LIVE SHOW" and then FADE to Dieter.]

Dieter: Velcome to "Shprockets," I am your host, Dieter. Tonight our guest is vone of America's foremost poets of anarchy and rebellion. An obsessed outcast, whose dark visions drag us to the edge. His book, "Jimmy Shtewart and His Poems"... [holds up book] ...is filled with biting images that assault the senses, unmasking both reader and poet alike in a macabre dance of despair. He has also appeared in films. Please velcome Jimmy Shtewart!

[Audience cheers as Dieter stands up, claps stiffly, and then sits again. Jimmy Stewart finally dodders onstage in a dark gray suit and dark-rimmed glasses. He takes a seat next to Dieter.]

Dieter: Mr. Shtewart. Critic Graus Greck, in the latest issue of "Verdkunst," described your book as an asylum, vhere man meets his Creator and screams.

Jimmy Stewart: Well, uh, thank you, Dieter. That's, uh... Y'know--y'know, Gloria and I are big fans of YOURS.

Dieter: In your poem, "Old Rocking Chair," you write: "You sit in the corner/Old rocking chair/It makes me feel good/To know you are there."

Jimmy Stewart: Yeah...

Dieter: I feel emotionally obliterated.

Jimmy Stewart: I'm glad--glad--glad to HEAR that, y'see, good poetry is about DESTRUCTION.

Dieter: Under vhat conditions does a man experience such raw truth?

Jimmy Stewart: Well, Dieter, it's no picnic, I can tell you that right now. I was holed up in a Mexico City slum. I hadn't eaten in weeks, and what few pesos I had, I'd spent on alcohol. Some cheap crap called chocho. I was down and out. That's when I wrote "Good Old Rockin' Chair." You see, you've gotta go through the PAIN.

Dieter: And vhat of your poem, "Funny Little Pooch"?

Jimmy Stewart: Yeah. There's a rather interesting story about that "Funny Little Pooch" thing... There was a period of intense creativity for me, Dii-eter.

Dieter: Dieter.

Jimmy Stewart: Dooter.

Dieter: Dieter.

Jimmy Stewart: Yeah. yeah. You know, I'd been hitchhiking through Paraguay when I finally settled in Bella Cristo with a 15-year-old WHORE. For a week straight, I was either having sex or hallucinating. Yeah... And then I woke up one morning and she was GONE... she's just--just GONE. And she'd taken all my stuff, and I--I just got crazy paranoid for a minute--well--you--know--how it can be. And I just curled up on that floor like a little baby, and just bawled my eyes out. And--and then a very interesting thing happened. I realized that I was just a speck of crud in a godless VOID. And twenty minutes later, I'd written "Funny Little Pooch."

Dieter: Jimmy Shtewart: you are a running sore. Running from yourself, yet your scab heals us all.

Jimmy Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. Well, y'know, I just do what I do. [laughter]

Dieter: May I read a passage from "My Kitten, My Pal"?

Jimmy Stewart: Well, I'd be HONORED, Dau-Daughter.

Dieter: Dieter.

Jimmy Stewart: Dooter.

Dieter: Dieter.

Jimmy Stewart: Yeah.

Dieter: [reading] "My kitten, my pal/You sit on my lap--"

Jimmy Stewart: Well, well, now--now--wait a minute. Now, now, you gotta read it--you gotta SCREAM it, like it's a matter of life and death, you, can-can I show you... how, here... [takes book from him]

Dieter: Go right ahead.

Jimmy Stewart: All right... [reading] "My kitten, my pal/You sit on my lap/You're a friendly sort of chap." [muttering] I'm a little... thirsty here...

[Jimmy picks up a bottle of tequila and swigs from it.]

Jimmy Stewart: Now... GOOD.

[sets bottle down between him and Dieter]

Jimmy Stewart: [reading] "A little bit of gray and a little bit of white/I'll tell you, little kitten/You're doing all right." Yeah.

Dieter: That poem pulls down my pants and taunts me.

Jimmy Stewart: Well, that's exactly what it's supposed to do. Yeah, it's not rare when something happens like--I wrote that one on a piece of toilet paper, after waking up in a puddle of my own SICK. [laughter]

Jimmy Stewart: Now, it wasn't pretty, wasn't pretty.

Dieter: Is it true that you vonce killed a man?

Jimmy Stewart: N-now, now, wait a minute there, Daughter. No--

Dieter: Dieter.

Jimmy Stewart: That's right, Dieter. No man ever really dies by the hand of another, you see, every man's responsible for his own DEATH. And by the way, you haven't asked me if I want to touch your MONKEY.

Dieter: I thought it beneath you.

Jimmy Stewart: Well, Dieter, if that monkey knew where I'd been, he wouldn't LET me touch him.

Dieter: Then touch him. Touch him! Touch my monkey! [babbles in German] Touch him, LOVE HIM!
Jimmy Stewart: [walks over to monkey] All right, you little pal, let's go--

[Dieter's monkey squeals and jumps off his pedestal after Jimmy touches him.]

Jimmy Stewart: [yanks back hand] Oh! Oh, son of a bitch BIT me!

[Jimmy leaps back to the table and breaks off the top of the tequila bottle.]

Jimmy Stewart: [brandishing broken bottleneck] C'mon, monkey, let's see what's in that belly of yours!

Dieter: [standing up] Now is the time on "Shprockets" when we dance!

[The theme song starts up as the other dancers join Dieter and dance stiffly. After a moment, Jimmy squats down and starts doing the Charleston.]

Dieter: That's all the time we have on "Shprockets." Our guest has been Jimmy Shtewart. My name is Dieter. Auf wiedersehen.

[Dieter trots up close to the camera and dances in front of it.]

Jimmy Stewart: Hi, Gloria! [waves] I'll see ya in six weeks! I'm making a pit stop in Turkey!

[FADE to black over applause.]

Submitted by: Sean
(Courtesy of SNL Transcripts)

BCnU!
(And thanks to J.R. Klink for the birthday reminder!)