HOWARD: Twenty-five years, Max. I came over from CBS in ’51. Can you believe it? They were just building the lower level on the George Washington Bridge – I remember just after I started they were doing a remote there. Except nobody told me. Then ten after seven in the morning, I get a call. ‘Where the hell are you? You’re supposed to be on the George Washington Bridge!’ I jump out of bed, run downstairs, I get out in the street, I flag a cab, jump in. I say, ‘Take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge!’ The driver turns round. He says, ‘Don’t do it, buddy. You’re a young man, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.’ (They break into uncontrollable laughter.) I think I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to blow my brains out right on air, right in the middle of the seven o’clock news. ‘The Death Hour’. A great Sunday-night show for all the family. Wipe Disney right off the air.
*For Paddy Chayefsky’s original film version of this monologue (by a different character), click here.
