Searching for a Letterman show wherein Tom Hanks rants about musicals

September 20, 2022 9:19 PM

I'm pretty sure this was from the CBS years, but I suppose it could be Late Night. In my memory it's the Late Show set. Tom Hanks is a guest, and he goes off on a rant about how much he hates musicals.

One that comes in for special ire is "Starlight Express", which Tom claims has a song about "it's so hard to be a train on a traintrack" ending with Hanks yelling "NO IT ISN"T, DAVE, THERE"S NOTHING EASIER THAN BEING A TRAIN ON A TRAINTRACK" or something close to that.

This has become a common phrase in our household [when the kids would complain about doing some simple thing, we'd sing "it's so hard to be a train on a traintrack"], but no one has seen it but me.

Does anyone have a lead?

posted by chazlarson to Society & Culture (2 answers total)

Best answer: "Tom Hanks was once on David Letterman's show declaring that he doesn't like musicals because it's so silly the way the characters break into song." - Scott Miller's Rebels with Applause: Broadway's Groundbreaking Musicals (2001). Letterman was at CBS by August 1993 so you're looking for this particular Hanks bit in one of 8, at most 9, appearances.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:34 AM on September 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Letterman's production company has found its latest form as a Youtube channel and has been uploading many, many old clips. There's even a playlist of "Fan Requests", which suggests they're taking people's requests for certain segments and uploading those. I do not know where one goes to make the requests, but maybe in the comments of their latest uploads?

As far as I can tell, there is no Hanks on Letterman in 2001 clip on Youtube as of this writing.
posted by timdiggerm at 5:30 AM on September 21, 2022 [1 favorite]