Episode dated 14 July 1995

David Letterman: [discussing the Hugh Grant scandal] Big-time movie stars are always doing strange things, and sometimes they include arrests, sometimes they include illegal activities...

Gene Siskel: Is this the strangest, though, that you've heard of?

Roger Ebert: No, I think all kinds of people...

David Letterman: Well, Pee-Wee Herman comes to mind.

[audience laughter]

Gene Siskel: You think that's stranger, that's stranger than what Hugh Grant did?

David Letterman: Well he, well YEAH, kinda!

[audience laughter/cheers]

David Letterman: Well, I mean...

Gene Siskel: What do you think? Wait a minute! What do you think?

David Letterman: Yeah! What do YOU think? Screamin' at him. I don't know why we're screamin' at the poor guy.

Roger Ebert: You think, you think, actually, that Pee-Wee Herman's behavior is more understandable, to you, right?

[audience laughter/cheers]

Roger Ebert: Than Hugh Grant's.

Gene Siskel: I'm saying... I'm saying that Hugh Grant took a bigger risk.

David Letterman: I...

Roger Ebert: Not as it turns out! Pee-Wee Herman apologized and he still hasn't been brought back on the air.

David Letterman: He went, they were both after the same thing, more or less.

Gene Siskel: You got it. You're absolutely right.

David Letterman: One of them decided to go in and take care of it in a theater...

Gene Siskel: Right?

David Letterman: One decided, I'll just wait out here in the car. Y'know? I mean...

Roger Ebert: What is the lesson we can learn from this?

David Letterman: Uh... I, I just think the first one, going into the theater, just to make yourself at home, I guess, I don't know, I think that's a little more peculiar than the other.

Gene Siskel: Probably not in that theater, Dave.

David Letterman: I guess you would know, Gene.

[audience laughter/cheers]