MARTIN: My next guest stars in the new hit series "Now and Again" in which he plays a modern day bionic man whose powers include supersonic hearing. Ooh, let's watch. (showing clip from show) >> MICHAEL: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah! This is great. >> THEO: What's that? >> MICHAEL: I don't know, either two people are on their honeymoon, or somebody's watching a porno. >> THEO: Maybe we should get the operating room ready. >> AGENT: We've got that 10:30. >> MICHAEL: Must be a porno because there's the cheesy movie in the background. >> THEO: Total and utter waste of my time. See if you can get me out of it. >> AGENT: Sir, the Department of Justice specifically asked for you. >> MICHAEL: Oh, I feel bad. >> THEO: Why? >> MICHAEL: I think the kid who was watching the porno's mother just walked in the room. Something about no television for the rest of his life. I know how he feels. MARTIN: Please welcome Eric Close. ERIC: All right. MARTIN: All right, let's try it. One, two, three -- ERIC: Ready? (Eric tosses candy in the air, catches it in his mouth. On going joke from earlier in the show.) (Crowd applauds) MARTIN: Ok- that's nothing. That- who cares. ERIC: That was too low. It was too low. MARTIN: Your body is worth $3 billion according to the series. You can go way higher than that. ERIC: If I had missed I was going to blame it on the government. MARTIN: One, two, three - (Eric tosses candy higher and catches it again) (Crowd applauds) MARTIN: Yes! ERIC: You're up. MARTIN: Very nice. Ok. I'll try one more. (Martin tosses candy in the air, and doesn't even attempt to catch it) MARTIN: Now, Bo, would you like one, you're the only one that hasn't tried. Stand up and try one for the heck of it. BO: No I don't like that one. Some of them are really awful. (Bo Derek tosses candy in the air, fails to catch it) BO: I didn't get it, it bounced and hit. MARTIN: Yes, she failed! ERIC: Man these are good. MARTIN: I know they're good. Congratulations on the show. ERIC: Thank you. MARTIN: It's a big hit. For anyone who's not seen it, what's the premise of this show? It's an odd one. ERIC: Yeah. Well it's -- MARTIN: You can't talk because you have too much candy in your mouth. Sad-- swallow, come on. ERIC: It's kind of like the bionic man- I'm just kidding. That was funny, by the way. MARTIN: Dave Herman- ERIC: You had me, I had no clue. I was like, who is that guy? I've never seen him before. He's like the next Brad Pitt. Now I have gummy bears -- jelly beans in my teeth. The basic premise is the government is trying to design a new secret weapon, a la the stealth bomber but I'm now the prototype. And what they've- MARTIN: In the first show, John Goodman is killed, right? ERIC: He plays this middle-aged insurance man. His life isn't going that great. Things aren't going great with his wife. He gets passed over on a promotion. So he's on his way home and he falls in front of a subway train and dies. Next thing you know, he wakes up, and his brain has been put into my body. My body's been bio-engineered by the government. I bleed, I have hair, I have skin, the whole deal but it's all artificial. So what they're trying to do is train me to be a super-hero, super-spy, but I'm a regular guy with this brain of John Goodman. And all I care about is selling insurance and being with my wife and daughter. But now I can't be with them anymore. MARTIN: And if you can't contact them or you die, right? ERIC: They die. MARTIN: They die. ERIC: They'll terminate - MARTIN: They die. That's a great premise. ERIC: It's way out there. But if you really look at it, there are people who understand what it's like not to be able to be with someone you love, ok? And that's what people are really drawn to is that human element of the show. The super-hero and all that is sort of the sub-text. MARTIN: You're supposed to have a $3 billion body. Is this a little pressure? You can't just go out and have the pizza if you want. ERIC: No, that takes it down to about $2.99 billion. MARTIN: My body has been evaluated at $1.50 Canadian. ERIC: Is that a lot? MARTIN: That's a tremendous amount. Does your wife like this new body of yours? ERIC: She digs it. Yeah, she likes it. MARTIN: How did you meet? ERIC: It's an interesting story. In 1987, I was traveling through Europe. My family is from Budapest. So I decided I'm going there to see my relatives. So I'm standing in the Vienna train station and I look over and see these two guys wearing baseball caps. I thought they've got to be Americans. One of them had a Yankees cap on. I said you guys Americans? Yeah, I'm going to Budapest, we're going to Istanbul, they said. I said come ride with my buddies and I on the train. They were going to go to Budapest as well. We spent the whole night together. We went out- I was up in the tree on the other side of the Danube. I was looking down and this fog came in and enveloped the city. My friend Chip said I've got to go because I'm catching a train in the morning. He's turning around and he said, I'll call you back when we get back to the States. The fog enveloped him and he disappeared. MARTIN: Dramatic fade. ERIC: Few months go by he starts writing me letters. Years go by, we stay in touch. Jump forward to '92. He invites me to his wedding in Dallas. I go to the wedding at the reception, I'm sitting there and I look across the room and this woman was sitting there, she just stole my heart. And that's who I'm married to now. Met her at a wedding. MARTIN: In all those pieces. The little interconnecting story. ERIC: What's funny is one of my first jobs I did, I was on a milk commercial campaign. I had this really corny commercial and I was talking about this girl named Carrie Jacobson and she looks good and all this. Her and her friends made fun of me. That was their on-going gag. This Coors Light is really good. Was that a plug for Coors? MARTIN: You're going to be getting something. I know what you're doing. ERIC: Anyway -- when she finally went home the night we met, she told her friends, I met the guy I'm going to marry, the night we met. His buddy-- they saw me a little bit later on tv. They call up and say, you're marrying the milk guy. MARTIN: You have a daughter, Katie. I have a daughter Katie too, you know. ERIC: I understand that. MARTIN: Your wife is a social worker and I studied social work at the university. ERIC: Amazing. MARTIN: More back to the little interconnecting. Here you are and here I am. And now we've got to go to commercial and you did a commercial. And -- I don't know. The show is "Now and Again." It's Fridays on CBS. Congratulations to you. It's great. ERIC: Thank you. MARTIN: We'll be right back with more fun and games. Please, join us.

Martin Short January 14, 2000