Be truthful - and funny will come

August 10, 2004 12:44 PM

Jason Byrne: You talk about Muhammad Ali in your latest DVD and how frightening it was to be in the ring with him. But do you reckon you could beat him now that the two of you shake like maracas?
Richard Pryor: That's your fuckin' question?
posted by dodgygeezer (17 comments total)

LH: Did Paul Mooney write the Just Us joke on Is It Something I Said? Or was he a constant collaborator?

RP: Paul takes too much fucking credit for my shit, let him take credit for his own. Just Us, we wrote for [the 1970s US sitcom] Sandford and Son. He was one of the writers on my NBC Shows and a writer on [Pryor's autobiographical movie] Jo-Jo Dancer. But Paul needs to take credit for HIS stuff and leave my shit the fuck alone!

***********
What is wrong with me that LOVES this sort of talk?
Thanks for the interview!
posted by Peter H at 12:53 PM on August 10, 2004

omfg, the end has The Best Line I've read in years.

Al Murray: What do you think of critics?

RP: I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, "I wanna grow up and be a critic."

pow/.
posted by Peter H at 1:01 PM on August 10, 2004

Metafilter: Leave my shit the fuck alone!
posted by haqspan at 1:03 PM on August 10, 2004

Richard Herring: Where do you get your crazy ideas from?

I get the feeling that's a deliberately rubbish question. curiOUS ORÁNGE?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:20 PM on August 10, 2004

Why the Fall lyrics PG?

That's quite the group of comics that they got together isn't it?
posted by dmt at 1:31 PM on August 10, 2004

nice!
posted by shoepal at 2:15 PM on August 10, 2004

The Curious Orange was a regular Lee and Herring character in Fist of Fun.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 2:34 PM on August 10, 2004

Ack. I was in the process last night of putting together a larger, comprehensive post on Richard Pryor's career and was going to include this link. Oh well. In any case, some of you might be interested in checking out the forums over at Richard's site. It's moderated by his wife Jennifer, and often she (allegedly) transcribes comments from Richard so he can contribute to threads.

I missed this the first time I read the Edinburgh interview:

RP: Only a few comics are being really honest and daring, and not just going for the okee-doke. I love Chris Rock, and Chappelle. Colin Quinn is dangerous. There are some I see that will grow or not. I don't know all their names.

Colin Quinn?

Dangerous?

To himself, maybe.
posted by dhoyt at 2:57 PM on August 10, 2004

when i was a kid, i did want to grow up to be a critic. i think i still do ...

that Muhammad Ali question is priceless. i was hoping for more of that. what i remember most about Richard Pryor's stand-up was his threatening to pull out his dick and piss all over the front rows. funny guy, and i liked his "mediocre" movies, even Superman III (my favorite Superman movie).
posted by mrgrimm at 3:07 PM on August 10, 2004

Colin Quinn?

Dangerous?

To himself, maybe.

And Iraqi prisoners. I hear they play tapes of his "comedy" in the cells 24/7 to break the prisoners. My sources tell me that no prisoner exposed to this extreme torture has held out for more than two hours.
posted by MikeMc at 3:11 PM on August 10, 2004

Actually it was TMWRNJ, not Fist of Fun.
posted by TheCuriousOrange at 3:52 PM on August 10, 2004

I once received from a fortune cookie, "You would make an excellent critic."
posted by geekyguy at 4:38 PM on August 10, 2004

Bugger. And from the source, too.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:56 PM on August 10, 2004

How was the cookie, geekyguy?
posted by Vidiot at 10:42 PM on August 10, 2004

> Before Pryor, stand-up in the US was Bob Hope and Bob Newhart: mild one-liners
> delivered by cheerful men in shirts and ties. Pryor, by stark contrast, was scabrous
> and confessional, sexy, vernacular, and totally unpredictable.

They're Brits, they never heard of Lenny Bruce.
posted by jfuller at 3:32 AM on August 11, 2004

Vidiot—brilliant. Bloody brilliant.
posted by pedantic at 12:36 PM on August 11, 2004

jfuller - Right on. But it's more than that - you could pair Bob Hope with any number of standup comics whose genre was "mild one-liners." Thing is, while his tone wasn't that different, Bob Newhart did revolutionize the form of standup (concurrently with Lenny Bruce), dumping the one-liners for entire conversations (usually presenting just one side, via telephone. I can't recall any Bob Newhart routine that used "one-liners."

This is not to argue with Pryor's pioneer status. It's just unfortunate that a piece about standup, with so many comedians represented, seems written by someone who doesn't quite grasp the history of standup in the US.
posted by soyjoy at 10:14 AM on August 19, 2004