GBN Daily Drop: Remembering Richard Pryor, the “Comedian’s Comedian” (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today, GBN celebrates revolutionary and insightful comedian, writer and actor Richard Pryor as we highlight a joke from his 1983 comedy concert film Here and Now, which is as relevant now as it was almost 40 years ago.

To read about Pryor, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

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Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, April 27th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s in the category for Black Comedians we call “Yeah, You Funny” and it’s a quote of a joke from groundbreaking and innovative comedian Richard Pryor, taken from his self-directed 1983 concert film/documentary entitled Here and Now: 

“I went to Zimbabwe. I know how white people feel in America now: relaxed! ‘Cause when I heard the police car, I knew they weren’t coming after me!”

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor, Sr. was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1940 and by his early 20s was a working comedian in nightclubs around the country, performing material that was funny but ultimately considered middlebrow and safe.

Pyror was about to perform another standard set in 1967 when, as he shared in his 1995 autobiography Pryor Convictions, he had an epiphany and walked away.

 When he returned to comedy the next year, what he did was nothing short of revolutionary. Not only did he use profanity, he tackled social issues, racial issues and told real life stories as well as created characters to tell stories and delivery laser sharp satire and commentary on the human condition.

Pryor recorded several critically and commercially successful Grammy award winning comedy albums in the 1970s, starred in television specials, his own short-lived television series, several movies like Uptown Saturday Night, Which Way Is Up?, Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, as well as his wildly popular comedy concert films, 1979’s Richard Pryor: Live In Concert, 1982’s Richard Pryor: Live on The Sunset Strip and 1983’s Here and Now, which he also directed and where today’s quote is from.

Pryor’s difficult childhood and troubles with substance abuse informed his comedy as well – making his searing observations all the more poignant and intimate when he chose to turn his commentary inward.

Pryor had health challenges from the mid-1980s until his passing in 2005, but worked whenever he could, and remained acknowledged and respected for his contributions to the evolution of stand-up comedy as an art form.

Known as “the comedian’s comedian,” in 1998, Pryor was the first comedian to receive the now-coveted Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, and in 2006 was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2015, a life-size bronze statue of Pryor was unveiled in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois with the title “Richard Pryor: More Than Just a Comedian.”

To learn more about Richard Pryor, read his 1995 autobiography Pryor Convictions, the 2014 biography Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by David Henry and Joe Henry, and Becoming Richard Pryor by Scott Saul.

You can also watch the 2013 documentary Richard Pyror: Omit the Logic, now on Hulu, the 2019 documentary I Am Richard Pryor, or the 2021 episode of ABC.com’s Superstar series dedicated to Pryor.

There are also several DVD collections available of his feature films and his filmed concerts, and of course, his comedy albums. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.

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Sources:

• https://www.richardpryor.com
• https://www.biography.com/performer/richard-pryor
• https://www.npr.org/2014/12/11/369641000/richard-pryor-a-comedy-pioneer-who-was-always-whittling-on-dynamite
• https://www.pbs.org/show/richard-pryor-icon/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVMEE8S2Gag
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWulvchFpYs