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

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

By goodblacknews on April 27, 2022

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:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

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.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

Kenya Barris, Creator of "Black-ish", Signs Overall Movie Deal With Fox

By goodblacknews on September 7, 2016

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 14: Writer Kenya Barris poses for a portrait at the American Black Film Festival on June 14, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by J. Countess/Getty Images Portrait)
NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 14: Writer Kenya Barris poses for a portrait at the American Black Film Festival on June 14, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by J. Countess/Getty Images Portrait)

article by Dave McNary via Variety.com
Kenya Barris, creator of ABC’s “Black-ish” and co-writer of “Barbershop:  The Next Cut,” has signed an overall deal at Fox for the development of feature projects.
“We are thrilled to be in business with Kenya,” said Stacey Snider, chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox Film. “He is a creator with an incredibly authentic voice — at a time when original storytellers are more valuable than ever.”
The film pact will be administered through Barris’ new production company, Khalabo Ink Society, aimed at telling compelling stories that pull back the curtain on the parts of our society that typically go unnoticed, and forging conversations that expose our own hypocrisies.  “As we expand our comedic franchise we at Khalabo Ink Society are overjoyed to have found a partner in Fox, that shares our same sentiment in storytelling,” Barris said.
Khalabo also has a number of feature projects in the works, including “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Stir Crazy,”  “Girls Trip,” “Ruff Ryderz,” and “Shaft.” Erynn Sampson is head of development for Khalabo Ink Society.
Barris currently has an overall deal with ABC Studios where he will continue to executive produce “Black-ish,” in addition to developing new series and projects for network, cable, and streaming, including “Unit Zero,” which he will executive produce along with Toni Collette, who will also star.
To read more, go to: http://variety.com/2016/film/news/blackish-kenya-barris-movie-deal-1201853782/