Customer Reviews

The Richard Pryor Show, Vols. 1 & 2 plus Bonus Disc

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw this when it first came on in 1977 when I was 13. Surprising how much I remember these skits. Overall, while it's unique, it's certainly a mixed bag. Like the Smothers brothers, it's quite daring and not surprising that it had trouble with the censors.

"The Richard Pryor Special?" is clearly the best of the lot. Basically, it's Pryor trying to get to his show and meeting strange characters with varied skit ideas along the way. Some really good stuff like the young children's choir (with future soap star Kristoff St. John) and the drunk lover performance with Maya Angelou.

A lot of the ideas that Pryor brings to the fore are unique, but some are just plain strange, such as the "Pet head" with Charles Fleischer (later Roger Rabbit) and "Black Death", a bizzare goth-rocker who kills all of his fans during a concert (this freaked me out and puzzled me in 1977 and still does today). Much of this humor is based on race relations and the subject gets sort of beaten in the ground after a while.

The edited skits makes one wonder why Pryor filmed such profanity-filled routines knowing that they had no chance of airing (there is a particularly foul moment when Pryor curses heavily during the Audience Q&A when there are clearly children visible in the audience). As he has admitted, Pryor had a bad cocaine habit in those days and it shows in some of these monologues.

However, it's also interesting to see the cast of soon-to-be's such as a very young and glamourous pre-"Night Court" Masrha Warfield, Robin Williams, Sandra Bernhard, John Witherspoon, Paul Mooney, and Tim Reid. So overall, you can see in this the direction Black comedy was to take from the 1980s into recent times.

It would be nice if "A Time For Laughter," the 1967 special that featured a young Pryor with Redd Foxx, Moms Mabley, Pigmeat Markham, and Godfrey Cambridge, would also make it to DVD as that was equally as ground-breaking.

Richard Pryor ready for prime time? I would say the answer is yes and no after watching these three DVDs that cover all four of 1977's THE RICHARD PRYOR SHOW series, THE RICHARD PRYOR SPECIAL? that preceeded the series (which aired earlier that year), plus various outtakes and other unreleased footage.

The special is a classic comedy hour, with the likes of the Idi Amin Dada segment, the appearance by the Pips sans Gladys Knight, and a priceless skit with Richard and Maya Angelou which perfectly symbolizes how Pryor's approach to comedy may have had a wild, profane surface, but look underneath and you find wry insight and emotive depth that is missing from most of those comics whom he influenced. A rainbow-coalition-like segment with kids singing a Stevie Wonder classic was unique in its era, as was the "Harlem Sweeties" clip featuring a variety of women of color ... six years prior to Vanessa Williams becoming the first black Miss America.

As for the series, things got off on the wrong foot when Pryor's classic "nude" opening segment to the first show was a no-go (it is seen here). Pryor spent much of the four shows getting skit-ready versions of certain aspects of his standup act past censors. No cussing, but pushing the prime time envelope nonetheless. Frankly, a few skits don't work i.m.o. (Mojo The Healer, the Black Death heavy metal music skit), but more often than not the segments are funny and stand the test of time very well (40th president, for one). The supporting cast are seen in spots, but if you are a fan of Robin Williams for one, you may be disappointed by how little he is seen on camera.

Among the extras are a lengthy, definitely not ready for prime time monologue (mostly Pryor as Mudbone), filmed before a small studio audience (the content is similar to his concert films). Then watch the unedited 40+ minute no-holds-barred Roast including Pryor and the cast members and compare it to the severely abridged footage on the fourth show to see what cutting-and-pasting had to be done to find comments appropriate for a network tv show (in fact, Pryor's comments are entirely missing from the broadcast, for obvious reasons).

There's a fair amount of political incorrectness in the material presented here (particularly in the non-broadcasted footage), controversial by today's standards as well as 1977's. If you can handle that, plus the fact that some segments work better than others, you will find that this DVD set may not present Pryor at his all-time best, but there's enough of his comic genius on display to make this an important historical document that at times maintains an edge even by contemporary standards.

I agree with most of the other reviews here that point at that The Richard Pryor Show -- like the man's movies -- pale in comparison to the absolutely brilliant stand-up work that he did. While there are some pretty funny moments on these DVDs, the best are in the extras, some of which show Richard either unscripted or performing parts of his act.

These four (five) episodes could be edited down to an excellent 60-minute "Best of The Richard Pryor Show" feature, because most of the skits are hit-or-miss. The good sketches make this DVD set deserve some rewatching, but I guarantee that I will use the chapter skip button to avoid some of the less entertaining material.

Unfortunately, I felt that the packaging of this set was designed to be sold at a higher price, due to the fact that it comes in three separate DVD cases instead of the foldout designs used for most TV show collections. I am also doubting it was necessary to put this collection on three discs instead of two. 3+ hour-long movies with a full 5.0 soundtrack can be held on one disc, so it seems like 5 48-or-so minute-long episodes, plus a handful of extras, should be able to fit on two discs.

If you're a huge Richard Pryor fan like I am, I would encourage you to purchase this collection. I was thrilled to be able to see video footage of Pryor's brilliant "Mudbone - Little Feets" bit. If you can get around the seemingly inflated price (which at $30 isn't awful), you'll find some amusement in this collection.

This is a tough one. Say Richard Pryor's name and "70s network television," and you'll have a reason why this series lasted only four episodes. But censorship wasn't the only problem this show had.

Pryor repeatedly tried to parlay his phenomenally successful stand-up career into mainstream success, but his efforts usually resulted in crappy movies that did his talents no justice (anyone want to remember "The Toy?"). This show -- which Pryor said he personally cancelled -- is better than those, with some funny skits, like The Pips performing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Midnight Train to Georgia" without Gladys Knight, or Pryor and a youthful Marsha Warfield doing an achingly funny pantomine in a restaurant.

Many skits, however, are overly long and hinge on the audience finding humor in things like a black samurai. Other skits are heavy-handed dramatic pieces so jarring it feels like the show is slapping you for laughing at previous skits. "What, you think that's funny? Public intoxication is not funny! Here, Maya Angelou will show you!"

Pryor assembled a talented ensemble -- Robin Williams is prominent, and Tim Reid and Sandra Bernhard also show up -- but Pryor is the center of show, and the other actors generally act as his straight men. Film of the actors improvising screams for Pryor and Williams to play off each other: The footage, unfortunately, doesn't show that pairing. All the characters are Pryor's, and the supporting troupe never really got a chance to spread their wings.

It wouldn't be fair to call this a failed program: "The Richard Pryor" was strangled in the cradle before it had a chance to develop a natural flow. As it stands, it's an interesting curiosity, which, given time, might have become something memorable.

BUY this DVD today. Be sure to purchase the boxset as it is the only way to get the RICHARD PRYOR SPECIAL? and Mudbone bonus footage. This groundbreaking series paved the way for not only (the obvious) IN LIVING COLOR and CHAPPELLES SHOW, but other subversive TV like South Park which attempt to inject social commentary while challenging the censors. It not only captures Pryor at his comedic peak, but gives us early glimpses of folks like Robin Williams, Sandra Berhard, Marsha Warfield and John Witherspoon. This show has never been available on home video and has basically been out of circulation since its initial run, thus it is a jewel to behold. Watching Pryor as "The "Mojo", "the First Black President" and "Rev. White"--who has his own way to drum up "the big bucks"-- will have you laffing for hours. But Pryor also presents scketches that weren't designed to be laugh out loud funny, but challenge you in other ways, like the wino sketch that turns into a Maya Angelo performance. Or the "Satin Doll" sketch, which has no laughs at all, but aims to capture the feeling of post WWII Black america with a fantastic song-and-dance number starring Paula Kelly (choreographed by Michael Peters.) I seriously doubt these five hours of television would have come out the same if the NBC censors had been completely undertanding, sensitive and supportive of Mr. Pryor's vision. The Special is an extension of Mr. Pryor's hosting of SNL. The subsequent series itself reminds me of Marvin Gaye's HERE, MY DEAR. While it is not Marvin's most listenable or even best work, through pain he finds beauty and truth. This boxset is a must-have for fans of TV comedy and shoud be copped by any means necessary.

Thought that Richard was ahead of his time when he did this show on TV. It was funny then and it is still funny.

Was surprise to see a few comdedians that are well known today that were on the show; Robin Williams, Tim Reid, Witherspoon, Marsha Whitfield...

There's no mystery as to why The Richard Pryor Show only lasted four episodes. True, Pryor only originally contracted to do ten shows, and then renegotiated down to four once he realized that the NBC censors weren't going to let him do much of the material he wanted to do. But even though he had limited the run of the show himself, there is no doubt that the series wouldn't have lasted much more than four even if it had been intended to run a full season. Plainly put--the first two episodes sucked and by the time the excellent fourth episode hit the air, whatever audience there had been was gone. There were some bright spots in the early episodes, and though they were very bright indeed they were surrounded by pure pointless, rambling, drawn out crap. Then, suddenly, in the fourth episode--magic. But too late.

It could be that so many of Pryor and company's skits were rejected by the censors in the earlier episodes that the remaining bits had to be elongated beyond their potential or that skits were included that otherwise would have been left on the cutting room floor.
The majority of the sketches in those episodes are very old fashioned and seem distinctly un-Pryorlike--a lot of pantomime and dumb visual humor. I guess it could be that Pryor was a big Ernie Kovacs fan; a lot of the comedy resembles that stuff. In any case, the urban characters and situations that so vividly populated Pryor's standup routines were almost entirely absent from his variety show. The more I watch the DVD release of the show, however, the more I begin to think that the Richard Pryor Show was actually started as the man's big "FU" to the network. For instance, the show's theme was "For the Love of Money" indicating Pryor's admission that he was only in it for the dough and he did make many references to being creatively hog-tied and enslaved by the network. And, whether on purpose or not--the low quality of the comedy of the first shows was insulting to everyone.

Though the majority of the show's early skits and bits were determinedly dumb, there were still some bits that were good and a very few that made for extraordinary television. And the series got better as it went along. In fact, by the fourth and final episode the consistency and quality of the show improved so much that it is obvious that Rich and company had made a conscious decision to expend less effort in flipping off the network and more in trying to do something worthwhile within the constraints they had.

Here's a rundown of the good parts of the series:

First episode: poor--two and a half good parts
-The opening shows a close up of Pryor telling the audience that they need not worry that the network censors have tamed his comedy at all. In fact, he points out as the camera pulls back to a longer shot "as you can see, I'm naked." Then, as the camera pulls back to a long shot he says "and as you can see, I've given up nothing!" The long shot reveals a naked Pryor with no genitals, like a black Ken doll.
-The 40th President of the United States skit, about the first black president, is very slow to start, but eventually builds to funny stuff worthy of Pryor.
-- a dramatic piece about a singer names Satin Doll
--the other 6 or so segments of the show are a waste of time

Second Episode: Really bad--only one half-good bit.
--A sketch satirizing the To Kill a Mockingbird trial scene with Pryor as a bigoted white lawyer has some funny bits.
--and that's it. The rest of the episode sucks.

Third Episode: Improved--half brilliant, half sucky
--This episode opens with a brilliant bit in which the Network turns the sound down on a violent Pryor rant about how they're ruining his show as a voiceover tells us he's saying nice, glowing things about working for NBC. Truly hilarious.
--Richard does some of his clean standup bits (one bleep) that are very funny. What's even funnier is that the segment seems totally out of place in the show's format up to that point and was obviously stuck in out of a desire to actually give the audience some entertainment value. This episode actually seems to be a bit of a turning point for the series.
--A incredibly goofy routine featuring Pryor doing a Little Richard routine is interrupted as though another channel is accidentally bleeding through and we are treated to a dramatic monologue about a lonely woman's (imaginary?) lesbian encounter that looks like it's from a cable access show. A brilliant, touching piece of writing and performing that hints at what potential the show could have had if Pryor had been allowed the time and freedom to create what he wanted.
--A couple of skits later Pryor shifts gears entirely and presents a lovely and heartfelt circus performance for a group of children. Seems like a precursor to his "Pryor's Place" children's show he created over a decade later.
--The show ends with a very funny group improv performance by the entire cast. Like the standup routine from earlier on, it seems out of place among the goofy sketch comedy we've become used to from the show--but it is fresh and at least ten times as funny.

Fourth Episode: Pure gold all the way through.
--A sketch reminiscent of Pryor's classic "Wino and Dracula" standup routine with Pryor as a toned down version of his old Wino character and a cast member as a Mr. Hyde monster. Funny enough and Pryor-ish that it should have been longer.
--The Richard Pryor Roast. An 12 minute edit of a totally out of control 45 minute roasting of the boss by the cast and writers of the show (the unedited version is included on the dvd as an extra). The stuff that made it onto the show was still pretty funny. Paul Mooney, a pre-Mork Robin Williams, Marsha Warfield, Tim "Venus Flytrap" Reid and Sandra Bernhard participate.
--A Titanic sketch with Pryor as a porter pulling drowning white folks into a lifeboat is very funny and reminiscent of the word association skit he did with Chevy Chase back on SNL.
--The Gun Shop is a chilling non-comic sketch that most effectively translates the Pryor type storytelling to the sketch form as he wanders through a gun shop and the various weapons talk to him. Reminded me of the routine where his heart talks to him during a heart attack. Except more serious.
--The show ends on a comic note with Pryor as a horny Santa Claus. A big black "Censored" bar blacks out half the sketch.
--the dvd includes a very powerful sketch on TV violence that was rejected by the censors. It features Pryor becoming enraged about a philandering wife and tearing a room to pieces. Funny, touching, out of control and a little bit scary. At one point he yells "MY FIRST GOOD WEEK!" and he must have been talking about his show. This was the only skit that featured the kind of rage Pryor showed in his standup routines. Powerful and compelling.
--The show ends with Pryor thanking the cast and crew of the show, a touching ending for a series that I think started out as a bitter joke and ended up as a labor of love.

It's too bad Pryor didn't continue the series or at least do some more specials because I think based on the improvement from the early episodes to the last one, Pryor and company could have made television history.

ps--Also too bad he wasn't working during the cable TV era. The outtakes on the DVDs are profane and hilarious. Pryor cut totally loose on TV would put guys like Chapelle to shame.

Richard was titled, at that time, the best comic ever. What a lot of folks didn't realize, was Richard was waaay before his time. The extras shown on the three DVDs, prove how no one could harness greatness! Not even a big network. But thanks for trying. Richard's appearance on network TV did help expose his face to more of the world.
Get some of your 70's high school buddies, beer (smile) and a chair and enjoy!

This box set of the four hour-long shows and its NBC special predecessor is extremely funny! I'm only 21 years old, but thanks to my parents keeping old Richard Pryor albums around for me to listen to (which are funny as ALL Hell), I'm able to understand and hysterically laugh at all the jokes from the then mid-70's topics that the sketches are based on. The funniest ones are the Rich Televangelist, the 40th President, ... and the Pips, Star Wars Bar and many others. What I really loved about this set is the special features which include a full Richard Roast from Paul Mooney and the cast members and a 40 minute uncensored stand-up set featuring his famed Mudbone character. Anybody who loves Richard Pryor stand-up, or his mid-late 70's film roles will love this box set. If you like Chappelle's Show or In Living Color (both of which I highly recommend) This show is where they all learned from. It was truly ahead of its time. It is really worth it.

Forget Good Times. Forget What's Happening. Forget Sanford and Son or The Jeffersons. This, my friends, is the most hilarious TV show of the 1970's. Gut busting laughter all around! I remember seeing this show as a child. I screamed with laughter then and I will scream with laughter tonight when I watch this DVD!

Highlights include: Rich as Mudbone coming home drunk and cussing. When he collapses on the floor, we see Maya Angelou as his wife performing a monologue that's a real tear-jerker.

Rich as The Afro wearing preacher with the white suit with his choir singing The O'Jays' "For The Love Of Money".

Gladys Knight and The Pips...MINUS Gladys Knight! I'm cracking up just thinking about that one.

(...) You've got to get this disc!!!