The true measure of Richard Pryor’s impact can’t be found in the films he starred in and the albums he cut, it’s the impact that he made on the next generation of boundary-pushing comedians and those that have been inspired by them. Simply, there is pre-Richard Pryor comedy and post-Richard Pryor comedy, and the latter is filled with honesty and sharpness that Pryor’s students picked up from watching and listening to the man as he spoke in a profane and profound manner about society in his time. Today, as we mark the passage of ten years since Pryor’s death, it seemed right to reflect on some his most important and influential bits, though we acknowledge that to truly understand Pryor’s power, you really should listen to his whole body of work — his early period, his sketch series, and the later work which we mostly focused on.
Warning: a lot of this material may be considered NSFW
Mudbone
One of Pryor’s most popular creations, Mudbone was a politically incorrect (to put it mildly) street smart wino who conversed with the many colorful characters in his life. At one point, Pryor started to move away from Mudbone, but during the 1982 special, Live At the Sunset Strip, an audience member yells out “do Mudbone!” and Pryor reluctantly obliges. The above clip features the most famous Mudbone bit, “Little Feets.”
His time spent working with the mob
Some forget that Pryor was a tremendous storyteller who could easily fall into characters. Here, he tells the story of when, as a teenager, he worked in a mafia-owned club and decided to challenge the owners after finding out the workers weren’t going to get paid. What follows is a curse-filled blood-splattered tale that rises above some of Pryor’s other material thanks to the strength of his performance and character work.
His openness about his substance abuse
In 1980, Pryor set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. It was a serious incident and one that got a lot of attention, but Pryor got whatever positives that he could out of the experience when he poured the pain into his act. In Live On The Sunset Strip, Pryor talked about the fallout from the incident, including the excruciating pain he felt when the nurses at the hospital washed his body.
The special ends with Pryor acknowledging the jokes that were made about the incident, repeating one that he had heard about himself which involved the striking of a match, “What’s that? Richard Pryor running down the street.”
Clearly, nothing was off limits for Richard Pryor.
When he explained why he stopped using the N-word:
Throughout Pryor’s career, he frequently used the n-word in his act and in the titles of his albums. After the freebasing incident, though, he seemed to change his views on the word. In this clip, Pryor explains his new mindset, proclaiming that the word was “dead” as he delivered a powerful moment that still managed to get laughs.
When he and Chevy Chase played a game of word association on Saturday Night Live:
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A non-stand-up moment, but one that might be one of Pryor’s most recognizable on any screen. It’s a simple premise: Richard Pryor is interviewing for a job and Chevy Chase is the interviewer who asks him to say the first word that comes to mind when hearing another given word. But when Chase begins spouting off a series of racial slurs, things get heated until they reach their boiling point.
The sketch has reached legendary status due to the way it takes a razor-sharp look at subterranean racism, but you have to wonder if such a bold bit of humor would be allowed on the airwaves today. You also have to wonder how Pryor would fare in these more polite times.