Modified On December 12, 2005
From Jamy Ian Swiss, magician and comedy fan, comes this essay on the impact of Richard Pryor:
Richard Pryor is gone.
Some fool might say he’s been gone for years, due to his failing health and the progression of the multiple sclerosis he was diagnosed with in 1986. But most– and this fan, for one– would say he has always been present, and indeed will always be present, thanks to his pervasive and profound influence as an artist.
I believe Richard Pryor was the greatest comedian of my lifetime. I say this on due consideration– decades of consideration– and without hyperbole. I am a passionate fan of George Carlin– I saw him on the original Seven Dirty Words tour when I was 19 years old, I saw him at the live HBO broadcast a few weeks ago, and I’ve seen him on other occasions in between– I think he is now far and way our greatest living comic– but I can’t help but suspect that even Carlin himself would be quick to rate Pryor ahead of himself on the scale of impact, influence, and profound originality.
I say this not to take anything away from Carlin, but I cannot seem to discuss Pryor without thinking of Carlin as well. These were the great comic models I grew up with– along with a man who helped make them all famous, Johnny Carson, a king of a different breed, but comic royalty just the same. I learned about comedy by watching Carson’s show, learned from him about a generation of comics that had influenced him, learned from him by dissecting his monologues the morning after with fellow comedy students. And I learned from him by his open-hearted embrace of new comics– as when I saw Albert Brooks pour a glass of water down the mouth of a vent dummy and eventually kick the crap out of it– including the likes of George Carlin and Richard Pryor.
(Read the rest here, continued in the “Comments” to this post).