Joe Rogan & Judd Apatow on Richard Pryor

Hello freak bitches. Now I think everyone likes it, but back then there was no one was watching Merv Griffin but me. Really? When I was little, I mean when I was 15 I didn't like come to school and we would laugh about Jeff Altman on Merv Griffin. I was just alone with it. Wow. Yeah I became a fan of stand up, watching stand up on TV, like watching like the Tonight Show and Evening at the Improv and stuff like that. But really the big one, the run that really kicked in for me was my parents took me to see Live on the Sunset Strip. Oh wow. And I was a teenager, a young teenager and I remember being in the audience while Richard Pryor was on stage slaying and people were laughing so hard and I was laughing so hard I looked around, I'll never forget this moment because I looked around at the crowd while the movie was going on and all these people were like ahhhhh falling out of their chair, laughing their knee, holding their chest and I was like this guy's just talking. He's just talking and he's this funny. This is incredible. I'm like this is an amazing thing this guy can do. Like I'd never seen real stand up before. I'd only seen like someone on the Johnny Carson show do a couple minutes and tell a few jokes. That in my mind was what stand up was. It wasn't until, and I'd listened to some of the old Bill Cosby stuff and some of the old Carlin stuff on records but I'd never seen it like seeing the movie Live on the Sunset Strip and that planted, didn't plant a seed like I can do it but it did plant a seed like holy shit this is possible. This is crazy that this is possible. And it's still the best special. It's one of the best ever without a doubt. He holds up in a very very unique way where a lot of comedy from that era just including Lenny Bruce doesn't really hold up. It's because it's contextual. Like if you were there in that time it was groundbreaking but that's not groundbreaking anymore because the culture has moved on so far and a lot of that could be attributed to his insight. Like Lenny Bruce's insight changed the way a lot of people thought and discussed a lot of like really important issues at that time. But there was something about Pryor's, his honesty and his delivery and his point of view that's like to this day like God he was good. There was a record they put out a few years ago where they didn't tell you what album it was but it was just bits and I think maybe a lot of bits that were recorded when he recorded an album but didn't make the album. Like it was just, it was in eras like 70s, 80s, 90s and when you listen to his stuff from the 70s it's so militant. It's so militant and it all works perfectly today. Like what he's mad about all applies to right now. And then when he goes honest about himself and relationships you do feel it like oh there's not many people opening up like this. There's not a comparable person. There's a lot of comedians who talk about their lives but he's really, he's ripping open the veins much deeper than anybody even now. Sure and he was talking about horrific addiction issues that he had back then. I mean addiction issues that caused him to light himself on fire. I mean when he was talking about that back then who the hell had done that? You remember he would do that thing where he would light a match and move it around like who am I? I'm Richard Pryor running down the street. And joke around about lighting himself on fire and how the whole audience laughed. I was like wow that was crazy. There was some bits where he talked about having multiple sclerosis near the end of his life and he was still doing the comedy store and on audio they were riotously funny, brutally honest bits about what it felt like to be that sick. And I don't think it ever was on an album before. When he was doing that, when he was coming back to the comedy store when he was really sick before he died, I was the guy who went on after him every night, every night for like five weeks. Every time he did a show I'd bomb so many times going on after Richard Pryor. It was death. And how was he? Terrible. He was old and he was sick and he was drunk and he was on pills and he probably shouldn't have been there but he just wanted to do it. It wasn't good. It wasn't Richard Pryor. First of all he was really unhealthy so they had to crank the microphone up like ... I couldn't even hear him. Barely hear him. And he would like, I always love pussy. There was nothing there. He was just kind of talking and ranting and he'd be on stage with a drink and people didn't know how to respond and they would give him this amazing round of applause when he got on stage and it took forever for them to get him to the stage because Chewie who worked the door and this guy Dave would carry Richard Pryor to the stage and slowly just move him towards the stage and all the time the people would be clapping and then they would sit him down and then they would put the microphone in place and crank that fucking thing up to ten and then he would do his stand up. But it was, people were almost like paying homage. Homage? They were there to see the great one. You know when he was there and he's still alive and it's like wow we're seeing like the greatest stand up comedian of all time. He's right there. Wow. You know it was more of that than it was like him doing really well. It was never like a good set. I never saw him kill. And then you would come out. I would eat dick. Just go out there and just eat plates of shit. People were so depressed. There's no way out. What was your attempt to pull out of it? I would go on stage and I would say and now ladies and gentlemen an unknown white guy after the greatest comedian of all time this douchey looking Italian looking kid. I would just make fun of myself for a few minutes and you know and then sometimes I talk about how Richard Pryor was like you know huge because it would take a long time for him to get off the stage too. So that was the other thing. Like I would get introduced by Jeff who's a piano man and I would pass Richard and Dave and Chewie as they were carrying Richard off. Like you'd have to kind of move around him and then get onto the stage and then you'd have to say Richard Pryor ladies and gentlemen and sometimes you see people's eyes and they're like fuck. Like what did we just see? This is so depressing. Facing their own mortality. Yeah absolutely yeah. And you know Richard they like I remember like he wasn't supposed to drink but he drank anyway because they had him on all this medication. They were like fuck you just kept drinking. Yeah it was weird. It was dark. I remember meeting him at a birthday party. I went with Jim Carrey to his birthday party and it was sad. I mean it was sad to see somebody that ill and then especially when you think of just the power of the guy. Just how crazy funny he was because there's not that many people just to the core funny. I remember when Robin Williams used to come into the improv in the late 80s and he would kill so hard there was just no way to recover. The room couldn't recover. And there's not that many people who couldn't do that now. I feel like people could follow each other now. You know Louis comes in and you go on after him and you know and like he kills but like when Robin Williams would come in like he wanted to end the show. So yeah. I think that's it. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye.