Luckily, young Pryor found a couple teachers who recognized his array of special comedic talents: pantomime, imitation, characterization, and physical silliness. Years later, he called Lewis “the God of comedy.” Jerry Lewis immediately jumped to the top of his list of comedy heroes. ![]() A breakthrough moment occurred at age 12, when he saw the Martin-and-Lewis feature Sailor Beware at the Rialto Theater. I come from criminal people,” he once confessed in an interview.Īs a child, Pryor found refuge at the movies, especially cartoons and Westerns. Throughout his childhood, Pryor was the subject of vicious and brutal beatings. Pryor’s mom was a prostitute, and his dad, Buck, was a pimp, bouncer, and bartender. ![]() Pryor was born December 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, and raised in the middle of a thriving red-light district. The story of how he became, as Jerry Seinfeld put it, “the Picasso of our profession” is a uniquely American journey. As Chris Rock told EW: “Every comedian will tell you that it is, by far, the greatest piece of stand-up ever done.”īefore Richard Pryor could usher in our modern era, he had to become Richard Pryor. The importance of that special cannot be overstated. The comedian was Richard Pryor, and the event was the release of the motion picture Richard Pryor: Live in Concert. If there was such a date, I would humbly argue for February 2, 1979. But what about the title of Vulture’s 100 Jokes mega-list: When did comedy finally became modern? Similarly, one can see exactly how game-changing technology modernized and transformed comedy: feature-length films (1914), sound films (1927), network radio (1928), network television (1947), the LP record (1948), HBO comedy specials (1975), YouTube (2004), and podcasting (2005). The evolution of comedy is evident in Vulture’s 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy (disclosure: I helped compile that list), with each comic standing on the shoulders of comics standing on the shoulders of comics, and so on. The bar for what constitutes modern keeps moving. So, in an ever-changing art form, what passes as modern and edgy can slowly turn old-fashioned. Usually, after a couple generations, most comedy loses a good deal of its bite. ![]() Does that mean Gaffigan is funnier than Rogers? Not necessarily. More fans today are listening to Jim Gaffigan than Will Rogers. What made your great-grandmother laugh will probably be a bit different from what tickles you.
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