"Folks, the ratings weren't too high. As a matter of fact, they were so low for this show we were beaten out by a documentary on PBS entitled 'The Armadillo: Nature's Little Tank.'" - Tim Reid in Episode Four's "Richard Pryor Roast"
The Richard Pryor Show DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
In 1977, fresh from the back-to-back film hits Silver Streak and Greased Lightning, incendiary comedian Richard Pryor taped a television special for NBC. The show, entitled The Richard Pryor Special?, was a hit. Even though the comedian's movie career was taking off and he gravitated toward controversial standup material, NBC convinced the star to turn the special into a weekly series. Both would come to regret the decision.
Pryor's comedic style was a bit too risqué for network television of the 1970s. He ran into trouble with the very first sketch in the first episode. In the sketch, a bare-chested Pryor welcomes viewers to the show, telling them not to worry about his act being toned down for TV. On the contrary, he points out that "you can see that I'm naked and that I've given up absolutely nothing." The camera then pulls back to reveal Pryor's sexless, Ken doll-esque body. After a heated battle, the network rejected the sketch. Pryor chaffed at having to compromise his vision to please the censors, and NBC became more wary about what their star might choose to present on his show.
None of this would have mattered had The Richard Pryor Show become a hit, but NBC unceremoniously dumped the show in the worst possible timeslot. On September 13, 1977, the series premiered opposite the top two shows on TV, Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days. Even after the public controversy surrounding the cuts drew attention to the series, audiences rejected Pryor in favor of ABC's retro-themed hits. NBC had an initial order for ten episodes, but a frustrated Pryor pulled the plug after four. The final episode aired on October 20, and the show was relegated to being a well-regarded but rarely seen footnote in television history.
Thanks to the wonder that is DVD, audiences can once again view the four episodes of The Richard Pryor Show and the original special that inspired it, allowing viewers to see for themselves what all of the fuss was about. Watching these episodes makes it clear that the show is neither as off-color as NBC believed nor as compromised as Pryor may have feared. Twenty-seven years later, these shows seem so sharp and funny that perhaps neither party understood just how special a creation The Richard Pryor Show really is.
One reason that the series has remained fresh is that the writers mostly avoided of-the-moment topicality in favor of pure comedy and universal themes. Several of the more uproarious sketches center on racial tension, a subject that has aged well since, unfortunately, it has never really gone away. In a sketch from episode 1, Pryor appears as the 40th President of the United States. The presidential press conference starts off innocuously enough, but it soon degenerates into a brawl between journalists from Jet and Ebony, those from Southern newspapers, and the President himself. Episode 2's "Southern Justice" expertly sends up To Kill a Mockingbird and real-life Southern kangaroo courts where black defendants are automatically guilty regardless of evidence to the contrary.
Pryor and company did manage to push the boundaries of what is acceptable on network television. In episode 4's side-splittingly funny "Titanic," Pryor is a porter from the doomed ship who mans an empty lifeboat. Slowly, other survivors - all white - begin to make their way to the boat. The first survivor to climb aboard is perfectly nice, but each subsequent passenger calls out to their potential rescuer using racial epithets like "Sambo," "tar baby," "darkie," "Remus," "shinola," and "jungle bunny." This in a show that was first broadcast in what we now call "the family hour" - primetime's first hour of nightly programming. The sketch is, on the surface, ludicrous, yet it also contains a kernel of truth. Several years prior, shows like All in the Family had pioneered the use of similar derogatory terms in primetime television, but Pryor's show was among the first that dared to show the direct effect such language had on those at whom the slurs were aimed. Archie railed against "jigaboos" in the sanctity of his own home. In The Richard Pryor Show, these epithets were hurled directly at Pryor.
At times, the series is almost leisurely in its storytelling. Episode 1's "Satin Doll" eschews laughs in favor of recreating a specific time and place, in this case post-WWII New York. Running for over twenty minutes, the sketch employs a freeform narrative in which the focus drifts from Pryor's lovesick vet to performers in a club and back again. The sketch's bittersweet ending is a reminder of Pryor's effortlessly effective dramatic acting skills.
Pryor and his writers took dramatic risks in other sketches, too. Dramatic bits on comedy variety shows are not a sure bet, but the few that are presented here are mostly successful. "New Talent" in episode 3 juxtaposes silly footage of Pryor as Little Richard with an oddly affecting monologue by a lonely, unstable woman. The show also avoids mawkishness in that same episode's sentimental "Once Upon a Time." This ode to imagination features Pryor as an elderly man who entertains neighborhood kids with a pretend circus in his ghetto junkyard.
Not every sketch is successful. Episode 1's "Mojo the Healer," for example, comes up short. Even the occasional misfires, however, are worth watching. "Black Death" in episode 2 features Pryor as the lead singer of a KISS-like rock band. The band's musical number goes on too long to be interesting, but the end of the sketch takes a macabre yet fun turn as the singer systematically kills his audience using poisoned drugs, DDT, and a machine gun.
Pryor is aided by a ridiculously talented group of performers, some of whom went on to be famous in their own right. This group includes Sandra Bernhard, Edie McClurg, Paul Mooney, WKRP in Cincinnati's Tim Reid, Night Court's Marsha Warfield, Allegra Allison, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'s Charles Fleischer (who shines in a surreally funny skit about Pryor's pet head), and future Patch Adams star Robin Williams. In a nod to traditional variety shows, episode 2 features a musical performance by the O'Jays and episode 4 a standup performance by Native American comedian Charlie Hill.
The Richard Pryor Show: Volume 1 (containing episodes 1 and 2, plus deleted scenes) and Volume 2 (containing episodes 3 and 4, plus deleted scenes) can be purchased separately or as a set. The boxed set version includes a bonus disc with The Richard Pryor Special? and two deleted scenes. The discs are housed in standard keepcases which slide into a cardboard sleeve. Viewers can choose to play all episodes, play an individual episode, or watch specific sketches through a scene selection menu.
