A Quote by Ari Graynor
You look at Richard Pryor and Robert Klein and George Carlin and Richard Lewis - those guys were so smart, they were the thinking-man stand-ups.
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One of my greatest inspirations for stand-up was Jonathan Winters. He was a genius. One thing about him, and also Lenny Bruce, is that they were in the tradition of the one-man show. That's why Richard Pryor was so great, and George Carlin, too. They prowled the stage, they used voices, they were really talents.
When I was growing up, I had more comedy albums than musical ones. George Carlin, Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor - those were my main men.
Young stand-ups, we ought to do comedy in George Carlin's spirit, in Richard Pryor's spirit, in Jackie Gleason's spirit, in Lucille Ball's spirit, because they did it with the spirit.
I look to icons like George Carlin, Chris Rock, and Richard Pryor on how to present these concepts of social change and subversiveness to an audience in a way that's palatable.
George Carlin was great right up to the end of his life. But Richard Pryor was probably the best, most gifted stand-up comedian who will ever live.
It went from Bob Newhart to Flip Wilson to Bill Cosby to Richard Pryor to George Carlin to Cheech and Chong. I had all these records.
As far as stand-ups go, I always loved Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, and Sinbad. Basically, I love black comedians because they're the funniest. I wish I were a black comedian, actually.
To me, those three are the revolutionaries. Richard Pryor was honest, raw. George Carlin was brilliant. He was also deep, fearless. And Sam Kinison was another one who went deeper and he revolutionized the angle of tackling humor with the whole rock star element of yelling and screaming, which was hilarious.
I love comedy and I would write things to myself as an exercise in writing. I didn't do well for years, and I quit. I started to break down why I was afraid and started to look at people I admired, like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin and all.
I was scared to death because for the comics of my generation, HBO specials are like the pinnacle. I'm thinking of all these unbelievable comedians I've seen on HBO: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Damon Wayans, Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal. I started having a panic attack seeing my name in that list of people. It was pretty overwhelming.
When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records.
There's only going be one Richard Pryor. You know how many came out after Richard Pryor and died trying to be compared to him? Or Bernie Mac? You got to be like you.
I view my stories as sexual or personal. Curiously, I don't. When I was writing those stories I thought of them as comedy pieces in the vein of performance monologue, such as you might get with Richard Pryor, or Lenny Bruce, or George Carlin. So I don't feel vulnerable because I know the line of demarcation between "Writer Kevin" and "Narrative Kevin."
Richard Pryor was my hero. Richard Pryor was keeping it 100.
I've paid attention to guys growin' up like Richard Pryor or Paul Mooney. The message that they were sending with what they did was so much bigger than them.
Becoming Richard Pryor is a compulsively readable book that sets a new gold standard for American biography. Scott Scaul's research is extraordinary; his writing is taut, elegant, and insightful; and he captures both the hilarity and pain that made Richard Pryor such a towering figure.
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