A Quote by Denis Leary
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.
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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.
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.
The earliest stand-up comedy I was aware of was Bill Cosby. I watched Saturday Night Live as soon as I was aware of it, and Monty Python used to be on PBS at weird hours, so I used to try to watch that. And I loved George Carlin on SNL, that was the first stand-up I ever really remember seeing on TV. And then Steve Martin. I guess I was in fifth or sixth grade when Steve Martin showed up, and he was instantly my idol. And Richard Pryor around the same time too, I sort of became aware of him, though I don't remember the first time I saw him.
Before I even knew what stand up was, I tried to make people laugh at school because that was how I made friends, so I think that's how I got drawn into comedy and obviously I was just some kid at school being silly, so the first time I saw a professional comedian and how smooth and funny the person was I totally got into standup and I would say obviously Richard Pryor was the guy. He's the greatest of all time and then George Carlin, Sam Kinison, Bill Cosby. It's so weird to bring up his name now but leaving out his off-stage antics... you could learn a lot from him.
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.
I've always loved American stand-up. Richard Pryor is one of the main reasons I got into stand-up. After Pryor, I made my way through the other great American comics, then finally got into the British ones over here.
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.
Richard Pryor is my favorite stand-up ever.
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.
I just like to build. Don't get me wrong: I think stand-up is great, and when someone like Richard Pryor or Steve Martin does stand-up, there's nothing better in the world. But I don't want to watch a lot of stand-ups for two hours. So I can do 45 minutes of stand-up and then say, 'Can we do something else now?'
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.
I really understood a lot more about comedy after listening to Bill Hicks, who died at 32 years old. He's probably the best comedian who ever lived. Although you can't say that because of Carlin, Cosby and Pryor.
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.
[Televised stand-up] never really makes me laugh. The only one I ever saw that I liked was Richard Pryor, and that was [shot on] film.
Richard Pryor is, in my mind, the most honest comedian. He bared his soul to people. I think that's why everybody loved him so much.
I've met so many remarkable people so far, coming up through stand-up all these years, who just aren't alive anymore. Because they are dead. Some really great people who helped change my life and career, people like Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, Rodney Dangerfield, Johnny Carson.
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