reflective music
[Paul] I've always liked large women.
That's my problem. I don't like skinny women.
I got a saying, if you're not 280,
you're not my lady, you know, 'cause I--
[laughter]
I don't like skinny women.
They're always in bad moods
'cause they can't cook or they're hungry.
Fuck knows what's going on.
I like large women, you know?
I live in the dangerous part of town.
I want somebody who can give me some backup
in a barfight, you know?
[Mike] In the late '70s and '80s,
I was blessed to be here
during The Comedy Store's first golden age.
We shot a Comedy Store anniversary show
directed by Marty Callner
that Richard Pryor and Robin Williams headlined
from this very room.
Jim Carrey and I did sets for that special
out at the Westwood Comedy Store,
representing the new class on the way up.
And I'd like to start off this evening with a piece
from the new punk ballet,
Wounded Swan Lake.
[laughter]
I used to smoke marijuana quite a bit in high school,
but I stopped because I was afraid
I might kill some brain cells permanently.
You ever think about that?
Seriously.
Later in life, you go to learn about some new molecule,
and a little guy comes running out
in the back of your brain.
"No, no, this whole wing is closed down.
[laughter]
"Nah, you burnt through here at a Pink Floyd concert.
Hey, you're lucky to be doing basic math, all right?"
Being back here today,
seeing so many great comedians and the Store going so strong,
thinking back on all the people that were here
when I was starting out,
knowing all the ups and downs we all went through,
it's surreal to be able to just stand back
and enjoy it all.
In Texas, grown men wear cowboy uniforms.
[laughter]
You hear what I just said?
Grown adult men wear cowboy uniforms
and they're not fucking cowboys.
They're just normal dudes playing dress-up all day long.
These are grown men in drag
wearing another man's work clothes.
It's me leaving my house in a fireman's uniform like,
"I'm headed to the comedy club."
[laughter]
[Iliza] I was standing around my bachelorette party,
we did end up going to a bar, and I was sitting there,
I'm 35, and I was looking around
with all the women I'd been drinking with
for the last decade or so,
and it was weird to me, the idea that you have
your bachelorette party at a bar,
'cause you are, in effect, picking up
the ashen, lifeless body of your singledom
and bringing it to rest where it was born.
[laughter]
In a bar.
[Mike] The first time I came back to the Store
after an almost 20-year break was to see Bill Burr.
He played Kevin Costner's law partner
in my film Black or White.
I then directed his stand-up special
at Royal Albert Hall in London,
Paper Tiger.
At least part of his success is due
to his Monday Morning Podcast.
It's insanely popular. The fans are devout.
After knowing him for years,
I finally badgered the poor guy
to have me on as a guest.
[Bill] Hey, what's going on?
It's Bill Burr and it's time for another edition
of the Monday Morning Podcast.
As you know, most times, I do not have guests.
It's usually me just rambling,
old man with his crazy thoughts,
but every once in a while, somebody so special comes along
that I gotta bring 'em on.
Welcome one of the legends of The Comedy Store,
Mike Binder, everybody.
- How you doing, Bill? - I'm doing good.
Actually, the first time I came to The Comedy Store
after, like, 20 years was to see you.
You and I came-- we were doing press
for Black or White on Sunset Boulevard at the DGA
and we came down
and you did a set in the main room,
and we went into The Comedy Store
and it was packed
and I couldn't believe it.
The place was on fire.
And I go, "What's going on here tonight?"
And you went, "Nothing."
- [laughs] - "It's like this every night."
Yeah, I kinda got used to it.
Somewhere around, like, 2010, 2011,
it just became-- like, it's, like, a scene.
One of the things, being back at The Comedy Store
all these years later,
it's so amazing to me
to see how much it takes to run the place.
As a kid, I never thought about that.
Mitzi made it seem so easy.
When I was there, when I was, like, 19,
there was this crisis
that almost shut the whole place down
that Mitzi had to deal with.
- The strike? - Yeah.
When the strike came up,
for a lot of us, it was like,
well, we had no experience
and she gave us club time when she was just starting out.
I just remember hearing that it was really...
it was ugly.
And I gotta tell you, when I first started
going to that club in the late '90s,
I felt like a lot of that was still hanging over the club.
dramatic music
[Johnny] Young comedians out here
who work at a place called The Comedy Store
are on strike.
- Right. - They're striking
because they think they should get paid.
How do you feel about that now?
Well, I think they're bananas.
- I think they're all bananas. - Really? Why?
The way it looks to me is,
if you've got a place
where you can get up and do your stuff,
where you can learn your craft, especially with an audience,
'cause when you do it in front of a mirror,
you don't get much reaction.
But if the mirror does react,
you better go in a different business, like--
[laughter]
But I do wanna add one other thing.
- Yeah. - [imitates monkey]
Now, you guys learn to do that and you can come here.
We'll be right back.
[Byron] The Comedy Store, up until this point,
it was a family,
and then all of a sudden, our family was shattered.
Comics saw that...
I think she was making 100,000 a week.
And then you got comics who are not getting paid.
Now, these guys realize they ain't getting paid,
then they come up with the theory that...
the waitress come here, she getting paid.
Why can't you share half of the ticket sales with us
and you take the bar?
You make your money off the liquor in this business.
It didn't make sense to me,
but then again, I'm from the Soviet Union.
They weren't paying anybody anyway,
so to me, it wasn't a big deal.
Soviet Union knows...
[laughs]
There would be--firing squad would be right next to them.
There were people who were just mad
because she wasn't giving them time slots
and they wanted to bring her down.
She told the guy who ran Monday nights
that she was gonna put me on in a regular spot,
so it was, like, my first spot.
The issue is, there's X amount of time slots.
That's it.
To know you got one,
and oh, boy, you felt great.
You told your friends, "I got a spot tomorrow!"
One time, we estimated there were 300
young, you know, "stand-up comics,"
people who saw themselves
and identified themselves as stand-up comics.
There was no way to accommodate that
on one stage.
She couldn't do it if she wanted to.
Six o'clock in the morning, the phone rings
and it's my older brother in New York
telling me that my father died.
And I'm thinking, "Oh, man, I gotta get a plane ticket
and I gotta go home," and then I think, "No.
I got a time spot at The Comedy Store."
Finally, I came to The Comedy Store
and went up to Mitzi's office and I said,
"I just found out that my father died
"and I think I should go home for the funeral,
but when I get back, will you give me a spot?"
And she was looking at me like I was crazy.
And she said, "Yeah, you go home,
"you go to the funeral, you come back,
I'll give you a spot."
But it just shows
how crazy this stuff can make you.
Especially young guys far from home.
Here was a mom figure, you know?
Wasn't a tough, cigar-smoking club owner.
She was a nice lady.
[as Mitzi] "Are you okay? Can I get you--
you want a drink? You wanna sit down?"
You know, whatever it might be, even a place to stay,
but for some reason, she was just adamant
about not paying anybody.
Everybody always has a nasty thing to say about her,
but if it was a man, they'd be like,
"Oh, he's a great businessman, that's why."
And Mitzi had been so good to me.
- Mm-hmm. - She'd been so good to me.
Me as well.
She cosigned a car for me.
She writes me checks whenever I need money
and I'm broke.
If she believed in your ass,
you were gonna make it, boy.
She gon' push you
until you just stop yourself.
The comics that were coming out of here
were getting multi-million dollar deals.
The amount of exposure that the comedians got here
was worth so much more, okay?
I mean, the strike seemed to be for the people
who were never gonna make it big.
This is not what these guys are doing.
These guys are doing this to get another gig.
They were fighting over, you know, gas money.
25 bucks.
But essential to life.
Like, there was a moment in my life
where that was all I had:
five nights a week, three clubs a night,
and it's what Melissa and I and my daughter survived on.
I don't think she did it 'cause she was greedy.
She just saw this as a college
or a place where comedians should work out.
She felt this was a showcase
and gave people a jump-off point
to be on whatever TV shows they were on
or whatever movies they got.
[Mitzi] Cannot have a union tell me
how to run The Comedy Store.
I cannot develop young comedy talent
with a union over my head.
This is not a night club. This is a workshop.
Yeah, that's a nice way of getting free labor.
No, I'm not with it.
This is a bar, okay,
that has entertainment, all right?
That's where you make your money.
You can pay the comics.
Were they gonna chip in
and pay for this woman's investment
if she went broke?
- No. - We would have these meetings.
Yeah.
The objective of which was, I'm not certain,
but Jay would be so disruptive.
[William] If there was a microphone
and there were people in a room,
Jay would get up and perform, and he couldn't stop,
so Tom was trying to be serious.
They voted that I would be the spokesman.
I regret that to this day.
It was just like, "Oh, please,
"can somebody call Jay's parents
and have them come pick him up because--"
- Totally. - He's disrupting the meetings.
Do you remember that he went, "I say we elect a king"?
[laughs]
"Order! Order!"
And you'd go, "Fries and a cheeseburger."
No, I remember--I think it was,
"I think we got our own law in this town.
Let's string 'em up right now! Yeah, come on!"
You know, like one of those bad western movies.
And then the first night, you show up in a tank.
- We had a tank, yeah. - Yeah.
[Gary] Here's Jay Leno in a camo outfit
talking to Connie Chung.
He was the center of the whole thing.
I mean, I remember walking the picket line
with Dave Letterman.
Nightclub owners say, "Hey, I'll give you the audience,
"I'll give you the atmosphere,
and you don't have to come if you don't want to."
If you have the place and there's no cover charge,
we'll work all the time,
but when we go onstage and you charge $5 at the door,
then I think that the comedians are
entitled to something.
I took Mitzi's side.
I owed Mitzi.
I think it was a mistake
to cross the picket line of my friends.
I regret it.
I remember Garry Shandling crossed the picket line
and he was persona non grata for a lot of people.
I remember Mitzi drove in in the Jag
and took a look, and when she saw Letterman
and, subsequently, me,
it broke her heart.
She went downstairs and sat next to Al and Steven
at the window, looking out onto Sunset Boulevard.
Everyone was waiting to see what Letterman was gonna do,
and when he joined the picket line,
it just destroyed her.
Whenever Mitzi would talk about the strike,
she would mostly express about how hurt she was.
She called me and said,
[as Mitzi] "David,
I heard you're going on strike."
"Yes, Mitzi, I am."
"Why would you do this to me?"
And I said, "Mitzi, I have to. These are my friends."
They could be a doorman or a telephone man
and then they learn their craft 'cause they're here every night
and they work up.
They break in new lines
and go on TV and they're proven already.
I mean, that's what this is all about.
Most of those places are furnished,
most of the young comedians who come here.
- [Buddy] That's right. - You know, who start here.
We get them from The Improv,
we get them from The Comedy Store,
we get them from these places.
I thought it was about money.
But it's not really about the dough, is it?
I don't care what--I don't care if it's 2019.
[Mike] It was never about the dough.
It was more about the control. This was her club.
And I knew now we had to dig in.
Do you know how the strike ended?
I'm not sure.
We had this big meeting down here on Sunset Boulevard
at some union hall.
So Mitzi sent over Biff Manard to speak for The Comedy Store.
And then you say good bye
I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said,
"Comics don't need to be paid because they're artists
and artists don't need to be paid."
Well, in the room are all artists.
All screen actors, Guild actors, you know?
At the end of that, they voted there
that they were gonna support us.
You think you know me well
But you don't know me
[wild laughter]
[cheers and applause]
Now, Biff leaves there very angry,
and I come back here
and we're out in front of The Comedy Store,
we're picketing.
Across the street, facing this way,
facing east,
is Biff Manard in his car racing his engine.
- [imitates engine revving] - [tires squeal]
And I hear, boom! And scream and boom.
I look around.
And you go down to the ground.
- [boom] - Yeah, that's right.
And you go down to the ground hard.
And the car goes all the way back here
and Jay Leno's laying on the ground
and his eyes are in the back of his head like this
and I went, "Oh, my God,"
and the women start screaming, Dottie Archibald screaming,
"He hit Jay! He hit Jay! Oh, my God.
- Somebody call an ambulance." - [siren wails]
Somebody came outside and said,
"Mitzi wants to talk to you inside."
I went inside, she said, "Tommy, let's settle this thing
"once and for all.
I've had it." And I said, "So have I."
And we sat up till four o'clock that morning.
We had a lawyer, Ken Browning, come down
and we wrote out the contract and agreed to it.
Dreesey comes over and says, "Should we call an ambulance?"
And you go, "No, no,
put me in a car and take me to the hospital."
I kneel down and I said, "Jay, Jay,"
and he opens one eye and he goes like this.
And they drive away and you go,
"Looked real, didn't it?"
- [both laugh] - Yeah, that's right.
You slammed the side of his car.
Yeah, I went like this, like "Ah!"
[groans]
We had to have that negotiation
and we achieved what we needed to achieve.
It was an idea whose time had come.
If you look around the United States now,
there's not a club where comics are working free.
But also needed to get over it.
All of it was just so unnecessary
and I just never came back.
At the end of the strike, one of Mitzi's favorites,
an up-and-comer named Steve Lubetkin...
Steve Lubetkin came to me and said to me, "Tom,
"I've called in three weeks in a row
and I'm not getting any times."
People got spots, people didn't get spots, you know?
But he had--he was a mental illness problem.
"She'll retaliate."
I said, "No, no, it's in the contract
"that there's no retaliation for walking the picket line,
so it's gonna be fine."
[Lue] He ends up checking in to the hotel next door
and jumping from the 12th floor.
I was the last guy to see him alive.
I was at the-- I was at the train having--
you know, that boxcar that sells hot dogs
down the road on Sunset?
I was sitting there and he walked by
and I said, "Steve, what's up?"
And he goes, "Nothing, man. Nothing."
And he just walked right by me.
And then 40 minutes later,
I hear police cars and ambulances
going towards the Hyatt House.
[Harris] And then we're starting the show
and a cop comes to the door
and shows me his driver's license
and says, "Do you know him?"
And I go, "Yeah, he's a comedian here.
Is there any trouble?"
And the cop just pointed at the ramp.
I knew him, little--
you never know he gonna jump off a damn roof
because, you know, Mitzi told him--
he said Mitzi told him
that you're never gonna work here again.
You're never gonna work here again.
He thought that was the end of his life.
He was suicidal. They can all talk that crap.
Mitzi ain't had nothing to do with that.
Richard Lewis was sitting at the bar
and he almost fell over,
'cause Steve Lubetkin was his best friend.
He had some of the worst runs of bad luck.
He got "The Tonight Show" and then one night,
it was, like, 1:30 in the morning
and he was just fucking around onstage
emceeing, "Hey, where you from?",
you know, what people do,
and a talent coordinator saw him
and immediately canceled his "Tonight Show" show.
I know a lot of people that have killed themselves
and you always say, "What could I have done?"
You know, the person who ultimately takes their life
is responsible.
[emcee] Gentleman coming to the stage right now
is making his first appearance back at The Comedy Store
in 40 years.
Tom Dreesen, ladies and gentlemen.
Bring him out.
[cheers and applause]
[Dreesen] Thank you.
I don't think I'll ever get married again.
I think about it sometimes. I think I'll just get a dog.
Yeah, 'cause the dog is man's best friend.
My buddy said, "No, my wife is my best friend."
I said, "A dog is man's best friend."
Put your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car,
leave them there for an hour, open the trunk,
see which one is happy to see you.
[laughter]
I will say this: my wife did try to save the marriage.
I came home one day, she was stark naked.
She said, "Tie me up
and you can do anything you want."
So I tied her up and I went to play golf.
[laughter]
I'm gonna be honest with you, couple times,
I had a little trouble concentrating
'cause I was thinking, "Look where I'm at.
I'm back here at The Comedy Store."
It was so much fun.
- Did you ever come back after? - No.
I came back here in the mid, late '80s
and was frightened
because it was Sam Kinison days
and I felt that they might hurt me.
[both laugh]
What's it like when you drive by the Store?
I think of all those days
that I used to stand out in line
hoping to get on on open mic night.
[Bill] And I can't believe I've know you all these years
and I've never asked you,
what was your first audition like for Mitzi Shore?
It was at the Westwood Comedy Store
and I was late.
You were late for your audition?
I was late, but I parked in the alley
and I jumped over the wall.
And I was wearing a suit.
I don't even know why I was wearing a suit.
Because I just saw guys on TV, they wore suits.
I figured for my audition, jacket and a tie,
and I ripped my pants from the knee all the way down.
Course you did. Course you did.
And I just said, "I'm going on anyway."
And I just got very lucky, 'cause the crowd liked me
and it was the right time spot and I killed.
While you were killing onstage, were you thinking,
like, "I'm getting passed" or "Don't fuck this up"?
I just couldn't believe I was killing.
I was finally out there.
I'd come all the way from Detroit,
drove out there, I was 18 years old,
and Mitzi calls me over.
She goes, "You were really funny.
"You can come back, you can be a regular,
"but I don't like the 'ripped hole
in the suit' thing."
- [laughs] - "I don't like that.
Lose that."
She thought that was a bit.
Yeah, she thought it was, like, my hook.
The kid with the ripped suit with the suit--
Do you realize how lucky you are
that she didn't like it?
'Cause she would be, "Every night you go onstage,
you wear that."
Oh, I might have been stuck with that.
"Call you Mikey Ripped Pants."
Yeah.
- [laughs] - That's what she would've.
I auditioned for Mitzi on a Monday night.
[Paul] And she'd sit right there
and she was judge and jury
and she didn't give a fuck
if you were the funniest guy in Houston.
That didn't matter to her.
She didn't read your résumé.
Anybody from Bill Burr to Richard Pryor
to you and to me and to Jim Carrey
had one path into entertaining,
one woman, Mitzi Shore, to make those decisions.
I don't give advice, Arsenio.
- Oh, don't tell me that. - I really don't. No, I don't.
I saw you tell a girl to put on a green wig
and she'd be funnier.
Oh, that was different.
[laughter]
The wonderful advice of Mitzi Shore.
Mitzi told me I was too pretty to be funny
and there was no way in hell that...
I could be a stand-up comedian.
My grandma taught me a lot though.
She taught me how to value myself as a woman.
I'll never forget. It was my 18th birthday.
She should've told me this on my 16th birthday though,
'cause at that point, I had started renting out
the property already.
She had her little weird ways,
like putting me with Joey Camen
in a group, Salt and Pepper.
[as Mitzi] "You're gonna be Salt
"and he's gonna be Pepper.
It's gonna be so funny."
I'm tired of being white.
I wanna get down. I wanna have some fun.
I wanna be Black.
And it's like, he was getting all the laughs,
and she would be in the back of the room laughing
and giving us spots.
We'd get three spots a night.
And then I told her, I said--
that's the first time I got thrown out of The Comedy Store.
"I'm not gonna do this no more. I didn't come out here to be...
"Pepper.
I'm not gonna do it. I can't do it."
I remember Jack Graiman.
Mm-hmm?
She told him, "You need to wear an all-yellow suit
"and you need to dye your hair yellow
and change your name to Jackie Banana.
[laughs]
- Did he do it? - Yeah.
[both laugh]
[as Mitzi] "Jackie Banana."
I'm gonna enter.
Oh, hi.
You guys shooting something?
- [Mike] No. - Oh.
I got a girlfriend.
She's awesome, but we have a real basic problem,
which is, I don't talk enough
and she talks--ladies?
[women] Too much.
That's correct. That is correct.
Yet she needs to--she literally tells me everything.
She tells me, like, "Here's everything
"that happened to me today
"and here's every thought I had
"and let me tell you about my feelings
"and let me tell you about my plans
and let me tell you about my family,"
and then finally, she just tires herself out
and goes to sleep, right?
And then she wakes up eight hours later
and she's like, "Let me tell you about my dreams."
I'm like, "Fuck."
I auditioned for Mitzi in, probably, 2009.
Didn't get passed.
I got in at other clubs.
I mean, I had to emcee and stuff,
but I got in at Laugh Factory, I got in The Improv,
and then here, it was like, "Sorry.
Sorry, kid. Get in line."
Told me I was screaming for no reason.
She told you you were screaming?
Yeah, she's like, "Why's your voice get so high?"
I would do this, like, hyper thing.
I'd be like-- [indistinct shouting]
I didn't know how to get an audience's attention.
So I got this job here,
that was the number-- first showcase,
and then to get passed, it was 37 more showcases.
You'd come offstage
and you'd just see your name just scratched.
She would just, like, black out your name
so she couldn't even remember--
you know, wouldn't even remember you.
I auditioned for Mitzi a few times
and she didn't even see me.
Comics would just stand in that doorway
and talk to her
the entire time people were showcasing.
It was the most passive-aggressive shit ever.
The night I was there, Eddie Griffin sat next to her
and made sure nobody talked to her.
Whenever that shit used to happen to me,
I'd always just think, you know, fuck it.
Whatever.
You know, I'm gonna get in here, eventually.
Having said that, though, it did hurt a lot
because that was, I felt, Pryor's club
and I felt like-- and she knew him.
She was like, "You're not ready."
And I was like--in my head, I'm like, "I'm so ready.
I'm auditioning for Last Comic Standing."
Like, it's amazing how your brain...
tells you you're ready for things
when you're genuinely not ready.
Had she passed me at that time, I would be a flop.
The very first time I performed an open mic,
I did it at The Comedy Store
probably 1984.
I, of course, was horrible
and probably didn't do stand-up for years after that.
She just never passed me.
And she said, "Go work other clubs," she said,
which, at the time, I was really hurt
and disappointed,
but in hindsight, it was the best thing
that could've happened to me.
I bet I would be a really good dad...
if I was home more with my kid.
[laughter] You know what I mean?
But I think you're my priority.
I worked other clubs, I quit my bartending job,
I started working on the road, open for people,
then I became a headliner.
The time that I showcased for Mitzi
when I was 21,
I ate the biggest turd onstage.
I mean, death.
And only one person was laughing,
and that was Mitzi Shore.
[laughs] And I got made a regular.
I was beat up by the town bully name Debbie Gorego.
She used to beat the shit out of me
and as she'd beat me up, she'd say things like,
"You and your mom are nothing but lazy trash.
"You're probably gonna be a stripper
by the time you graduate high school."
And I thought a lot about what she said to me
on the night that I did become a stripper.
[Sam] Mitzi wants to start an all-Middle Eastern show,
and, course, you gotta kiss the ring, right?
She goes, "Are you Syrian?"
And hand to God,
I had no clue what a Syrian was at that moment.
I was public educated, upstate New York.
I had no clue what Syrian was,
where Syria was,
what a Syrian wa-- I had no clue.
But I was like, "Yeah, I'm Syrian.
"I love being Syrian. I love my Syrians.
We're just Syrians, right?"
She's like, "Great."
[laughter]
You gotta do this act of worship,
and she would sit in the back of the room
in a monkey fur coat
and just, like, watch you, and you--
and then she would--you'd he-- she had the most wicked laugh,
and if you made her laugh, you knew you were in.
And when she said, "Start calling in,"
it's just like-- I felt like I floated home.
You know, there's certain things
that happen to you in show business
that you go, "I'm on my way."
That was one of 'em. "I'm on my way.
"This crazy bitch think I'm funny.
[laughs] I'm on my way."
And you would get up there and I would sit and watch him
and just, like-- he would go to territory
that you just don't go.
It was fun.
The fuckin'--the thing about your sister
getting beat up.
- Oh, yeah. - Jesus Christ.
- The dentist always say... - Oh, my God.
How the dude knocked her teeth out
and she's talk about, "I did that by myself."
No, "It's just something about him."
Why are you with this guy? Keeps beating your ass.
"It's just something about him."
This was my introduction to The Store.
Sandy Shore, at the time, had a thing
called Sandy Shore's Sandbox.
It was a class.
So I saw this class in, like, LA Weekly or whatever
and my thing was, "Oh, I get in to the class,
"Sandy likes me, she'll just tell her mother,
'Got a kid in the class who's really good.'"
So that was my thinking behind the class.
So the first day of class, Sandy mentioned,
"I don't get along with my mom.
So I just wanna let you guys know that"--
so already, I'm like, "That's $600 gone."
LA Catholic church is like nothing I've ever seen before.
I go to confession today,
I find out you gotta submit a headshot...
[laughter]
...with your sins on the back of the headshot.
[laughter and applause]
So I got a callback next Sunday.
[laughter]
They're giving me two minutes.
When I started doing stand-up comedy,
I went to a place called The Comedy Store.
Yeah, you have to pass audition there.
And I had already done specials,
I was already...
but I didn't mind this,
because the comedy club owner is an important part
of stand-up to me
and it was to be respected, you know?
So I wanted her to pass me.
I didn't wanna just get onstage there.
And so Mitzi Shore sa-- I came in to audition
and she's sitting in this table directly across from me
and I go on and there's a light here that indicates...
They used to have a light that would go on
at the end of five minutes.
That's right.
And I remember one night, a guy went up
and a minute into his act, he was auditioning for her,
she goes, "Light him.
He doesn't have it."
I said hello and I started a joke
and the light went on, immediately.
And I turned to her and I go, "That's Louis C.K."
"I don't care."
And I thought, "Well, that can't really be it."
So I keep going and I see Mitzi and she's going like this.
Literally, she's going...
[laughter]
Like, pointing and then doing this.
- "Get off." - Oh, my goodness.
And I think, "Okay, I'm not passing,
but I'm not getting off after one fucking minute."
I already been doing this for, like, 20 years.
I'm not doing one minute anywhere.
So I just kept going,
and then she took the candle off her table
and she started waving it around.
[laughs]
- And going like this. - That's crazy.
So I did, like, five minutes. The audience liked me.
And then I left and my manager called
and she said, "I hated him. It was terrible."
So I just--I wasn't allowed to work there.
upbeat music
[Segura] Adam Eget is now the booker here,
and he basically is the person
that is in charge of passing people,
basically giving them the green light to come here
and organizing the schedule, the spots.
It's like--it's a job I would not want.
"Why does this person get passed"
and "How come I didn't get more spots?"
I mean, he has to deal with that every fucking day.
Comics' egos, I mean...
I can't believe he hasn't, you know, jumped.
And I enjoy the way he manages comics, you know?
If I complain to him about something,
he's like, "Oh, really?"
and just, like, really pays attention
and will go, you know, look at what I'm talking about,
and then walk away and I'm like,
"He just defused me without actually doing anything."
And that's the best way to manage comics.
[Leslie] He really will go to bat for the comics.
Even, like, if I'm arguing with him about the lineup,
like, "Why the fuck did you put him there?",
and he'd be like, "Les, come on.
You gotta get my"-- you know what I'm saying?
He's very fair across the board.
He's disciplined.
He doesn't let people manipulate him.
You wanna be a dream maker,
but the nature of that job is to be
a 99.9% dream crusher.
Brought in a lot of...
very established comics
who had a big draw.
Some of the things that Adam did was, like,
getting contact with people that didn't wanna come here
and get them back here, and that drew more people here.
[Adam] I hear all these great stories
of Mitzi telling people to give someone the light
ten seconds into their set
and I never understood quite, like, how you could determine
if someone had potential or had it or whatever it is
in such a short amount of time until I started watching
all these comics go up over and over and over again
and now, I'm really starting to understand what she meant.
[Luke] This is Potluck.
Every Monday since the late 1870s,
people have been signing up for the open mic.
16 names get randomly chosen.
Last week, we had 175 people.
The first time I went onstage at The Comedy Store, I cried.
I mean, I think it was months
that I signed up for the open mic.
Because, you know, 50, 100 people would wait out there.
You'd come at five o'clock, you'd sign up,
you'd find out at seven o'clock
if you got picked from the potluck,
and then if you did get picked, you'd just sit there
and wait for three hours
to then go on for three minutes.
It's funny, when people ever say, like,
"Whitney Cummings, where'd she come from?
That was an overnight success."
I'm like, I sat on the curb of Sunset Boulevard
for two years trying to get three minutes of time.
I'm sick of dating guys
who are commitment-phobic, you know?
So I decided, from now on, I'm only dating married guys.
That's it.
Okay. Here we go.
Time to feed the fish.
upbeat music
Here it is.
[laughter]
[Whitney] It was so surreal and I was so starstruck
just by the neon words
and was overcome with the sense
of, like, "You don't deserve to be here.
Like, how dare you."
[Joey] And I still remember walking in here
and thinking that I did not belong here.
She was gonna tell me to go home
and that was it.
I was gonna move back to Boulder or New York
and just commit to criminal.
I mean, David Letterman went up for the first time
at some point.
I showed up on a Monday night
and put my name on the list,
and I went up there and I hadn't--
no, I was not prepared for-- the light is right on you
and I found that alarming.
There was a small bit of trauma.
You get offstage and you don't really know what that was.
I had never done anything like that before in my life.
You've ne--didn't do any stand-up
before you came out here?
No. I mean, I had done--
- A lot of TV. - Yeah.
Sometimes you would have to go out
for a sponsor, and they were having a--
come down and guess the weight of a melon
and we give you a car,
but never when the spotlight was just right there.
Isn't it weird that there's always,
like, a super masculine guy
that's so grossed out by periods?
You're like, all day, all you've talked about
was how you wanted to murder that pussy.
Now you're presented with a crime scene
and you want nothing to do with it?
- Like-- - [laughter]
I remember I came in to park and everything
and the parking attendant was like,
"You can't park back here. This is for paid regulars."
I'm like, "I think I am one,"
and he's like, "Yeah, right," or whatever.
I was like, "I don't know."
And then I went in and talked to Tommy
and then I came back out
and he was like, "I'm so sorry."
He's like, "Why didn't you tell me?"
And I was like, "Well, I kinda wanted this moment
where you apologize to me."
[Tony] The stories I would hear about Richard Pryor was,
he would come in The Comedy Store
and go on and comics would just stop what they were doing
to stand in the back of the room
to watch Richard Pryor.
And then I heard the same stories about Eddie.
That Eddie would come in
and he would come in with Robert Townsend
and Arsenio and Keenen Ivory Wayans
and these were all guys I looked up to in the business
and he would shut down The Comedy Store
and comics would stop what they were doing
to watch Eddie.
And that was my goal, to be a guy
that walks in The Store
and everybody says, "Holy shit, Tony Rock's here."
My whole goal was, at that time,
it was 1 through 20,
and if you picked, like, 15, you went 15th,
so I was like, God, I hope I get later on in the lineup,
so if I got 15, I figured,
that's where the paid regulars started to come in.
Hopefully, maybe those--
one of those guys would see me and recommend me.
That's how you got into The Comedy Store back then.
You had to have a guy vouch for you
to showcase in front of Mitzi.
[man] Hey, guys, listen up.
We're opening the doors for the potluck.
If you are a comic, sit in the back.
If you are checking in, go to the right.
Comic?
- Comic? - Comic?
I'm gonna say some of the rules here.
You get three minutes.
When you're at two minutes, that light turns on
right over there.
After your minute is up,
uh, you get off the stage or you'll die someday.
80% of the open mic is fucking horseshit,
but they're new, so you gotta cut 'em some slack.
I feel pretty intimidated, I gotta tell you.
It's a lot of pressure to be here.
That's why I don't date fat guys anymore.
I don't do well under pressure.
[scattered laughs]
I'm in a long-distance relationship,
which is hard.
Every time we fight, we're stuck having makeup text.
[scattered laughs]
Any time I hear something new and fresh or exciting,
I'll stop what I'm doing, I'll focus...
[applause]
[emcee] Welcome to a sold-out Potluck night.
First comic coming to the stage, guys.
Ehsan Ahmad, everyone.
I saw this earlier today.
Did you guys know
that in some parts of the world,
Uber has a helicopter service?
That means there are people out there
that own a helicopter,
but still need a little extra money on the side.
[laughter]
I moved here from the Midwest,
so now, every guy I see is the hottest guy I ever saw.
[laughter]
I was driving down Sunset
and a guy popped out of a dumpster
and he was hot.
Were people just like, "What is this, another hot guy?
"We already have infinity of these.
Put him in the trash."
[laughter]
You know, I got married about, like, six months ago,
married to a white girl, which is great,
thank you very much.
It's a big deal to my Mexican family.
Having a white girl in your Mexican family
is like having a brand-new car.
First time my cousins met her, they were like, "Holy shit!
Yo, is that yours?"
I'm like, "Yeah, man."
They're like, "What kinda white girl is that?"
I'm like, "Oh, that's a Suburban."
[laughter]
Like, "Holy shit!
Yo, I hear those are so expensive to maintain."
[laughter]
Thank you guys so much. My name's Frank Castillo.
Have a great night.
Give it up for Frank, everybody.
Come on.
[Mike] Listen, man, I thought you had a great set.
Thank you very much.
But I can't read the guy's mind.
You know, but that was a tough crowd.
Yeah, and I really wanna get passed, man.
It's, like, everything to me right now.
I know you do.
I feel like he's got so many comedians right now,
and when I first came back here to start doing this thing
and I heard people had to wait
as long as they do to become regulars,
I was like, "What?"
Yeah, I was fine with waiting that long
'cause you gotta work hard and makes it worth it.
Can I take Frank for a minute?
- Yeah, yeah. - Frank, want to talk to you.
Here.
First of all, great set.
- Thank you very much. - Sincerely.
It's been a fucking joy
watching you mature over the years.
You've been here for what? How long now?
- Five, six years now. - Five, six years.
It's just been a joy for me to watch you mature
as a comic and a person,
and you've put in a lot of fucking hard work.
You really turned a corner.
I'm really, really proud of you.
That being said, you're passed.
- No way. - Yeah.
- For real? - Yeah. Paid regular.
- I've wanted this forever. - I know.
Well, thanks for being patient, and you earned it.
- Thank you very much. - Thank yourself.
You're the person to thank.
Thank you, Adam.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
- Yeah! - All right.
That's awesome. What'd he say?
He said I'm a paid regular. I'm passed.
Oh. That's great.
- That's really great. - That's fucking amazing.
- How does it feel? - Feels great, man.
Yeah. I gotta call my dad.
- I gotta call my dad. - That's great.
Give a hand for a new paid regular.
One of the best I've ever seen.
- [all cheering] - One of the best.
First, everyone had to do "The Tonight Show,"
but then, when cable television first started,
everybody had to get a cable special.
You're talking your generation.
Yeah.
They did a lot
of the Young Comedians specials
in the main room of The Comedy Store.
- And Marty Call-- - Is that right?
Yeah, and Marty Callner directed 'em all,
and he retrofitted The Comedy Store,
the lighting, and Mitzi loved Marty.
[Bill] Every time I think I know
everything that happened at The Comedy Store,
there's always, like, another...
like, "Oh, that was shot there, or this guy went onstage here?"
I'm a nerd for all of that stuff.
That's really cool.
chill music
This is the place where all the influencers came
to find talent.
I ended up with a Young Comedians special.
A loose--okay, I got my handbag.
This is my handbag.
[laughter] What? What?
Richard Lewis.
I left my shrink too soon.
I had to take an incomplete.
I just don't know what I'm doing anymore.
I'm not going back no more. That's too much bread.
60 bu--I'm going to Evelyn Woods.
It's, like, speed therapy. It's cool.
It's like, "You hate your mother,
you hate your father, $5, boom,"
and you get outta there.
And Jerry Seinfeld.
I'll tell you my main question
about these wanted posters on the wall.
Why didn't they hold on to this guy
when they were taking his picture?
Changed my life for-- I was playing theaters.
I didn't have anything.
I did a special in '85.
Went to the hardware store and bought some used paint.
[laughter]
It was in the shape of a house.
And it was right about when "The Tonight Show" was
slowly becoming less important
and having less power.
Mitzi's the one that really taught me about comedy.
Stand-up was--
even though it had been around for a while,
it had never been exposed to the masses
because television had never done it,
with the exception of a bit on Ed Sullivan, you know,
but never a full hour.
Do you remember Gallagher's Showtime specials?
- I watched all of them. - Okay.
Gallagher was the first guy that figured out
Showtime wasn't in every city.
Not everyone had cable, but he would book himself
in theaters in Showtime cities.
- Mm-hmm. - And he'd sell out like crazy.
Only people that had Showtime knew who he was.
I think he's unbelievably underrated
as a comedian
because it became this snobby thing about props
and he was just judged by his closing bit.
Is there anyone that particularly does not
want me to smash this pig?
[crowd] No!
Well then, let's go! Hip, hip, go!
I did a Showtime special
called Jim Carrey's Unnatural Act.
Seems like no matter what happens,
no matter how bad things get, Jimmy Stewart can look at it
in a positive way.
[laughter]
[as Jimmy Stewart] Well, I guess we're gonna
have ourselves a nuclear holocaust.
[wild laughter]
Oh, hey, everybody, come on over to the window!
By the time you came out here,
you already had a Showtime special.
Men are pigs, right, women?
[women cheering]
All men care about is a full pegboard.
[growls]
The altar to a man.
[sings organ music]
That's what rang everybody's bell.
I did this whole tool thing.
A Binford CO2-powered nail gun.
Oh, yeah.
But I developed the Midwest out of desperation
from doing some corporate gigs that no one was listening,
and the crowd is smoking cigarettes and eating steaks,
just guys, and they're not--
their backs are to you, corporate gigs,
and I just hear-- [grunting]
So I mimic that, these guys turned around,
and I remember I wrote that down.
I wrote it right away,
"Grunt like you're curious, grunt like you're this,"
and it gave me a hook
that they remember the guy talking about power tools.
Every new appliance, toaster, whatever,
you got that new plug.
One side's just a little bit bigger than the other side.
[grunting curiously]
[laughter]
I got the first use out of that new grinder.
[mimics grinder]
[laughter]
- Ha-ha. - [cheers and applause]
If you get a sitcom,
it was like, boom, you're on your way.
But how many shows teach people how to use stuff like this?
[laughter]
upbeat music
In the days that I was here,
there were three television networks,
and the thing to do was the Freddie Prinze model.
You go on The Tonight Show.
The next day, they're making a situation comedy
starring Freddie Prinze.
- You listen to me, Ed Brown. - Eh, eh, eh.
That's a fouled sparkplug. Clean it.
[as Igor] Oh, right away, Master.
I'm so sorry.
Did you find that was a plus or a minus
to be a stand-up comic on the shows?
It was entirely a plus
to have somebody who knew their way around comedy.
If you get one television show in your life,
my God, that's unbelievable.
Well, then it became,
everyone had to have a sitcom.
It started kinda with Jimmie Walker,
and then, you know, Robin with Mork and Mindy.
As much as I like Mindy,
it's against intergalactic law to eat fellow space travelers.
Fly! Be free!
[Dave] Suddenly, there was this explosion of,
ooh, comedians are the ones to get to anchor a sitcom.
We got a big surprise for you, right, Jess?
- It's big. - [laughs]
Yeah, so close your eyes.
- Right, close 'em up. - Close your eyes.
- Here we go.
Wait. [sniffs]
I know what the surprise is.
Joey, you're making that chili again.
I guess I really wanted to-- to be an actress
as well as, you know-- as a live performer.
I can't believe the breeders are trying
to take back Halloween.
- Yeah. - Oh, please.
I was doing Halloween
since before there even were any gay people.
I went onstage and I did six minutes my first time
and I came off the stage and Mitzi said,
"Go do 20 in the big room."
And it was like-- everybody said
that never happened before.
You knew as soon as she started,
you knew in the middle, you knew at the end,
she had it.
Well, she filled a void that we hadn't heard before.
We didn't have the female lead domestic--
- Housewife. - Yeah.
You know what'd be really good for breakfast?
- What? - Pie.
- Tell him no. - No.
- Bye. - Bye.
- [Roseanne] Bye. - [Dan] Bye.
Quick, they're gone. Change the locks.
[Judd] I used to write jokes.
That was how I made my living.
I remember I was with Tom and Roseanne,
and so I'm just this, like, little kid
and they're going through this really wild time
where they're super famous and they're in the news
and everything they do is a big event,
and Roseanne's like, "Tom won't let me have lunch
with Jesse Jackson!"
And Tom was like, "Yeah,
I don't want you to have lunch with him!"
And she's like, "Why not?"
And he's like, "'Cause he might fall in love with you!
"What if he falls in love with you?
And then you leave me for Jesse Jackson?"
And she's like, "He's not gonna fall in love with me.
You're crazy. What are you talking about?"
He's like, "I fell in love with you!
Why wouldn't Jesse Jackson fall in love with you?"
And I'm just, like, this scared person
in the corner
in the middle of this, like, madness
going, "What is-- what is happening?"
[David] I went up on an audition
for a situation comedy about Saturday Night Fever.
And I go into the outer room
and everybody has their...sides.
- Right. - And I'm reading it.
The part was the John Travolta part.
[Mike] They wanted you to play that part?
[David] Me and 19 other men.
So you had to stand there
and you're blow-drying your hair
because you're getting ready to go out
and catch Saturday night fever.
And then while you're blow-drying your hair,
you're also dancing.
Yeah. Of course.
And I looked over at the guy sitting next to me
and I said, "Excuse me."
He said, "Yeah?"
I said, "Would you hold this for me?
I think I left my car running."
And never went back.
Are you aware
that non-issue hosiery can inhibit your ability
to apprehend a prisoner?
I'll have you know I can kick butt in bunny slippers.
[laughter]
Sir.
[Ari] The next guest,
she's a regular here at The Comedy Store--
been a regular here at The Comedy Store
probably, I'm betting, 40 years.
Lotta noise, lotta love, Marsha Warfield, everybody.
Marsha Warfield.
[cheers and applause]
Good evening. Ari, thank you so much.
My name is Marsha Warfield
and I used to be famous.
[laughter]
What happened to me was, at the height of my career,
I decided to take some time off
to get really old.
[laughter]
And as you can see,
when I set out to do something...
[laughter]
...that shit gets done.
[Howie] I remember one night, there was, like, a hubbub.
Steven Spielberg and Elaine May and Mike Nichols
and anybody who was anybody was in The Belly Room,
and I go, "What's going on up there?"
I was standing in the back of the room
when Whoopi Goldberg went on.
They were looking at her for the possibility
of doing this movie,
which I found out later was The Color Purple.
Talk about that.
Didn't I just?
[both laugh]
Was I not out loud? Was I just thinking that?
- You were thinking that. - Oh.
You know what I've just been thinking about?
[Whoopi] Mitzi Shore was so good.
She made me feel like this was a place for me.
She saw my one-woman show and she said, "Wow.
"You know, we can do this in The Belly Room.
"Would you like to do this in The Belly Room?
"I'd like you to do it in The Belly Room.
"Would you do it in The Belly Room for me?
"I'd like it if you did.
Do it in The Belly Room for me."
And I said, "Okay."
And so A Piece of Theater ran
for about a year in The Belly Room.
I got to watch all these extraordinary people,
and spending time with Rodney Danger--
I mean, just-- he's funny as hell.
And I learned how to make material better.
I learned how to tell a better story.
It was fun 'cause I could just fly.
I could fly all over there,
and no one said, "You're doing it wrong."
Mitzi was really good at giving comics the sense
that The Store was their place,
and probably she got that from Pryor.
So you wouldn't see him for a while
and then he would just come down?
He'd be gone for maybe a year or two,
and when he was ready to come in
and work out a new hour,
he took over the place.
funky music
[Paul] Welcome to The Comedy Store.
We now have the pleasure of presenting
one of the most brilliant comics in show business,
Richard Pryor.
[cheers and applause]
[Richard] Thank you very much. Welcome.
Hope I'm funny.
'Cause audience been known to kick a little ass.
[laughter]
Richard had 22 episodes to tape
on NBC at eight o'clock.
And Richard, with Mitzi's help and Paul Mooney's help,
recruited all these great young comics.
[John] He told Mooney, "These guys are so funny.
"Let's pick some of these comics out
to be in the show."
We would all be so happy
because we make $500 a week.
[Rocco] And to Paul Mooney's credit,
he assembled some really funny people
and Jimmy Martinez and Tim Reid.
Yeah, you got five minutes to leave, whitey.
- I'm counting now. - The attack was at night.
You know how slippery they are.
[Rocco] The big surprise was Robin.
How soon we forget
what the Negro has done for you.
Who taught you the meaning of doo-dah?
[Marsha] We were all so new
and Robin had pretty much just gotten to town.
He's a complete unknown.
Robin was performing at The Comedy Store.
Rocco Urbisci and Pryor wanted him
to do The Richard Pryor Show.
He had a deal to do Laugh In
and yet he went off and did that series.
[Rocco] I don't think there was a contract.
He just came over.
But he just wanted to do it,
and that's the way I think everybody felt about--
'cause Pryor was so revered
and they were doing something so unusual.
There's this one scene that says,
"Richard and a beautiful woman seduce each other with food."
That was the whole thing.
So we got together and he said, "You got it?"
I said, "I think so."
Then he said, "Okay, let's move on."
That was that. No rehearsal.
It was first up.
The curtain goes up and there I am.
I agonized over that for a couple of weeks.
And then to have to sit there and be seductive,
I just improvised.
[laughter]
Star Wars theme
[alien whines]
Hey, why don't you watch where you're going?
You got the biggest eyes in the place.
Richard Pryor was first and foremost.
It gets no better than Pryor to me.
There was something about Pryor, right,
when Pryor showed up, that was...
it wasn't like anything else, man.
I'd sit in the back every night and study Pryor.
If you water down Richard Pryor,
you get Chris Rock, you get Eddie Murphy,
you get Martin Lawrence, you get Chris--
like, we're all doing a version of Richard Pryor.
[Bill] Well, when I started out,
everybody wanted to be Pryor.
Like, Pryor was the guy.
And I--I still think he is the guy.
[Richard] I remember when Black wasn't beautiful.
Black men come through our neighborhood.
"Black is beautiful! Africa's your home!
Beware of the Black man! Be proud to be Black!"
And my parents go, "That nigga crazy."
He was the greatest because he had every element.
He was like an angry boxer. Tough childhood.
Perfect storm to be either a fighter
or a comic.
He never really did a show for the audience.
He was more or less talking to himself.
He just knew that however he was telling this joke,
he was never gonna do it the same way again.
[Whoopi] Richard was the only person
that understood what I was doing,
where he's talking about characters
and he's doing characters.
I understand that. That's a story.
I can tell a story.
And I think it becomes easier
when you're telling stuff that you know.
He would show up here and he would refuse
to do any material from the previous albums
and start from scratch.
He would come in here with a couple of ideas.
[Felicia] He would do new material,
but it'd be so terrible,
and as a new comic, you're like, "What?
This is the great Pryor?"
I remember, in the main room, watching him stop his act
and say, "I just-- I'm not funny tonight."
At a point of almost embarrassed silence
to the crowd.
[Richard] This ain't as funny
as we thought it was gonna be.
[laughter]
Motherfuck show biz.
He'd have one joke to begin with, honest to God.
One or two jokes at the most.
Then he'd play around with this joke
and it was terrible, it didn't--
'cause you know the audience doesn't care
how famous you are.
If the joke's not funny, they're not gonna laugh.
You saw--you saw him work out that hour?
Oh, yeah. I was just a kid.
I was a doorman.
What a great place,
to be able to come here to this workshop
and be able to, you know, bomb
and have Mitzi, if she believed in you, go, you know,
"Trying some stuff out, aren't you?"
[Richard] Nobody like pussy nowadays, huh?
But in the old days, when you liked pussy,
when you couldn't get it...
does anyone remember liking pussy?
From a murder, you get all kinds
of forensic information,
but nobody collects information from, like, a birthday party,
from, like, a happy occasion,
so when you have a hard show, you walk away
with all kinds of ability and knowledge,
and so that's what Pryor did.
The brave ones can go up there and fail
for the sake of the next set.
You know, if I didn't embarrass myself here,
I wouldn't be able to go home and write a new joke.
I would just think, "Oh, I know comedy."
And the second night,
anything that got a titter the first night,
he would expand on.
Then you got to see, every night, the progression
of how he was building a bit.
But it would be almost like watching Bach or Mozart
write a fucking symphony.
And by the end of four, five weeks,
he had a new 40 minutes.
[Richard] My uncles and them, my family only fucked
in one position: up and down.
Then my uncle go, "Boy, don't you ever kiss no pussy.
- [wild laughter] - "I mean that.
Whatever you do in life, don't kiss no pussy."
I couldn't wait to kiss a pussy.
He'd been wrong about everything else.
[laughter]
A woman had to beat me off. "That's enough! That's enough!
Please. Please. Two days."
[Mike] Mitzi loved Richard.
[as Mitzi] "Oh, Richard's so brave.
"He can just start over.
"He's an artist, Mike.
That's an artist. Watch an artist work."
He was, like, Coltrane of comedy.
He's, like, the guy who plays the riffs
that everyone wants to do.
[Bruce] There was a period of time
where she put me between Richard Pryor
and Robin Williams.
And if you don't step up your game,
you're the mop rag between two orgasms.
[Jay] I remember he used to do joke about his old lady.
He says, "I'm gonna go out and get me some new pussy."
And she said, "If your dick was two inches longer,
you get new pussy right here," you know?
[Richard] I don't like movies
when they don't have no niggas in 'em.
[wild laughter]
I went to see Logan's Run, right?
They had a movie of the future called Logan's Run.
Ain't no niggas in it!
I said, "Well, white folks ain't planning
for us to be here!"
Richard Pryor taught me about edge, okay,
because he was always testing,
always taking things to a level
of, "Oh, my God, did he say that?"
I mean, if you think about it, you know,
Richard was the Michael Jordan of comedy.
From '77 to the late '80s,
this club was Richard's laboratory.
His work ethic, his whole naked and raw,
autobiographical version of comedy became the standard.
Everyone from Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Whoopi Goldberg,
Eddie Murphy, Sam Kinison, Chris Rock,
Dave Chapelle, and then Louis C.K.,
they all did their best to pay tribute to the master.
Even today, when I see Bill Burr,
Whitney Cummings, Sebastian Maniscalco,
Ian Edwards, Andrew Santino, Annie Lederman,
Neal Brennan, Joe Rogan,
using The Store to build new routines
for specials or albums or tours,
they're doing it in this form of personal memoir
or, like, truth telling.
They're doing it in a way
that I think is reminiscent of Pryor.
If any one person is responsible
for making The Store the most important comedy club
in the world, other than Mitzi,
it's Richard,
or as everyone used to call him when we were here,
Richie.
Where a ribbon's in the sky
For our love
If allowed
May I touch your hand
And if pleased
May I once again
So that you
Too will understand
There's a ribbon in the sky
For our love
Doo
Stevie Wonder, "Ribbon in the Sky"
[vocalizing]
Were you here the night he pretended he was God?
- No. - Okay.
Richard Pryor walks into the room
and he walked up onstage and he was quiet for a minute.
He goes, "I'm God."
And they were giggling 'cause it's Pryor.
And he said, "I'm here to pick up my son."
Says, "Anybody seen him?
"He's wearing this robe thing and he's got a beard
and little Jesus and I told him I'd pick him up now,"
and he looks at somebody in the front row
and he goes, "What was done to my son?
What did you people do to my son?"
And he just starts screaming
'cause he comes to the realization
that his son was crucified,
and then when he regains his composure,
he goes, "All right, let me talk
to somebody else that was crucified."
And he goes, "Well, where is he?"
He keeps doing down this litany of people
and he goes, "All right, I need to talk
to Martin Luther King.
Bring me Martin right now."
And he goes, "What did you do to Martin?
Kennedy. I need to talk to Kennedy."
And then he's just standing onstage,
he goes, "Fuck."
Crying. He's just screaming.
He goes, "My son, the apostles, Kennedy."
The audience is standing there, like, you know--
remember, this is the '70s-- with their jaws just dropping.
People in the audience are crying,
and he just puts out his hand and he goes,
"You're on your own."
And he walked out of the room.
And I remember just sitting there
and everybody's just crying
and all you can hear is sniffing.
And I went, "Fuck."
This is not
A coincidence
And far more
Than a lucky chance
But what is
That was always meant
Is our ribbon in the sky
For our love, love
We can't lose
With God on our side
We'll find strength
In each tear we cry
From now on