Yes­ter­day we fea­tured one of the final per­for­mances of Lenny Bruce, the so-called “sick come­di­an” who was hound­ed out of work in the mid-six­ties for his sup­posed obscen­i­ty. While Bruce was fight­ing and los­ing his legal bat­tles, going bank­rupt, and sink­ing into depres­sion, one of his suc­ces­sors was just get­ting his start in New York City, play­ing Green­wich Vil­lage cof­fee hous­es along­side Woody Allen and Bob Dylan. Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pry­or arrived in New York in 1963, leav­ing behind him a grim, abu­sive child­hood in Peo­ria, Illi­nois and a very trou­bled army stint (most of which he spent locked in the brig). But watch­ing Pryor’s ear­ly act—like the 1964 per­for­mance above—you’d hard­ly know that he came from such hard­scrab­ble places as he did. We get the clas­sic Pry­or ges­tures, man­ner­isms, and expres­sions: the full immer­sion of his arms and mal­leable face in every punch­line. But the jokes…. Well, it’s safe mate­r­i­al. Tame one-lin­ers and mid­dle­brow, san­i­tized bits about child­hood, bach­e­lor­hood, life in New York, and TV com­mer­cials. If there is a glim­mer of the absur­dism and tragi­com­e­dy of Pryor’s lat­er wit, it’s a faint one. But who can blame him after what hap­pened to Lenny Bruce?

But, as we all know, some­thing changed. Accord­ing to Pry­or him­self, he had an “epiphany” while stand­ing onstage in front of a full audi­ence (which includ­ed Dean Mar­tin) in Las Vegas in 1967. Appar­ent­ly, before he start­ed his act, he looked out into the crowd, exclaimed into the micro­phone, “what the f*ck am I doing here?” and walked off stage. For the remain­der of his career, he built his onstage act around the bru­tal, unspar­ing honesty–about race, pover­ty, drug abuse, his trou­bled past (and present), and every­thing in-between–that audi­ences loved. Even when the bits were painful, they were painful­ly fun­ny (though not always so fun­ny off stage). That he man­aged to cul­ti­vate such a pro­fane and con­tro­ver­sial per­sona while achiev­ing main­stream Hol­ly­wood movie suc­cess is fur­ther cred­it to his ver­sa­til­i­ty. He even did the alpha­bet on Sesame Street in 1976. But he nev­er went back to the unthreat­en­ing and gener­ic mate­r­i­al from his ear­ly New York days. Even his roles in the most kid-friend­ly films had plen­ty of edge and that vein of dopey-but-dan­ger­ous crazi­ness that ran through all of Pryor’s work after he found his voice.

For a vin­tage clip of the Richard Pry­or we remem­ber, take a look back to the 1979 film Richard Pry­or: Live in Con­cert, record­ed the pre­vi­ous year at the Ter­race The­ater in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia. It’s NSFW, of course.

Josh Jones is a writer and schol­ar cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

We can remem­ber Lenny Bruce as a mas­ter­ful social crit­ic or as one of the edgi­est, most orig­i­nal come­di­ans of the late-50s/ear­ly 60s. Or both, since both sides of him were always present in the live per­for­mances pre­served on film and tape. Born Leonard Alfred Schnei­der in Long Island, Bruce came from a show­biz fam­i­ly, in a way; his moth­er was a per­former and a sup­port­er of his stage ambi­tions. But, after his dis­charge from the Navy (for a per­for­mance in drag, among oth­er things), his New York act evolved quick­ly from celebri­ty impres­sions and bur­lesque to a more per­son­al­ized and bit­ing satire that cut through the gen­teel silences around racism, reli­gious intol­er­ance, drugs, pol­i­tics, sex­u­al­i­ty, and Jew­ish­ness in Amer­i­ca. Sprin­kled lib­er­al­ly with Yid­dishisms, hip beat expres­sions, and top­i­cal riffs, Bruce’s jazz-inflect­ed act could swing wild­ly from gid­dy falset­to exu­ber­ance to heart­break­ing down­beat lament in a mat­ter of min­utes. Per­haps nowhere is this high­wire act bet­ter doc­u­ment­ed than in the record­ing of his 1961 per­for­mance at New York’s Carnegie Hall, which he gave at mid­night in a bliz­zard to a devot­ed audi­ence of near­ly 3,000.

The Carnegie Hall con­cert marked the height of his career, after which his sad decline began. Lat­er that year, he was arrest­ed in San Fran­cis­co for obscen­i­ty. He was acquit­ted, but this began the years-long bat­tle in courts, includ­ing two Supreme Court appeals, on sim­i­lar charges (dra­ma­tized in the excel­lent biopic Lenny, with Dustin Hoff­man as Bruce). The legal bat­tles bank­rupt­ed Bruce, and exhaust­ed and demor­al­ized him; he stood as a defend­er of the right to free expres­sion and the need for peo­ple like him, whether just “enter­tain­ers” or seri­ous satirists, to hold pow­er to account and mock its thread­bare con­tra­dic­tions, but he so pro­found­ly rubbed the legal sys­tem the wrong way that he didn’t stand a chance.

By 1966, Bruce could not gig out­side San Fran­cis­co. One of his final per­for­mances (above) before his death from over­dose sees him rehears­ing his legal bat­tles. He is embit­tered, angry, some might say obsessed, some might say right­eous, but he’s still in top form, even if there may be more of Bruce the crit­ic than Bruce the enter­tain­er here. Lenny Bruce has been mourned and cel­e­brat­ed by comedic giants like George Car­lin, Richard Pry­or, and Bill Hicks and musi­cians like Nico, Dylan, and R.E.M. But it some­times seems that his name gets more press than his work. So, get to know Lenny Bruce. Watch the per­for­mance above, but also lis­ten to the bril­liant Carnegie Hall con­cert (avail­able in 7 parts on YouTube). And thank him every time a com­ic gets away with cross­ing social bound­aries with impuni­ty. He wore the sys­tem down so that the Car­lins and Pry­ors could break it wide open.

Josh Jones is a writer and schol­ar cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

Last month, we fea­tured Woody Allen answer­ing thir­teen unusu­al ques­tions from Robert B. Wei­de’s film Woody Allen: A Doc­u­men­tary. Well, it turns out that it was­n’t the only unusu­al footage the doc­u­men­tary had to offer. Dur­ing the 1960s, the young com­ic did what­ev­er his man­agers (Charles H. Joffe and Jack Rollins) thought would enhance his pub­lic pro­file. Some of his ear­ly per­for­mances and stunts were genius. Oth­ers flopped. You decide where this one falls. In 1966, Allen appeared on Hip­po­drome, a British vari­ety TV show that show­cased jump­ing dogs, trapeze acts, musi­cal acts and … kan­ga­roo box­ing match­es. This match went one round, with the Aus­tralian light heavy­weight cham­pi­on land­ing the only punch­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Thomas Edison’s Box­ing Cats (1894), or Where the LOL­Cats All Began

Muham­mad Ali Plans to Fight on Mars in Lost 1966 Inter­view

Woody Allen and the Rev­erend Bil­ly Gra­ham In Con­ver­sa­tion

Like the num­ber of fem­i­nists need­ed to screw in a light bulb, gen­der-based assump­tions are NOT FUNNY!

Gen­der-based sound effects prove to be the excep­tion in Bleep Blap Bloop, a very fun­ny short film fea­tur­ing real peo­ple attempt­ing to imper­son­ate var­i­ous machines, pri­mar­i­ly vehi­cles and weapons of the sort one rarely encoun­ters in every day use. They’re not the most diverse bunch with regard to age or eth­nic­i­ty, but as far as white peo­ple in their 20’s go, Bleep Blap Bloop’s find­ings are pret­ty air­tight. The Y chro­mo­somes are the clear win­ners.

“Could­n’t you have done, like, a duck?” one of the female con­tes­tants asks as the cred­its roll.

What about you? Is this a case where you fit the mold? Please share your most tri­umphal (or least humi­lat­ing) sound effect below. Trans­peo­ple hearti­ly encour­aged to expand the con­ver­sa­tion!

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is a proud fem­i­nist who changes light­bulbs solo and could­n’t make a machine gun noise even if she had an actu­al machine gun.