Stop me if I've told this one here before. I don't think I have.
My first few years as a television writer, I was teamed with a bright gentleman named Dennis Palumbo…and he used to sometimes remark that we complemented each other well. I'm not sure what I did that he couldn't do but he was a whole lot better than I was at the salesmanship and "pitching" part of our jobs. After we completed our stint writing on Welcome Back, Kotter, we decided to go in different directions and we remain friends to this day. And by the way: Dennis, if you're reading this, aren't we about due for a lunch?
The morning after we finished Kotter, I was offered a heap of comic book writing work so I had that to do. A few days later, I met with our agent, who now had the unenviable task of selling us separately. He and others had warned us that when a team splits up, producers are hesitant to hire one member for fear they'll get the one who just typed up what the other guy thought of. That wasn't how Evanier and Palumbo functioned — for good or ill, we each wrote approximately half — but there have been teams like that.
Stu the Agent was really good at selling his clients, even clients who had a handful of credits and no sample of their solo work. In a matter of days, I found myself going in for a meeting with the producers of What's Happening?, which was a pretty popular show that followed Kotter on ABC on Thursday nights. Around the Kotter offices, most folks seemed to think What's Happening? was a pretty mediocre show that only got good ratings because it had us as its lead-in. As I quickly discovered, around the What's Happening? offices, they thought Kotter was a pretty mediocre show that only got good ratings because folks would sit through it as they waited for What's Happening? to start.
Nevertheless, I came up with an idea they said they liked and we had some meetings about it and I'm still not sure why I didn't end up writing at least that one episode. In the meantime, Stu sent me in to meet the producer of a new variety show that Richard Pryor would be starring in for NBC. (For some reason, he sent me out for almost every show that needed writers and starred black people. I also co-wrote an episode of a sitcom called Baby, I'm Back, which starred Demond Wilson back before he was the superstar he is today.)
There were a couple of problems with me writing on The Richard Pryor Show, not the least of which was that I wasn't a big fan of Mr. Pryor. Everyone told me he was the funniest man on the continent but if he was, I hadn't seen it. I'd seen him perform live once — a surprise set at the Comedy Store — and it wasn't very good. In fact, it was so not good, he gave up and walked off stage well before the next guy was ready to go on. I'm sure he was great on other nights but I wasn't there when that happened.
Not that I admired everyone I ever wrote for but that suggested I just might not be quite in sync with the Pryor style. Another problem was that much of what I had heard was about using drugs and/or being black and I had no experience doing either. So I felt I was the wrong guy for the gig but I also felt that since Stu had set up the meeting, I oughta go. It was in a big building up on Sunset a few blocks from Tower Records so I decided, "I'll park for the meeting, go in and have it and then, after I don't get the job, I'll walk down to Tower and buy some albums."
That was pretty much how it went. The producer was a smart, nice man named Rocco Urbisci, who has since been responsible for a lot of fine specials with stand-up comedians. He was smart enough to instantly know I should not be hired and nice enough to spend fifteen minutes talking with me and pretending I would be properly considered. For the last five or so, we were joined by Mr. Pryor, who was working on something elsewhere in the office. He poked his head in to say goodbye to Rocco and on a whim, sat in on the end of my interview, saying absolutely nothing to me.
Ah, but I did hear him whisper something to Rocco that sounded like, "I thought you were going to interview more black writers instead of this parade of white guys." If that's what he said, I had no problem with it. As it turned out, The Richard Pryor Show was written mostly by a parade of white guys and I was glad I wasn't among them. (I later got to know several of them and it was not, they all said, a happy experience. Shows that get canceled after four episodes usually aren't.)
As I left the office that day, Richard Pryor and I shared an elevator down and managed some polite conversation. Then we exited the lobby together and both walked east on Sunset. As it turned out, we were both heading for Tower Records.
Pryor talked a little about how nervous he was about this new series and how he knew the kind of show he wanted to do couldn't fit in with network prime-time television. Feeling as I did that I couldn't fit in with the kind of show he wanted to do, I could relate but I didn't say that. I was trying to think of something pleasant and polite I could say to the guy that wasn't "Well, I think you're very funny." Because at that moment, I didn't particularly think that. I respected his success but like I said, he'd never really made me laugh.
Then, suddenly, he did. As we walked down Sunset, we passed a small strip club named 77 Sunset Strip. It's no longer where it was…and where it was was not at that famous address.
On the front of it was a big sign that promised Live Nude Girls and under that was a smaller one. It advertised some man's name and billed him as "The World's Foremost Erotic Magician." By this point, I was grasping for something to say to Pryor so I asked aloud, "What does an erotic magician do?"
Without missing a beat, Richard Pryor shrugged and said, like it should have been obvious, "Saws the woman in half…fucks one half. Then he fucks the other half." I practically fell over laughing, as much from the instantaneous delivery as the line itself. I guess I don't have to tell anyone that with Pryor, it wasn't so much what he said as how he said it.
It was three more blocks to Tower Records and those were the three funniest blocks of my life. Pryor was ticking off one idea after another of things an erotic magician might do — increasingly-filthy concepts involving sex toys and pulling silks and rabbits out of different orifices. I was laughing so hard, I literally had trouble walking. I remember thinking (a) I'd give my entire Kotter paycheck for a tape of this, (b) he could do this verbatim on a stage and kill, and (c) I have got to see more of this man performing.
He ran out of ideas for erotic magic about the time we reached Tower Records. I mentioned something about thinking I should pay a cover and a minimum for the walk, thanked him for the entertainment and we went our separate ways within that vast business. Like most record stores, it's gone now but once upon a time, it carried everything. Everything. Some customers found so much to purchase there that the place actually had a few supermarket-style shopping carts available.
As I browsed, I noticed a gentleman a few years older than me and wearing nicer clothes loading albums into one of those carts, practically filling it. At first, I thought he was a well-dressed store employee but closer inspection revealed it was Elton John. He appeared to be purchasing one copy of every record they had that he wasn't on.
A few minutes later, I passed Pryor who was flipping through albums in the jazz section and I pointed out to him the man I thought was Elton John. He looked, said it wasn't, then he looked again and said, "Hey, that is him. Come on." He motioned for me to go with him and I did, having no idea why he was asking me along. I guess he thought it would be rude not to.
As we approached him, Pryor had the same thought I'd had. He said, "He looks like he works here." I whispered back, "Ask him where the Jerry Vale albums are." Which he did. He walked up to Elton John and said, "Excuse me…can you tell me where the Jerry Vale albums are?" Without even looking at his questioner, Elton said, "Aisle three…easy listening" and then returned to his browsing.
Pryor said, "Elton? It's me, Richie. Richie Pryor." Elton John turned around, greeted him with a handshake and about half a hug and they began talking…and I found myself in an awkward if amusing position. Elton John nodded to me since I was obviously "with" Pryor…but Richard didn't introduce me. (I would have been shocked if he'd remembered my name.)
So I just stood there for ten or fifteen minutes like I was a part of the conversation. When either man laughed, I laughed. When one made an interesting point, I shook my head as if to say, "Hey, that's an interesting point." I probably should have just butted in and said to Richard, "Hey, it's been great hanging out with you but I have to run" then split…but I was just kinda curious to see how long it would be before either one acknowledged my existence.
Glancing around, I noticed a cluster of people at the front of the store all looking and pointing at us. It was easy to read their minds. They were all thinking, "That's Elton John…and that's Richard Pryor…but who's the tall clown in the bad jacket?" And in my mind's ear, I could hear strains of the Sesame Street tune, "One of these things is not like the others…" What you had there were three men: One of the world's top musical artists…one of the world's greatest comedians…and the guy who was writing the Scooby Doo comic books. Yeah, there's three of a kind.
Further glancing caused me to recognize one person in the cluster of folks trying to identify me — someone I actually knew. It was a guy also named Mark from our old Comic Book Club. I gave him a little wave, then returned to the discussion of which I was not a part. I nodded a bit more, laughed a bit more and then — when the two men began to promise to get together soon — I shook hands with Elton John, said goodbye to Richard Pryor and left. I'd bet good money that before they parted, one of them said to the other, "Who the hell was that?" And the other just shrugged.
That evening, Mark called me at home. With great hesitation and skepticism, he asked, "Uh, were you in Tower Records today?"
I said, "Tower Records? Let's see…Tower Records, Tower Records…Oh, sure. Richie and I stopped in and ran into Elton John there." Well, that was true.
Mark demanded, "How do you know Richard Pryor and Elton John?" I told him I was in talks about writing on Pryor's new TV show. That was true, too. I didn't lie but I said nothing to disabuse him of the impression that I was always breathing the same air as guys like that, people with that kind of fame and income. (Today, Elton John has so much money, he has Annie Leibovitz on staff just to take his selfies for him.)
When people tell me they know someone a lot more famous than they are, I sometimes wonder: Do they know this person the way I knew Richard Pryor? Which is to say, "Barely." Years later, I worked with the man on a couple of other shows…but I never got to know him that well. I got the impression few people did.
On those shows and just watching him on the screen, my estimation of him as a comedian improved considerably, though I can't say I ever agreed with those who hailed him as the best of his generation. I also became less inclined to write off any comedian as unfunny based on a small sampling of them. I'm more likely now to think, "Well, maybe I haven't seen this person at their best."
One time on this blog when I mentioned that I didn't think Richard Pryor was the greatest comic ever, a friend who thought that called to talk some sense into me. We had one of those discussions that goes nowhere because there's no right or wrong about things like that. What you find funny might leave me cold and vice-versa. Finally, he asked me what I thought was the single funniest Richard Pryor routine. I told him it was the one about the erotic magician. He said, "Huh?" He actually said that word: "Huh?" Then he added, "I've never heard his erotic magician bit."
I told him, "Well, I guess you don't know Richard Pryor as well as I do."