WEBVTT - LaWanda Page: Death of a Comedy Queen 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.960 Muhammad Ali and Joe Frasier for the first time. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:12.039 In Heavyweight Champions Tip Fiftray, we have two undefeated. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:15.200 Fighters and they are Jimmy Connors and Bjorn boor Or. 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.319 Gets broken serve once again and leads four to two 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:19.680 in the final set. 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:29.040 The Steelers versus the Raiders, good love It. The nineteen 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:33.400 seventies saw some ferocious rivalries. But I know what I'd 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.680 pick as the fiercest of them all. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.839 Oh, Fred, please help us. My church is raising monify 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.840 our youth program. We want to buy ween. 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:49.280 We'll let him have one of yours. Bet what it's something. 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.680 The show was sandford AND's son, and when junkyard dealer 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.920 Fred Sandford played by Red Fox and aunt Esther, his 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.160 Bible toting sister in law, began trash talking, it got 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.400 ugly and hilarious. 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.760 If we were alone on a raft in the middle 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:14.080 of the. 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.759 Ocean, I'd rather kiss the octopus in the knock. 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.480 I wouldn't want you to kiss me. I'd rather be 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:24.319 kissed by Snaggertude Jagga. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.280 The character of aunt Esther joined the series at the 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.960 end of season two, and for many in the audience, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.199 the actress playing her Lawanda Page was a new face, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:43.240 an overnight sensation, but both Red Fox and Lawanda Page 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.959 were veteran comics with big followings. 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.480 We'd bring to the floor the young lady that recalled 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:49.760 the record that was so dirty. 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.360 So rough, built in black nightclubs and through adults only 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:54.560 party records. 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.240 This record is so rough that you wouldn't even let 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:57.440 your own mother in law listen to it. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.640 And let's just say aunt esther would not have approved 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:02.960 of this material. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.680 You know what he said to Adam in the gardener 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:06.440 eaton one day. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.000 She looked at all his in his hand. She said, 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.280 you got the whole world in yon. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:24.080 Man saying things that weren't said would be even more 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.800 shocked than coming from a woman. Lewanda Page wasn't seen 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.360 as a woman comet. You know, she was a star. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:31.320 She was funny. 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.480 In her fifties, she became one of the most popular 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:35.480 people on TV. 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:37.200 I've come a long ways. 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.600 If it hadn't been for Red, I wouldn't be in 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.480 position that I'm in now. I wouldn't have a maid, 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.919 I wouldn't have a chauffeur, I wouldn't have a gardener 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.000 because I couldn't afford it. 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:49.240 I thought the still he. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.400 Wasn't in a nightclub, a celebrity roasting other celebrities. 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.640 Now, let's see which one is. 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:02.079 Betty White. Get a bunch of you albinos on one 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:03.640 days and you all look alike. 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:06.320 She was funny as hell. 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.480 And black women, they will tear you up. They will 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.560 tear you up, they will tell you about yourself. 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.880 But I had one confirmation. I finally got. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.720 That sucker to go to church within and child. It 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:20.360 was a beautiful tu. 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.000 But if Lawanda Page's life is a book, mainstream America 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:29.320 only knows the last chapter. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.840 If you went to clubs, you would know who she was. 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:34.840 And let's just call it what it was. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.040 If you weren't black, you didn't know who she was. 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:38.280 I can't test. 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:43.600 I can attest from CBS Sunday Morning and iHeart. I'm 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:54.960 Morocca and this is mobituaries, This mobid Lwanda Page. 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.840 Ladies and gentlemen. Here she is the Queen of comedy. 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:05.880 Lorwanda September fourteenth, two thousand and two. Death of a 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:07.040 comedy queen. 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:09.400 Thank you, thank you. 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.359 I noticed on the platform formerly known as Twitter, a 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:36.920 picture of this beautiful woman in a swimsuit and somebody said, 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.080 does anybody know who this is? And I scrolled down 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.640 because I thought she looked familiar, and somebody said, it's 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.120 it's an estor from Sanford, and so I went Hodie smoked. 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:49.760 Oh yeah, no, that listen. Lwanda Page is stunningly beautiful. 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:55.920 And what ends up happening often, particularly with women of color, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.839 no one knows anything about us because we weren't really 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.880 part of the regular world because unless you knew about 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:05.839 black performers, you didn't know about. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.120 A lot of folks. I'm talking with comedian and actress 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:14.400 and Egot winner Whoopy Goldberg, and it's true Lawanda Page 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.560 had a long and surprising career in showbiz before Sandford 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.400 and Son that white audiences knew little about. 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.240 We're a lot better now about it, but in the fifties, 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:31.040 unless you were in the know, you were not hanging 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.080 out in the clubs where Lewanda was. 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:34.600 People didn't know. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.600 You know, she's like blackfire or something. It's just you know, 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:39.680 and she was hot. 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.440 Once upon a time, there was a little black girl 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:50.440 in the Brewster projects of Detroit, Michigan. At fifteen, she 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.440 was spighted by an ebony fashion fair talent scout, and 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.160 her modeling career took on You Better work. 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.760 That's Luwanda Page in the intro to Rue Paul's nineteen 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:08.440 ninety three seminal dance hit Supermodel turns out Rue Paul 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.560 is a Lawanda Page super fan. Now, Lawanda was not 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.200 born in the Brewster projects of Detroit. In fact, she 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:22.000 wasn't even born Lawanda Page. Her name was Alberta Richmond 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.279 when she came into the world in Cleveland, Ohio, in 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:29.000 nineteen twenty. As a kid during the Great Depression, she'd 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.080 dance on street corners for spare change. I would dream 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.240 about being in show business, Lawanda would later tell the 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:41.040 Black Entertainment magazine Roots, like I was Cinderella in a storybook. 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.679 I thought I'd reach it through dancing. When her family 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:50.080 moved to Saint Louis, Lawanda went to Banneker Elementary School, 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.839 where she became friends with her future co star, Red Fox. 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:59.200 He was two grades below her. Lawanda grew up fast, pregnant, 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.720 and married at fourteen. Her son died in infancy. 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:04.040 At sixteen. 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.760 She had a daughter. By nineteen Lawanda was widowed. By then, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.360 she was already working the clubs as she later told 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.760 one reporter she made thirty six dollars a week as 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.760 a shake dancer. The shaking part had to do with 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.360 the fringe she wore. I shook the fringe, she said, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.400 My did I shake that fringe. By this time, she'd 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.800 taken the name Lawanda, perhaps to keep her religious mother 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:35.880 from finding out what she was doing. When the club 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.160 owner decided that Lawanda needed to shake up her act, 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.800 she had a flash, so to speak. I was sitting 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.920 in the dressing room and my lighter fluid spilled on 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.920 my hand, she recalled. When she proceeded to light a cigarette, 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:55.400 her hand caught fire, so did her imagination. Lawanda was 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.240 going to do a fire act at a club in 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.640 East Saint Louis called the Blue Flame. Yes, the Blue Flame. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.000 A drag queen named Taboo showed her the ropes. It's 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.720 in the breathing. Lawanda remembered being taught, when you put 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.920 the torch in your mouth, breathe out. If you don't, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.840 you're done like a roast. And always keep moving. As 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.680 long as you keep moving, the flames don't burn you. 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:27.000 That's how I became the Bronze Goddess of fire, swallowing 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.800 flames walking on hot coals. She even brought a snake 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.760 into her act. It was perilous work. She burned herself 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.160 and merely burned down a few clubs, but the act 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.800 was good enough to take on the road. There's this 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.440 quote from a drummer who worked with her at the 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.160 New Deli Cabaret in Vancouver. She'd light her finger and 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.880 go around lighting guy cigarettes in the club. Then the 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.480 lights would go off and she'd light up the tassels 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.840 on her pasties and spin them like propellers in opposite directions. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:58.400 It was wonderful. 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:00.080 You gotta have a give. 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:03.720 It got ave a gammick. 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:05.040 Now. 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.280 Lawanda never wrote a memoir, but in her later stand 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.600 up work she talked about her early days. Here she 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:16.000 is from her nineteen seventy nine album Sane Advice, talking 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.720 about the first time she saw a certain pioneering black 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:21.640 star of the silver screen. 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.640 All the pretty women in the movies in magazine were white, 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.840 and when a pretty girl came on the screen, the 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:32.280 white men they were allowed to pap and whistle, but 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:34.720 the black food sat tight and kept quiet. 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:35.880 Had to hunt it. 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:40.160 They had to do it. Then came nineteen forty three, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.200 nineteen forty three. Baby, I remember the day the movie 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.000 was Kevin in the Sky and the pretty woman was 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:55.160 Lena Home and Honey, when Lena came on the screen, 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.280 all them black southerns Honda they screen, they whistle. How 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.240 they taught tell the buffet the popcorn machine. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:04.640 Oh man, they throw down to ricks. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.839 The theater in Saint Louis. They say, we don't want 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:16.479 to sit down, we want to get down. 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.720 And I don't blame him, honey, because Leedom was bright 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:28.199 light and damn near white. 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:29.600 She was a black beauty. 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.760 And right then I made up my mind I was 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.959 going into show business. I went straight down town and 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:40.000 got me a job dancing. Yes did. 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.840 Born in Cleveland, growing up in Saint Louis. And she 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:47.920 wants to be a star. She wanted to be a 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.920 Hollywood star. Can you just even relate or imagine like 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.760 what that burning desire is or yeah. 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.560 Because you're watching these movies and it doesn't occur to 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.679 you that that's not going to be you. 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:03.719 It doesn't occur. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.800 To you because I mean, I loved all those movies 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:09.880 that they made in the thirties and the forties and 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.640 the fifties. I had no idea you know. I'm thinking 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:13.560 of the letter in. 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:15.320 Particularly Danny Davis. 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:23.160 Where she comes down and says, shooting the guy. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.000 But all I hut, I still love the lad I killed. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.679 And I'm thinking that's what I want to do. And 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.480 no one ever said, no, You're never going to be 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.840 Benny Davis. My mother said, yes, of course, sure, just 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:35.920 don't shoot anybody. 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:36.760 But you could do that. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:38.000 God bless your mother. 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.160 But that's such an interesting point because that's what dreaming is, right, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.600 a suspension of disbelief, right, Yes. 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:48.160 And so I'm sure it never occurred to Lawanda that 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.640 she wasn't going to be one of those women. Never 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.839 ocurred to her, and never occurred to me either, till 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:56.040 someone said. 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.760 Oh, you know you're black, don't you. 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.520 It's like, yeah, of course, I know. 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:04.800 Was that I have to do with this, with wanting 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:06.920 to be the starter And what my mother would say 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.600 is it has nothing to do with it. They might 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.920 not understand everything, but they'll get it. Somebody will get 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:14.640 it if you're good enough. 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:21.560 Of course, Lawanda's path was limited by legalized segregation. She 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.000 worked at the informal network of black nightclubs and theaters 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.560 known as the Chitlin Circuit. Here she is again from 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:29.400 Saint Advice. 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.480 I was one and excited girl, but I had no 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.240 idea what was ahead of me. It was August child 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:42.920 and hot hot hop hop hop, hunted forty people, best costumes. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.400 All it was riding and living in the same booth. 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.120 Before we got out of Saint Louis, my sixth day, daughter, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:51.280 my pet had died. 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.760 Time traveling on a show is like no trip you 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:02.680 ever took the cover. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:05.959 Maybe if you hear loud noise in the back, it's 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:07.160 the luggage trying to get. 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:11.120 Out and child. 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.240 I open my window and the fumes from that bus 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.160 till the whole proper meat in camp. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.559 You know, visually, in my mind, I could see her 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:26.000 on the bus with you know, nine thousand people, all performers, 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.000 playing cards, smoking cigarettes, just because they could only stop 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.199 at specific places and they could only stay in specific places. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.600 That's of a time. That's of a time. 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:39.920 You of course know what this is like. 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.160 It's not easy to get up there and hold an 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.160 audience like that and not rush it. 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.040 Yeah, well, you know, she is breathing, do you know 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.120 what I mean? She's up there and she's breathing. She's 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.800 like and then this habit. Can you believe it? 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:56.920 Oh? 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:58.720 Wait a minute, and then this happened. 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.760 It's a stop of patter that you don't hear often, 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:12.360 but you hear with black comics, particularly female black comics. 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.120 You have a little bit of the South, and you 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:16.720 just telling what happened. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.680 And I love that you said just breathing, because that's 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.120 a big deal because people who don't know what they're doing, 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.240 they're not breathing, they're just going right through. 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:24.920 They're nervous. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:26.720 She's in no rush. 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.280 She'd tell the story the stage of hers who she is, 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.400 and it's kind of fabulous. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.920 But Lawanda hadn't even tried to stand up comedy until 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.880 the mid nineteen fifties, when she was in her mid 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.640 thirties and had settled in South Los Angeles. She was 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.920 still the Bronze Goddess of fire dancing at a club 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.479 called the Brass Rail when some of her fellow performers 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.600 noticed how funny she was. As she later told Jet Magazine, 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.920 when I got too old to dance, I turned to comedy. 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:04.200 She started working with comedic duo Skillett and Leroy Records. 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:09.040 But that's the very fabulous Lerii skillet and Lwanda. 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.640 Many of Lawanda's bits were drawn from her own life. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.120 She'd been widowed three times before she even started doing comedy. 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.280 I should have known it never work out for old 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:23.040 John and me honey, because it was written in the stones. 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.880 I was a Burgo and that sucker was a line 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.760 of honey, can take no kind of John. That's the 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.320 only man I know that ever went to the unemployment 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:34.920 office and lost his place in land. 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:42.400 Lawanda would work black comedy clubs for the next two decades. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.280 Her humor was as fiery as her dancing had been. 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.280 Coming up after the break Lwanda Page Red Fox and 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:55.160 The Age of the Party Record. Well, now, some of 0:15:55.200 --> 0:16:00.120 those albums, especially Lawanda's earlier ones, they're really blue. I 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.600 don't think I'm a shrinking violet, but they're blue even 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:03.200 for today. 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:05.480 They are dirty as hell. 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:21.720 Yes, yes, our next guest is dubbed the King of 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.120 the Party Records. Basically that means they're intended for laughs 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.000 in the living room. He's made thirty four albums and 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.760 they have sold in the millions. He's kind of a 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.920 stranger to television and a stranger to me, frankly, but 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.640 I'm very anxious to meet him. He's got an enormous 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.480 cult of admirers. Here is Red Fox. 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:46.320 In nineteen sixty six, talk show host MERV Griffin. Welcome 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.640 to comedian Red Fox. We're all party records. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:51.720 You're playing in a party. You have never been a party. 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.080 Put the records on when it's kind of dull, and 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.080 then wait, yeah, are the body starts naughty? 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:00.160 Yes. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.840 In this act, we're going to talk about party records 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.720 and the role they played, not just in Lawanda Page's career, 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:13.040 but in the careers of many major black comics. Now, 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.439 these records were not for kids, as Red Box all 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.119 but said in that clip we just heard. In fact, 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.479 many of the albums came wrapped in brown paper. 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.679 It's so funny now to look back, because we're not 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.600 talking that long ago. But America has always had this 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.680 kind of false morality, like, oh, we don't do that. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.080 You know, it's like porn. It's like, oh, there's a 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:40.239 fifty billion dollar business that no one buys. That's what 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:41.240 these records were. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.280 I'm talking to my friend, comedian Alonso Boden. 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.920 Got a new iPhone. Got a new iPhone costs somewhere 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:54.840 between twelve hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. I don't know 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.080 how much it costs because Siri body. 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:04.000 Alonso broke through after winning NBC's Last Comic Standing. I've 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.359 had the great pleasure of being a panelist on NPR's 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.879 comedy quiz show Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me with Alonso 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:15.560 for over a decade. Alonzo has faint but fond memories 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:17.040 of the Party record era. 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.520 Everybody knew about them, and people loved them, and it 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.480 was really the only way you heard these comics. Right, 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.000 we didn't have the internet. Someone got the record. They 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.840 told you about the record, You told someone else about 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:30.320 the record. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.800 As the name would suggest, these records became big at parties. 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.200 My father had a bar in the basement, and this 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.080 is how they socialized, you know. They had bars in 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.639 the house or pool table or something like that, and 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.760 they put the kids to bed, and this. 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.439 Is part of what came out at that later night party. 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.080 Okay, I need you now, of course, to set the scene. 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.200 This is the Alonso Boden biopic. You're a kid. I mean, 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:01.000 set the scene. Your dad's bar is downstairs. What's going on? 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:09.120 So my dad's bar is downstairs. He has friends over. 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.000 They might be a couple from the neighborhood, and then 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.040 some probably from work. We had to go to bed. 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.200 Of course, the funny thing about me and my brother's room. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.160 It was also in the basement, so we weren't too 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:25.879 far away. You could hear the laughter, you could hear 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:32.320 the glasses tinkling. You know, you know it was a party, really, 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:32.920 I know. 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:34.760 I said, you ought to be careful at night time 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.159 and pull your shades down. I said, because last night 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:38.680 I saw you and your wife making love. 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.040 He said, you kidding all I went to You'm home. 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:47.480 How important is Red Fox to this whole party record scene? 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.840 He was the man. He was probably the biggest star 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:56.280 in that genre. Red Fox's stand up was almost all 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:58.280 on these party records. 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.320 The party started in eighteen fifty five when Los Angeles 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:07.640 doo wop producer Dootsey Williams visited the Oasis nightclub and 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.040 saw Red Fox's set. Williams ran a tiny label called 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:17.280 Duto Records, known for recording Earth Angel by the Penguins. 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:22.639 Earthing Joo, Earthingjoo. 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.040 Will You Be Minde? 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:30.280 But the label had recently started releasing novelty records. About 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:34.840 Red Fox. Williams said he was so outrageous in such 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.200 a way that nobody would ever think of putting him 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.119 on a record. But I thought this guy can sell. 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.439 There was no doubt that Fox was funny. In his 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.840 late teens, he had worked in a New York City 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:52.639 restaurant alongside a future civil rights leader. Years later, in 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:58.000 his autobiography, Malcolm X would refer to Fox as Chicago Red, 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.479 the funniest dishwasher on Earth. Red Fox would go on 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:06.560 to become one of the first black comedians to headline Vegas. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.800 He would open his own La nightclub. But back in 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.000 fifty five, Red was skeptical about this whole party record idea. 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.639 He later recalled it was a black thing in a sense. 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.439 So I said I'd go ahead and record for my 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:25.520 black brother because nobody else had offered me anything. For 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.959 the first album, Dootsey Williams sat in the club with 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:33.200 a tape recorder and recorded Red's raunchy act. In nineteen 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.800 fifty six, Laugh of the Party Volume one came out. 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.760 The Good Housekeeping Bureau has just released some vital statistics 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.240 very important to all smokers. Do you know that out 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.920 of four hundred and forty six doctors that switched to 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:49.200 camels only two of them went back to women. 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:56.280 The Low Fi recording was a big fat hit. Box 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.679 was the first stand up comedian black or white to 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:05.080 release album, and according to comedy historian Cliff Nesteroff, after Fox, 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:09.080 it became abnormal if a comic didn't put out records. 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:14.359 Bob Newhart, Mort Sahl, Jonathan Winters, they all came after 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:19.440 Red Fox. Over the next six years, Dudo released approximately 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.359 twenty five Red Fox party records. In just the first 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.840 two years they sold more than a million units. 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.479 They did a record with Red Fox and they sold 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.320 a ton of records, and they said, wait a minute, 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:36.239 we're on to something. Who else you got, you know? 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:40.000 And they started recording these other comedians. 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:45.520 Black comedians like George Kirby, Sloppy Daniels, even a ventriloquist 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.879 and dummy act known as Richard and Willie. 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.680 Huggin Yeah, Peason, Yeah, Kiss in sixth All Candoise, Yeah, 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:54.520 good gouda man who are going to be there? 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:55.320 Yes, you and me? 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:04.160 And then in the late nineteen sixties, Laugh Records entered 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:08.040 and soon dominated the party record scene. One of the 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.720 biggest names in comedy ever would find his voice on 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:13.560 the new label A lot. 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:17.440 Of people don't know this that Prior initially was a 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.639 clean comic and he was following in Cosby's footsteps. 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:27.159 Yes, prior to the nineteen seventies, Richard Pryor was g rated. 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:30.159 Here he is on the Murph Griffin Show in nineteen 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:30.840 sixty six. 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:33.320 People worry about everything about offending with the breath. 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:34.359 You worry about it, right. 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:36.600 You can tell when somebody's worried about because they talked 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:37.240 through their fingers. 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:45.040 But then Pryor had a kind of awakening. 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:49.640 And he basically had a breakdown. He basically kind of snapped, 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:54.080 and he came out talking and cussing and being who 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:59.080 he really was, and the audience immediately grasped. The audience 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:04.280 immediately loved the honesty and how raw he was and 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.000 who he really was. And from there, you know, he 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:10.600 never looked back and he became Richard Pryor. 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:15.000 It was on nineteen seventy one's Craps, a blockbuster for 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:19.160 Prior and for laugh Records, that audiences heard the real 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:24.120