Richard Pryor on "The Partridge Family"

[Sal]

When I heard the sad news about Richard Pryor's death yesterday morning, the first thought that came to my mind was his appearance on the "Partridge Family" ("Soul Club"---Season 1, Episode #18). That's the one where the family mistakenly switches dates with the Temptations and ends up playing in a black social club in Detroit run by Pryor and his partner Louis Gossett Jr. (from "Roots").

The episode was a change of pace for Pryor who was known for his raunchy R-rated humour and was used to working for adult audiences. Naturally, there was a chance that he would slip up now and then and he had to be reminded to clean up his act. The story that I heard was that at one point a crew member took him aside and told him: "Richard, you don't call a 10 year old boy a m-f-." Once that idea had sunk in, he was fine the rest of the way and, in my opinion, he gave a great performance.

Around 20 years later, when the show was enjoying a resurgence in popularity thanks to being seen on MTV and MuchMusic in Canada, David Cassidy appeared on "The Arsenio Hall Show". Hall showed clips of that episode where Keith comes up with a new idea for a song ("It's an Afro thing!") and chooses Pryor to help him write it. Cassidy seemed very embarrassed by the whole thing but he shouldn't be, since he was great in it too, especially when he gets to sing that song ("Bandala") at the end of the episode.

Richard Pryor appeared on many TV shows and movies over his long and brilliant career but for me my favorite moment was this episode which can now be seen on DVD for many generations to enjoy.

Rest in peace Richard! We love you and we'll miss you!

[um]

Originally Posted by Sal

When I heard the sad news about Richard Pryor's death yesterday morning, the first thought that came to my mind was his appearance on the "Partridge Family" ("Soul Club"---Season 1, Episode #18). That's the one where the family mistakenly switches dates with the Temptations and ends up playing in a black social club in Detroit run by Pryor and his partner Louis Gossett Jr. (from "Roots").

The episode was a change of pace for Pryor who was known for his raunchy R-rated humour and was used to working for adult audiences. Naturally, there was a chance that he would slip up now and then and he had to be reminded to clean up his act. The story that I heard was that at one point a crew member took him aside and told him: "Richard, you don't call a 10 year old boy a m-f-." Once that idea had sunk in, he was fine the rest of the way and, in my opinion, he gave a great performance.

Around 20 years later, when the show was enjoying a resurgence in popularity thanks to being seen on MTV and MuchMusic in Canada, David Cassidy appeared on "The Arsenio Hall Show". Hall showed clips of that episode where Keith comes up with a new idea for a song ("It's an Afro thing!") and chooses Pryor to help him write it. Cassidy seemed very embarrassed by the whole thing but he shouldn't be, since he was great in it too, especially when he gets to sing that song ("Bandala") at the end of the episode.

Richard Pryor appeared on many TV shows and movies over his long and brilliant career but for me my favorite moment was this episode which can now be seen on DVD for many generations to enjoy.

Rest in peace Richard! We love you and we'll miss you!

Providing that sitcomsonline.com does not disappear from the internet, (or that the moderators don't erase this post) there will always be this thread for people to read over for generations to come and realize that there were discussions about the episode of The Partridge Family in which Richard Pryor guest starred.

This post is very old after all.

Anyway, to put in my own opinion, I think that Richard Pryor overdid his type of humor and also he was not an original in that respect, actually neither was George Carlin.
A lot of "Insult comics" just tried to do what Lenny Bruce did. I think that overall it was a bad genre that caught on.
It was mainly only non-funny "jokes" that was meant to give shock value.
There were other comics who did not get as much recognition because they did not use the crude style of Pryor and Carlin and Bruce, but they were funny.
I think David Brenner was a very underappreciated comic talent. When he died there wasn't too much said about it.

Also, according to Shirley Jones, most of the cast did not like Richard Pryor when he guest stared because he was drunk or drugged up when he came to the set.