Picked up a Redd Foxx cd . . . .

[hoosierelvisfan]

. . . I was in a convenience store the other night getting some things and by the counter was one of those racks that sells cd's, video tapes and dvds. Anyway, what caught my eye immediately was a Redd Foxx cd for only $4.99. I thought, how can I pass this up???? LOL! So I bought the cd. Anyway, it is filthy. The thing about it is that most of the things he talks about really just aren't funny, but you can hear the people in the background laughing their heads off. Those people must have been drunk out of their minds because he just really wasn't that funny on this particular cd. Has anybody else listened to any of these "comedy" albums from Redd Foxx? What was your opinion? Did you think the material was funny or did you think it was kind of lame?

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch

[jekouptown]

Originally posted by hoosierelvisfan
. . . I was in a convenience store the other night getting some things and by the counter was one of those racks that sells cd's, video tapes and dvds. Anyway, what caught my eye immediately was a Redd Foxx cd for only $4.99. I thought, how can I pass this up???? LOL! So I bought the cd. Anyway, it is filthy. The thing about it is that most of the things he talks about really just aren't funny, but you can hear the people in the background laughing their heads off. Those people must have been drunk out of their minds because he just really wasn't that funny on this particular cd. Has anybody else listened to any of these "comedy" albums from Redd Foxx? What was your opinion? Did you think the material was funny or did you think it was kind of lame?

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch

I have heard some of his stand-up. It was "cutting edge" at the time. I guess with Rudy Ray Moore and Richard Pryor you can see that Redd Foxx had to take a different direction. Richard was a story teller. Rudy was a poet. So Redd Foxx had a stage show that was vulgar..real vulgar. He was a heavy drinker so it does not shock me that his audience was mostly AA members.

[W.J. Griffin]

Originally posted by hoosierelvisfan
. . . I was in a convenience store the other night getting some things and by the counter was one of those racks that sells cd's, video tapes and dvds. Anyway, what caught my eye immediately was a Redd Foxx cd for only $4.99. I thought, how can I pass this up???? LOL! So I bought the cd. Anyway, it is filthy. The thing about it is that most of the things he talks about really just aren't funny, but you can hear the people in the background laughing their heads off. Those people must have been drunk out of their minds because he just really wasn't that funny on this particular cd. Has anybody else listened to any of these "comedy" albums from Redd Foxx? What was your opinion? Did you think the material was funny or did you think it was kind of lame?

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch

Well, OF COURSE IT WAS FILTHY!! It's Redd Foxx, man! That's how he got his reputation.

Back in the 50s, Redd made what was then called "Party Records", that was only availiable in the Black community at the time. Black comedy has a naturally underground-satiracal vibe to it, in which nothing...and I mean NOTHING...is sacred! (This tradition goes back to the blackface minstrel shows*, when Black minstrels would do an entirely different act for Black audiences, with much rawer humor than what was done for White audiences, who insisted on propriety in their entertainment.) Even during the 1930s and 1940s, such entertainers as Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham ("Here comes de judge") and Jackie "Moms" Mabley did what is often refered to as "blue" humor when they were performing before African-American audiences.

Redd Foxx was no different. And his stuff was inspiration to Richard Pryor, Rudy Ray Moore, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, et al. African-American humor is always of a subversive nature, ridiculing everything from love and marriage to religion to race relations and politics. And a lot of the people that Redd had on "Sanford and Son"---Slappy White, Scatman Carruthers, and especially La Wanda Page---did the same material in their stand-up routines, as well.

Don't be appalled...you have the chance to hear Redd Foxx's comedy undiluted by network censorship. For a real treat, you should find his album "Wash Your Ass"...that one is one of the all-time classics!!

*Actually, the tradition for subversive Black humor goes back even farther to the days of slavery, when Black slaves would amuse themselves with stories in which a weaker charcater triumphs over a "superior" advisary...you might have even heard some of these stories as "Uncle Remus" tales...

[bry]

i'm appalled by your using the word "african american" here. it doesn't apply to the 1930's and 1940's that you were talking about.
next thing, will you then call it the african american baseball league?
all you that choose to be "politically correct" in your words show me a cowardice way to choose words. you will never hear them call us caucasion americans. quit catering to the whims of idiot lobbyists that make up this junk that changes the way you think. think with your own mind and quit following "the leader".
people who write their own revisionist history is bad enough. but when people start using revisionist labeling of people, that is absurd.

i appreciate the information you gave us. it's just the choice of words that got to me.

[W.J. Griffin]

Originally posted by bry
i'm appalled by your using the word "african american" here. it doesn't apply to the 1930's and 1940's that you were talking about.
next thing, will you then call it the african american baseball league?
all you that choose to be "politically correct" in your words show me a cowardice way to choose words. you will never hear them call us caucasion americans. quit catering to the whims of idiot lobbyists that make up this junk that changes the way you think. think with your own mind and quit following "the leader".
people who write their own revisionist history is bad enough. but when people start using revisionist labeling of people, that is absurd.

i appreciate the information you gave us. it's just the choice of words that got to me.

Bry, I used the term "African-American" because I, myself, am African-American and that is how I choose to identify myself, as my ancestors came to this land hundreds of years ago FROM AFRICA. There is absolutely no "catering" going on here, to either idiots or lobbyist. If you've read any of my post on these boards, you will undoubtedly note that I use "Black" and "African-American" interchangeably. Also, if I refer to historical titles and organizations like, say, The National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People, or the Negro Baseball League, I will use said terms as they are identified (providing, of course, that said terms aren't antiquated slurs or insults.)

Furthermore, I find it offensive that you, or anyone else, would deem it necessary to scold me about my usage of terminology. I wonder, would you be so critical if I had used "Italian-American" or "Irish-American"? I say what I mean on these boards, and that's as far from the "political correctness" nonsense as you can get.

And, yes, the term "African-American" was indeed in usage during the 1930s and 1940s...it was much nicer than what we, Black Americans, were usually called in those days...

Or now.

[hoosierelvisfan]

. . . . I'm offended that I spent $4.99 on that Redd Foxx cd that, really, quite honestly, wasn't funny in the least. To W.J., thanks for the info. In my opinion, there really wasn't anything about listening to it that was a "treat." I consider watching Sanford and Son on dvd or on TV Land to be much more of a treat than listening to the nonsense on that cd.

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch

[W.J. Griffin]

Sorry you wasted your money, hoosierelvisfan...I guess uncensored Redd Foxx isn't for everyone. Well, at least you still have "Sanford and Son", "Sanford", and maybe "Cotton Comes To Harlem" to fall back on...

[Artfiore1]

Dutch,
I heard one of Redd Foxx's live albums about 25-30 years ago. It was extremely vulgar and gross. I confess to having found it amusing at the time. I was about 18 or 19 years old then and kind of stupid. It was amusing the way it's amusing to a little kid when he hears someone say a "bad word" -- you know, not so much funny as it was shocking. Back in Redd's day, that was a novelty. But, all the comics who followed in his footsteps have helped to make this an overall less decent society, and his stuff, therefore, not so out-of-the-ordinary, just tasteless and less funny. I am not easily offended, though. I've heard it all, and nothing really so-called "offensive" bothers me. What bothers me is when these types of comedians attack people like Bill Cosby for being funny and clean at the same time. It's obviously because many of *them* don't have that ability.

Then, I guess about 15 years or so ago, I caught one of Redd 's live stand-up specials on cable, and I saw that he had not changed since I'd heard that album back in the '70s. If anything, he had become even *more* gross.

I sincerely hope that you didn't buy that CD expecting to hear Fred Sanford. 'Cause if you did, it must have been quite a shock.


Later,
Art

[magellan333]

I tried to watch the cuss-word ridden film Harlem Nights one time. It had Redd Foxx and a great deal of foul language in it. The repeated use of obscenities led me to turn it off after only a few minutes. A good comedian is one who can be funny without using continual sexaul references and vulgar langauge. Just my opinion.

[marvin g]

Harlem Nights was simply AWFUL!!! Eddie Murphy messed up a good opportunity to get himself Pryor and Foxx in a good movie and screwed it up with a over abundance of profanity!! What a waste!!

[bry]

are you serious????
harlem nights was hilarious. i agree that the language was way out there, but it was funny the way it was said and the reactions of the actors to each other.
one of the funniest movies i ever saw.

[W.J. Griffin]

Originally posted by bry
are you serious????
harlem nights was hilarious. i agree that the language was way out there, but it was funny the way it was said and the reactions of the actors to each other.
one of the funniest movies i ever saw.

I agree. I think "Harlem Nights" is one of the most underrated films ever made...Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy in the same scenes, enhanced by Della Reese, is what I call comedy gold!!