Brilliant and touching

Best movie ever!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

You have to remember 1977 to rate this show correctly. In 1977 the Variety show was dead on arrival almost all of the time, regardless who was doing it. In 1974, Flip Wilson had been canceled. Sonny & Cher had been canceled together and apart.When I discovered this, I was pleasantly surprised. Is this the last show after Red Skelton to do Pantomime? I believe it was. Was this the last one to do good sketch comedy? The creativity on this show, creepy at parts, is at a very high level. Pryor as one of the shows writers kept the writing here at a very high level. Often it is too intelligent for the audience. The scary part is today's dumbed down audience is way behind this material. Pryors Comedy Blackouts at the end of some episodes are great. This has Robin Williams before he was Mork, and Marsha Warfield before Night Court. NBC not only missed here, but could have developed a sitcom for Pyor that might have worked.The Star Wars bar skit is incredible. The Improv sequence on this pre- dates Whose Line Is It Anyways? Did the creator of that see this skit? Robin Williams is very funny here though a bit constrained by Pryors material though in the Pryor Roast skit he is very funny and adds to this show no matter where he gets put it.Now that Pryor and Williams have left this world, this short lived series is one of the few examples of them working together some. I wish there could have been more. I rate this highly because, for the wrong place at the wrong time, this one has the it factor. Fun is how it was intended and variety is what it delivers.

I was a young tyke when this show came on the air. The local NBC affiliate preempted it from the 8:00 time slot until 11:00 p.m. Because it was so rare for African Americans to be on television, the phone rang late at night telling my Mom it was on. Even though it was a school night, Mom dragged me out of bed to watch the show.After Richard said the first word "ass" Mom gasped and ordered me back to bed. I only got a couple steps before she recanted and allowed me to complete the show. We were sad that it went off the airwaves after such a short run, but it was the talk of my classroom for a few weeks.In retrospect, the controversy seems non-existent. I felt the same way seeing an episode of the old CBS Smothers Brothers show. I also remember Mom telling me to turn that show off because of its content, yet today it seems tame enough for Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel. I agree with the other reviewers that Pryor paved the way for a lot of great shows, including the Wayans and Jamie Foxx. He will be missed.

Perhaps I'm guilty of judging the show by modern standards, but I don't really think the Richard Pryor Show was as outrageous as it presented itself to be, or as NBC's Bureau of Standards & Practices did in 1977.One look at the four episodes of this show and you can tell, this is where the Wayans family got their ideas, back when they were stealing the thunder of comedians like Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall. It's also surprising to find that this show was the humble beginning for people like Marsha Warfield, Sandra Bernhardt, and Robin Williams, who I thought did nothing but the comedy club circuit before his famous role as "Mork from Ork." Yet with all the co-stars, and special features within the box set, it's not as funny or outrageous as you'd expect. This doesn't mean, however that it's not worthy of adding to your DVD library, because it is.

Before Chris Rock. Before Eddie Murphy. There was only one man who took comedy to its limits, RICHARD PRYOR. Pryor was at the top of his game when NBC offered him his own variety series back in 1977. Low ratings and Pryor's battle with the network's censors caused the show to shut down after a run of just 4 episodes. What is left is a brilliant piece of work by Pryor and his crew, which included Robin Williams, Tim Reid(WKRP), Marsha Warfield(Night Court), John Witherspoon(Friday)among others.Richard Pryor really pushed the limits with this show. In his skits, just when you thought the skit was over or he couldn't go any further with his material, Pryor always took it one step further. Whether he was playing the President or dumping on NBC(over the censors), Pryor wasn't just funny, but SHOCKINGLY FUNNY. Now, please keep in mind that this was 1977 and there was more of a barrier of what you can say and do on television(as for today, anything goes).Shows like CHAPPELLE'S SHOW I think owe a lot to The Richard Pryor Show. It broke all barriers.Without Richard Pryor, there would be no Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Dave Chappelle, Martin Lawrence, Steve Harvey, Wayans Bros. (the list goes on and on). Richard paved the way for them all, as you all will see. The Richard Pryor Show is being released on DVD/VHS in March 2004. I'd suggest you pick it up and get ready to fall out of your chair...LAUGHING.