PRESIDENT PRYOR
OR
"THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT"

The YouTube description for the clip I'm about to link:

From the 1977 "The Richard Pryor Show". The forerunner of "In Living Color" and "Chapelle's Show", this classic program only aired four original episodes, due to Mr. Pryor's frustration dealing with network censors. Look for Robin Williams, John Witherspoon, Marsha Warfield, Tim Reid, and Sandra Bernhard in this classic sketch .

So my dad, of all people, sent me the link to this clip. It was one of those mass emails, titled "The First Black President," sent out to like twenty people or so. I'm not sure what his point is, given that he is very conservative and definitely not an Obama supporter, but whatever. This is fucking funny.

You know, it's weird. In 1977, even though I was only in fourth grade, I already knew who Richard Pryor was, and loved him. But I only heard of the short lived show's existence a few years ago, decades after the fact. I guess that makes sense: it was on for less than a month, and opposite Happy Days, which had not yet jumped the shark at that point. I did love Fonzie and Richie. It's a shame, though. If this clip is any indication, the show was brilliant. According to Wikipedia, however, NBC had it in for Pryor from the beginning, and did everything they could to undermine its success. Typical.

Anyway, embedding is disabled, so you'll have to go check it out at YouTube. This is as good as anything you've ever seen on TV. Better, even.

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