Rating: 
Summary: Simply Beautiful
Review: BUY this DVD today. Be sure to purchase the boxset as it is the only way to get the RICHARD PRYOR SPECIAL? and Mudbone bonus footage. This groundbreaking series paved the way for not only (the obvious) IN LIVING COLOR and CHAPPELLES SHOW, but other subversive TV like South Park which attempt to inject social commentary while challenging the censors. It not only captures Pryor at his comedic peak, but gives us early glimpses of folks like Robin Williams, Sandra Berhard, Marsha Warfield and John Witherspoon. This show has never been available on home video and has basically been out of circulation since its initial run, thus it is a jewel to behold. Watching Pryor as "The "Mojo", "the First Black President" and "Rev. White"--who has his own way to drum up "the big bucks"-- will have you laffing for hours. But Pryor also presents scketches that weren't designed to be laugh out loud funny, but challenge you in other ways, like the wino sketch that turns into a Maya Angelo performance. Or the "Satin Doll" sketch, which has no laughs at all, but aims to capture the feeling of post WWII Black america with a fantastic song-and-dance number starring Paula Kelly (choreographed by Michael Peters.) I seriously doubt these five hours of television would have come out the same if the NBC censors had been completely undertanding, sensitive and supportive of Mr. Pryor's vision. The Special is an extension of Mr. Pryor's hosting of SNL. The subsequent series itself reminds me of Marvin Gaye's HERE, MY DEAR. While it is not Marvin's most listenable or even best work, through pain he finds beauty and truth. This boxset is a must-have for fans of TV comedy and shoud be copped by any means necessary.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Beautiful
Review: BUY this DVD today. Be sure to purchase the boxset as it is the only way to get the RICHARD PRYOR SPECIAL? and Mudbone bonus footage. This groundbreaking series paved the way for not only (the obvious) IN LIVING COLOR and CHAPPELLES SHOW, but other subversive TV like South Park which attempt to inject social commentary while challenging the censors. It not only captures Pryor at his comedic peak, but gives us early glimpses of folks like Robin Williams, Sandra Berhard, Marsha Warfield and John Witherspoon. This show has never been available on home video and has basically been out of circulation since its initial run, thus it is a jewel to behold. Watching Pryor as "The "Mojo", "the First Black President" and "Rev. White"--who has his own way to drum up "the big bucks"-- will have you laffing for hours. But Pryor also presents scketches that weren't designed to be laugh out loud funny, but challenge you in other ways, like the wino sketch that turns into a Maya Angelo performance. Or the "Satin Doll" sketch, which has no laughs at all, but aims to capture the feeling of post WWII Black america with a fantastic song-and-dance number starring Paula Kelly (choreographed by Michael Peters.) I seriously doubt these five hours of television would have come out the same if the NBC censors had been completely undertanding, sensitive and supportive of Mr. Pryor's vision. The Special is an extension of Mr. Pryor's hosting of SNL. The subsequent series itself reminds me of Marvin Gaye's HERE, MY DEAR. While it is not Marvin's most listenable or even best work, through pain he finds beauty and truth. This boxset is a must-have for fans of TV comedy and shoud be copped by any means necessary.
Rating: 
Summary: Funniest TV Show Of The 1970's!!!
Review: Forget Good Times. Forget What's Happening. Forget Sanford and Son or The Jeffersons. This, my friends, is the most hilarious TV show of the 1970's. Gut busting laughter all around! I remember seeing this show as a child. I screamed with laughter then and I will scream with laughter tonight when I watch this DVD!Highlights include: Rich as Mudbone coming home drunk and cussing. When he collapses on the floor, we see Maya Angelou as his wife performing a monologue that's a real tear-jerker. Rich as The Afro wearing preacher with the white suit with his choir singing The O'Jays' "For The Love Of Money". Gladys Knight and The Pips...MINUS Gladys Knight! I'm cracking up just thinking about that one. (...) You've got to get this disc!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Where's Belushi?
Review: Good stuff, but not as good as the SNL appearance mentioned in another review. One mystery: There is a photo on one of the DVD cases (also appears in the Pryor CD box set book) of Pryor and John Belushi doing a sketch where they are onstage with guitar, harmonica and upright bass. This sketch is not on the DVDs...where is it?
Rating:
Summary: Funny, but overall a disappointment
Review: I agree with most of the other reviews here that point at that The Richard Pryor Show -- like the man's movies -- pale in comparison to the absolutely brilliant stand-up work that he did. While there are some pretty funny moments on these DVDs, the best are in the extras, some of which show Richard either unscripted or performing parts of his act. These four (five) episodes could be edited down to an excellent 60-minute "Best of The Richard Pryor Show" feature, because most of the skits are hit-or-miss. The good sketches make this DVD set deserve some rewatching, but I guarantee that I will use the chapter skip button to avoid some of the less entertaining material. Unfortunately, I felt that the packaging of this set was designed to be sold at a higher price, due to the fact that it comes in three separate DVD cases instead of the foldout designs used for most TV show collections. I am also doubting it was necessary to put this collection on three discs instead of two. 3+ hour-long movies with a full 5.0 soundtrack can be held on one disc, so it seems like 5 48-or-so minute-long episodes, plus a handful of extras, should be able to fit on two discs. If you're a huge Richard Pryor fan like I am, I would encourage you to purchase this collection. I was thrilled to be able to see video footage of Pryor's brilliant "Mudbone - Little Feets" bit. If you can get around the seemingly inflated price (which at $30 isn't awful), you'll find some amusement in this collection.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, but overall a disappointment
Review: I agree with most of the other reviews here that point at that The Richard Pryor Show -- like the man's movies -- pale in comparison to the absolutely brilliant stand-up work that he did. While there are some pretty funny moments on these DVDs, the best are in the extras, some of which show Richard either unscripted or performing parts of his act. These four (five) episodes could be edited down to an excellent 60-minute "Best of The Richard Pryor Show" feature, because most of the skits are hit-or-miss. The good sketches make this DVD set deserve some rewatching, but I guarantee that I will use the chapter skip button to avoid some of the less entertaining material. Unfortunately, I felt that the packaging of this set was designed to be sold at a higher price, due to the fact that it comes in three separate DVD cases instead of the foldout designs used for most TV show collections. I am also doubting it was necessary to put this collection on three discs instead of two. 3+ hour-long movies with a full 5.0 soundtrack can be held on one disc, so it seems like 5 48-or-so minute-long episodes, plus a handful of extras, should be able to fit on two discs. If you're a huge Richard Pryor fan like I am, I would encourage you to purchase this collection. I was thrilled to be able to see video footage of Pryor's brilliant "Mudbone - Little Feets" bit. If you can get around the seemingly inflated price (which at $30 isn't awful), you'll find some amusement in this collection.
Rating:
Summary: STRAIGHT FUNNY!!!!
Review: I LOVE RICHARD PRYOR AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT HE DOES EVERU MOVIE, EVERY STAND UP AND ESPECIALLY THIS SHOW. THIS IS A DEFINITLEY MUST HAVE FOR ANYONE WHO ENJOYS RICHARD PRYOR AND IF YOU ARE A FAN OF HIS BUY THIS DVD COMPILATION YOU WOULD DEFINITELY EJ=NJOY IT. MY MOST FAVORITE SKIT IS THE REVEREND JAMES L. WHITE. AND IT REMINDS ME OF "WHICH WAY IS UP?" WHEN HE PLAYED THE REVEREND. I USED TO WATCH THIS IN THE SUMMERTIME AT NIGHT IT WOULD ALWAYS COME ON IN AUGUST I USED TO ALWAYS LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING THIS SHOW. I CAME ACROSS THIS VUDEO YESTERDAY AT THE STORE AND SPARED NO EXSPENSE I ENJOY THIS VIDEO IT HAS ALL KINDS OF SKITS. ONE OF MY FAVORITE SKITS IS WHEN THE DIFFERENT BLENDS OF BLACK WOMEN ARE DESCRIBED SUCH AS HONEY, CARAMEL,BROWN SUGAR, AND OTHER BLENDS.(BLACK BEAUTY). I LOVE RICHARD PRYOR. HE WILL ALWAYS BE MY FAVORITE COMEDIAN OF ALL-TIME. THIS MAN WASN'T PERFECT BUT HE IS HUMAN AND HE SURE IS FUNNY AND HE IS THE BEST COMEDIAN AND WILL ALWAYS BE THE BEST COMEDIAN IN MY OPINION. RICHARD IS A LEGEND ; HE HAS HAD MANY HARDSHIPS;BUT HE DID BECOME SUCCESSFUL AND ONE OF THE MOST FUNNY COMEDIANS LOVED BY MANY. BY SEEING THIS VIDEO RICHARD SHOWS HIS "BLACK PRIDE" AND HE SHOWS STRUGGLES OF BLACK PEOPLE. AND HE DEPICTS BLACK PEOPLE I ENJOY THIS HE HAS A LOT OF CHARACTERS ON HERE SUCH AS SHIRLEY HEMPHILL, LAWANDA PAIGE, GLYNN TURMAN, AND MANY OTHERS I LOVE RICHARD HE IS THE BEST. MAYA ANGELOU IS ON HERE SHE DOES AN EOTIONAL POEM . EVERYTHING ON HERE IS GREAT AND I TRULY LOVE THIS AND HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THIS FOR THE LONGEST TIME I REALLY DO LIKE THIS VIDEO AND I WOULD TRULY RECOMMEND ANYONE WHO LIKED RICHARD PRYOR'S SHOW BACK IN THE DAY OR IF YOU ARE A FAN OF HIS THEN I WOULD DEFINITELY SUGGEST THAT YOU BUY THIS VIDEO. RICHARD BECAME SUCCESSFUL BUT NEVER FORGOT WHERE HE CAME FROM AND HE ALWAYS STAYED PROUD OF WHO HE WAS AND HE WAS ALWAYS HIMSELF AND TOLD IT LIKE IT WAS THANK YOU, RICHARD ONE OF YOUR BIGGEST FANS, ALESHA I WILL ALWAYS LOVE RICHARD PRYOR I OWN JUST ABOUT EVERY FILM HE HAS MADE AND THIS WAS A GREAT FIND TO ADD TO MY COLLECTION . THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR RELEASING THIS. THANKS YOU FOR THE MEMORIES AND THE LAUGHTER AND HANG IN THERE I HOPE THAT YOU GET BETTER. LAST, THIS VIDEO SHOWS BLACKNESS AND ILOVE IT IF YOU ARE BLACK AND IF YOU ARE PROUD THEN BUY THIS VIDEO BECAUSE IT DEFINTELY MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD AND IF YOU ARE A BLACK WOMAN AND IF YOU ARE PROUD THERE IS A SKIT IN HERE ABOUT THE BEAUTY AND THE DIFFERENT BLENDS OF A BLACK WOMAN THEN YOU WOULD DEFINITELY ENJOY THIS FILM THERE WOULD NEVER BE ANOTHER RICHARD PRYOR!!!!!! I LOVE THIS DVD COMPILATION!!!! IT HAS A LOT TO OFFER AND ENJOY....
Rating:
Summary: Mixes the profane with the profound
Review: I saw this when it first came on in 1977 when I was 13. Surprising how much I remember these skits. Overall, while it's unique, it's certainly a mixed bag. Like the Smothers brothers, it's quite daring and not surprising that it had trouble with the censors. "The Richard Pryor Special?" is clearly the best of the lot. Basically, it's Pryor trying to get to his show and meeting strange characters with varied skit ideas along the way. Some really good stuff like the young children's choir (with future soap star Kristoff St. John) and the drunk lover performance with Maya Angelou. A lot of the ideas that Pryor brings to the fore are unique, but some are just plain strange, such as the "Pet head" with Charles Fleischer (later Roger Rabbit) and "Black Death", a bizzare goth-rocker who kills all of his fans during a concert (this freaked me out and puzzled me in 1977 and still does today). Much of this humor is based on race relations and the subject gets sort of beaten in the ground after a while. The edited skits makes one wonder why Pryor filmed such profanity-filled routines knowing that they had no chance of airing (there is a particularly foul moment when Pryor curses heavily during the Audience Q&A when there are clearly children visible in the audience). As he has admitted, Pryor had a bad cocaine habit in those days and it shows in some of these monologues. However, it's also interesting to see the cast of soon-to-be's such as a very young and glamourous pre-"Night Court" Masrha Warfield, Robin Williams, Sandra Bernhard, John Witherspoon, Paul Mooney, and Tim Reid. So overall, you can see in this the direction Black comedy was to take from the 1980s into recent times. It would be nice if "A Time For Laughter," the 1967 special that featured a young Pryor with Redd Foxx, Moms Mabley, Pigmeat Markham, and Godfrey Cambridge, would also make it to DVD as that was equally as ground-breaking.
Rating:
Summary: A classic bit of comedy
Review: Long before a lot of current shows were considered cutting edge came the Richard Pryor Show, the show that NBC censors couldn't handle. This is a tremendous box set of relatively clean comedy. This was tough on the censors because of the subject matter not because of the language. The Richard Pryor Special? is what started it all and it is included in this boxset. It is a wonderful hour of comedy and acting. This show also had one of the best supporting casts in history.
Rating:
Summary: Hit&Miss
Review: Richard Pryor is My All time Favorite Comedian Period.but Him&TV just did not fully blend.there are some cool Moments here&the Bonus Material saves the day.Marsha Warfield is cool as is Tim Reid&Sandra bernhard.Robin williams&Richard Pryor have alot of chemistry.John Witherspoon&Paul Mooney do there thing.Paula Kelly as Satan Doll was cool as well.TV ain't changed much&you can see Richard having to water certain things down.but there are some cool Performances nevertheless.
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