Journalist/Comedian Harmon Leon dives into comedy cult classics, comedic influences, and all things comedy history.
Remember in Goodfellas when mobster Henry Hill took his date, Karen, to The Copacabana? That was pretty true to form. The mob actually owned the legendary club. We saw this recently in the movie The Irishman - when Don Rickles was on stage performing for Crazy Joe Gallo.
We dive into the mob’s connection with The Copacabana - where you’ll learn such interesting tidbits as what happened to comedian Allan Drake’s wife when she had an affair with a mobster. Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t end well…
This week comedian/sexual predator Bill Cosby went to prison. Even before Hannibal Buress helped call him out in 2014—Cosby peppered his work with a multitude of references to sexual misconduct.
Take his Spanish Fly routine from the 1969 comedy album, “It’s True! It’s True!.” Or his reference to his secret BBQ sauce recipe - that renders women helpless, from an episode of The Cosby Show. Not to mention his monologue where he cites knocking women out - in his 1971 PBS performance, Bill Cosby on Prejudice.
We do a deep dive into the creepy Cosby clues that were always there.
You can also check out my story about it in Vice.
Part Two of our history of comedians who f-up and attempt comebacks. We dive into the greatest comeback of all time - with Richard Pryor who lit himself on fire while freebasing and then came back and filmed the standup masterpiece, Live on the Sunset Strip.
Along with this, we cover the worst comedy comeback of all time with Michael Richards - after he had a meltdown on stage at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood.
We continue our deep dive into the history of racist British comedians. In this episode we talk about such racist British sitcoms as Til Death Do Us Part, Curry and Chips, and Peter Sellers role in The Party.
Plus we recap some of the highlights of the racist comedy careers of comedian Jim Davidson, Roy Chubby Brown, and Bernard Manning. And what finally changed the face of British comedy?
Roseanne Barr was on top of the world again - until she wrote a racist tweet. ABC responded by yanking her show off the air. Meanwhile, over in the UK, the country has a long history of racist comedians - who say things on stage that are even worse than what Roseanne wrote.
Such comedians as Roy Chubby Brown, Bernard Manning, and Jim Davidson are fixtures into British comedy history; despite doing very racist material. In this episode we dive deep into the history of racist British comedy.
