The Original Kings of Comedy
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| The Original Kings of Comedy | |
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| Directed by | Spike Lee |
| Produced by | Spike Lee Walter Latham David M. Gale |
| Written by | Steve Harvey D. L. Hughley Cedric the Entertainer Bernie Mac |
| Starring | Steve Harvey D. L. Hughley Cedric the Entertainer Bernie Mac |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 18, 2000 |
| Running time | 115 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3,000,000 (estimate) |
| IMDb profile | |
The Original Kings of Comedy is a 2000 stand-up comedy film, directed by Spike Lee, and features the comedy routines of Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac. Filmed in front of an audience in Charlotte, North Carolina, these comedians gives audiences their views about church, kids, black culture, white culture, and African-American families.
The film was shot over the last two nights (February 26 and February 27, 2000) of the Kings of Comedy tour with Harvey, Hughley, Cedric, and Mac; the most successful comedy tour in American history. Its on-stage routines are intercut with brief sections of video footage showing the comedians backstage, promoting the show on the radio, at the hotel, and during a basketball game.
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[edit] Summary
[edit] Steve Harvey
Steve Harvey, the star of The Steve Harvey Show, is the master of ceremonies for the show (Harvey also served in the same capacity for the syndicated variety program It's Showtime at the Apollo for several years). Unlike his character on The Steve Harvey Show, Harvey's on-stage routines use a significant amount of profanity; as the show's M.C., Harvey is given three short sets instead of one long one.
Harvey's first set covers Carolina Panthers football star Rae Carruth, his distaste of the movie Titanic, and his theory that although the white band in Titanic kept playing as the ship went down, "Kool & the Gang woulda been unpluggin' shit!" His second explores the differences between hip hop/rap music and the old school soul music and funk of artists like The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, the Ohio Players, and Lenny Williams.
The final of Harvey's sets finds him heckling a member of the audience by stealing his coat while he is away from his seat, and remarking that the "thuggish" looking young man couldn't possibly be in the field of "computer technology" that he claims he is. Harvey also covers his experiences growing up in the church, calling out the ineffectiveness of the typical black church "building fund", and recollecting his mother's friend Sister O'Dell's profane language and befuddled attempts to sing a church hymn (interspersed with lyrics from television show theme songs).
[edit] D.L. Hughley
Steve Harvey' first set is followed by D. L. Hughley, the star of The Hughleys. He talks about family, specifically African-American family with roots in the South, which shows there's still something to the concept of the perceived monolithic black experience. He exploits the differences between black people and white people; for example, Hughley notes that black people don't ski or do other dangerous physical activities because they experience enough peril just trying to get through an average day. "Bungee jumping," he says. "That's too much like lynchin' for us!" He also talks about "helicopter man", a game he and his wife play in bed, and some skid-marked undergarments that he tried to hide at the bottom of his dirty clothes.
[edit] Cedric the Entertainer
Cedric the Entertainer, who presents himself as the most in-tune with the younger demographic, goes through a number of topics during his routine. Primary among these is his embellishment of the differences between the "hope factor" and the "wish factor": white people "hope" that nothing goes wrong, and black people wish someone would start trouble (so that they can retaliate). Cedric's acknowledges that he is now a "grown-ass man", and can no longer call his friends by their "lil' nicknames" or engage in other such immature behavior.
He discusses how angry a black president might become if a Monica Lewinsky question were posed at a news conference, and also goes into routines about smoking, black athletes' expansion into golf, tennis, and other sports, what a "ghetto-ass wedding" would be like, and black people's eventual migration to the moon.
[edit] Bernie Mac
Bernie Mac is the most autobiographical of the group. He turns his comedy on himself. He uses short, punchy attacks to make his point about his decreased sex drive and desire for quick sex instead of longer periods of intercourse. Mac's longest routines involve his hard-nosed style of child-rearing, where he makes no qualms about "fucking a kid up" if he needs to. He goes into an extended routine about the stress of raising his sister's children for her while she recovers from drugs, and tells of a run-in he had with his two-year-old niece and his effiminate six-year-old nephew, whom he refers to repeatedly as "the faggot" (Mac's routine about his sister's kids later became the basis of his FOX Network show The Bernie Mac Show). The set, and the film, are concluded with Mac's piece on the ubiquity of the swear word "motherfucker", which he describes as "a noun: a person, place or thing," and then proceeds to give the heft of an adjective and even transforms it into a split infinitive.
[edit] Box office & DVD release
The Original Kings of Comedy was produced on an estimated $3,000,000 budget. On its opening weekend, it was shown on 847 screens and grossed a total of $11,053,832. It eventually grossed a total of $38,168,022 at the box offices.
This film was released on DVD on February 27, 2001 and distributed by Paramount Home Video. Bonus features on the DVD include the music video "#1 Stunna" by Big Tymers, Kings On The Town featurette, and bonus scenes.
[edit] Awards & nominations
- Outstanding Motion Picture (nominated)
2001 Chicago Film Critics Association Award
- Best Documentary (nominated)
[edit] Related films
The popularity of this movie inspired spin-offs, including The Original Queens of Comedy, The Original Latin Kings of Comedy and Blue Collar Comedy Tour. All of these films have been played on TV, after originally premiering on Comedy Central.
[edit] External links
- The Original Kings of Comedy at the Internet Movie Database
- The Original Kings of Comedy at Rotten Tomatoes
| Films directed by Spike Lee |
| Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads • She's Gotta Have It • School Daze • Do the Right Thing • Mo' Better Blues • Jungle Fever • Malcolm X • Crooklyn • Clockers • Girl 6 • Get on the Bus • 4 Little Girls • He Got Game • Freak • Summer of Sam • The Original Kings of Comedy • Bamboozled • A Huey P. Newton Story • Jim Brown: All-American • Sucker Free City • 25th Hour • She Hate Me • Inside Man • When the Levees Broke |
| MTV Films |
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| 200 Cigarettes • Æon Flux • Beavis and Butt-Head Do America • Beneath • Better Luck Tomorrow • Coach Carter • Crossroads • Dead Man on Campus • Election • The Fighting Temptations • Freedom Writers • Get Rich or Die Tryin' • Hustle & Flow • Jackass: The Movie • Jackass Number Two • Joe's Apartment • The Longest Yard • Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat • Murderball • Napoleon Dynamite • Orange County • The Original Kings of Comedy • The Perfect Score • Pootie Tang • Save the Last Dance • Tupac: Resurrection • Varsity Blues • The Wood |
