Austin Improv

Don't know if this is interesting to anyone, but Letterman is airing the then-censored final Letterman Show appearance of Bill Hicks which had been taped in 1993, shortly before Hicks' death. The routine was taped but cut from broadcast by CBS brass and Hicks never appeared on the show again. Hicks was pretty vocal about it at the time (I remember he wrote huge letter to the NY Times which resulted in an article on him), as he felt it was it was due to pressure from pro-life people about one of his bits in there.

Anyway, they're showing it in full with an appearance from Hicks' mother.

This makes me very happy.

I saw it and it was good. Pretty tame by today's standards of comedy now on TV. But I'm glad they aired it. Bill was always pushing the envelope with his comedy which I greatly admired. I still love he said he wanted to put a shotgun in Billy Ray Cyrus's mouth and blow his head off.

Choked me up a little. His mom and my grandmother could have been the same person. Dave knew it was a mistake and seemed sincere.

Finally got to check this out. Man, we lost one of the best. I'm kinda glad that Letterman
screwed up....cuz now Hicks has been introduced to a bunch of people who didn't know of him.

Great television. Bill Hicks' mom is a stone cold bad-ass. Viewable on the internet here:
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/02 ... erman.html

apiaryist wrote:Choked me up a little. Dave knew it was a mistake and seemed sincere.

yeah - DL putting himself out there like that touched me too. I wondered what inspired him to do that.

Rachel wrote:

apiaryist wrote: I wondered what inspired him to do that.

He mentioned having a son made him think about it and then said that he's been trying to get it scheduled for a while.

It also could have to do with the fact that they're tossing around doing a bio-pic on Hicks and maybe he didn't want to get made to be the bad-guy if they did one.

Lants wrote:

Rachel wrote:

apiaryist wrote: I wondered what inspired him to do that.

He mentioned having a son made him think about it and then said that he's been trying to get it scheduled for a while.

It also could have to do with the fact that they're tossing around doing a bio-pic on Hicks and maybe he didn't want to get made to be the bad-guy if they did one.

Whatever the reason for it, this is a good thing.

I've read a lot about BH and this was a tremendous source of pain for him. It might not have been the same on a national level as Carlin's Supreme Court case or Lenny Bruce's ongoing legal struggles, but it ranks up there in a very real sense.

Bill Hicks is my favorite comedian of all time. He opened my eyes to many things that have shaped my humor and the person I am today. Letterman did the right thing and has earned much respect in my eyes for admitting he made a bad decision. He seemed very genuine about the whole thing too. I hope Bill is somewhere in the afterlife, smoking his ass off saying "It's about time, fucker!".

Yeah, the Letterman show that night was even better than I thought. Letterman profusely apologized to Mary Hicks and took ownership for Bill's being cut from the show. It was more real than I'd seen Dave be in a long time and you could tell it meant a lot for him to do this (though, I also wondered, Lance, if part of it was that he didn't wanted to be painted as kicking a man when he was down in the biopic).

Justin wrote:I've read a lot about BH and this was a tremendous source of pain for him

He talks about having been excised from the show in an interview here, about 5 minutes in (on our own Austin Public Access tv, no less):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdN_LGGQ4lk[/youtube]

Thanks for posting about this, I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise.