Robby and Tracey Ifeachor's Dr. Episode 5 Premiere Time and More. Plane Crash. Kennedy Jr. Brown: "It's Serving Two Purposes". Meet The Suspects. In the mythos and lore about the comedy boom of the s, one tale told of how nobody could follow Sam Kinison at The Comedy Store. Bob Saget. And then Dangerfield called on one more comic to follow Saget and close out that showcase of young talents.
That young man was Louie Anderson. Saget died earlier this month at 65 , suddenly in his sleep just last week while on tour; Anderson died last week at 68 , shortly after being hospitalized for cancer. Not everyone gets or realizes their second chances. Louie did. Of all of the oversized personalities in stand-up, Anderson was perhaps the first and the best to take advantage of his size, seizing upon self-deprecation to master fat jokes at his own expense. I got a holding deal from NBC. So it was fast.
It was fast. The Tonight Show had more power maybe than American Idol. You know what I mean? It could have been overnight.
It was like overnight power. Go back to that Tonight Show set, though, and you see Anderson also figured out how to mine his own troubled childhood for laughs. It took him to even bigger heights. He popped up in the middle of Hollywood Squares and even hosted Family Feud for a years. And in , the tabloids had a field day after a man blackmailed the comedian for hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money, only to be convicted for his extortion instead.
It was a darker time personally and professionally for Anderson. I got the phone call. I go, yeah. They go, would you play the mom? I go yes! I would! So I went there and we shot a pilot.
