“Oh for God’s sake, have a laugh!” – Margaret Wilson (1922-2014)

This was the type of psychological advice that our Mum would give us in the 60’s and 70s! When you’ve looked after 9 kids and fostered a couple more, time was of the essence so sitting down and workshopping our woes wasn’t much of a priority! Instead, it was “be grateful for what you’ve got and have a laugh!” I saw what Friday night comedies like Dave Allen and The Two Ronnies did for my Dad, a tortured WW2 veteran and that cemented my love for comedy and how profound an effect it can have. In the darkest of times it has always been those words (which are on our Mum’s gravestone) that have dragged me into the light.

To come up with only 27 comic influences on my life is tough, much like trying to pick a top 50 albums so I decided to go with those movies/TV shows/Artists that I’ve watched and listened to the most over the past 57 years. I understand there are a plethora I haven’t seen that have huge raps, such as Veep and The Larry Sanders Show, but one only has so much time on their hands. I hope there is something here that might spark some interest if you haven’t connected with it in the past.

Sincere apologies to:  The 3 Stooges, Billy Connolly, Fleabag, Extras, The Late Show, Woody Allen, F Troop, George Carlin, Aussie movies The Club, Malcolm and Death in Brunswick, The Two Ronnies, Gavin & Stacey, Hard Quiz, What we do in the Shadows, The Thick of It, Yes Prime Minister, The Four Lions, Stewart Lee, Lead Balloon, The Mighty Boosh, The Simpsons, Blackadder, Miranda, Portlandia, Broad City, Absolutely Fabulous, Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke, The IT Crowd, Slapshot, Father Ted, Would I Lie to You?, Spaced, Galaxy Quest, Flight of the Concords, Frontline, People Like Us, Man Down, Caddyshack, and Richard Pryor Live.

Warning, the following contains explicit language.

#1 Bill Hicks (born 16th December 1961,  died  26th February 1994)

“Good evening, my name is William Melvin Hicks. Thanks Dad.” – Bill aged 21

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Hope you’re doing well tonight. I’m glad to be here. I’ve been on the road now for 10 x years, so bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plough through this shit one more time……just teasing, it’s magic every show.” – Bill aged 30

For as long as I can remember, the Melbourne Comedy Festival has concluded with a show called the Moosehead Awards, whereby a collection of comics that have appeared over the last month get up and do 5-10 min “bits” and raise money to assist young acts producing shows for the following year. It’s always sold out and a ripper couple of hours. 

In 1993 I went to the Moosehead’s with some friends and I’m not saying that the heavens parted and a beam of light shone down on the stage, but a lanky, cocky Texan dressed in all black came on stage and changed the way I looked at comedy and life for that matter.  With all due respect to all the international comics that appeared that night, there was daylight between Bill Hicks and the rest. 

Sadly Melbourne was where Bill was feeling the first signs of pancreatic cancer, the mother of all cancers and we lost him 10 months later. Bill was at the tipping point of super stardom, writing scripts, having appeared on Letterman 11 x times, conquered Edinburgh and was playing 2000 seat theatres in the UK. He had overcome alcohol and cocaine addiction for over 5 x years and was at the top of his game artistically. I’ve just finished reading his biography by his best mate Kevin Booth for the second time and it’s still very emotional. He was a prodigy and I’ll do my best to explain why.

 Bill came from a Southern Baptist family in a part of Houston, Texas that I would imagine looks like “Pleasantville”. It was a nuclear family, Dad Jim, Mum Mary, brother Steve and sister Lynn, everyone a college graduate. Nothing to complain about. (Mummy didn’t beat me and Daddy didn’t f..k me). Bill was an outstanding athlete at high school, especially track and baseball but had no passion for it. He loved rock n roll, Woody Allen and reading books. 

When he was 13, inspired by Allen, he started writing jokes and when he was 15 he was appearing at The Houston Annex Comedy Club in front of paying adults with his close friend Dwight Slade. Bill would sneak out of his first floor bedroom window and hop into Kevin Booth’s car to take him to the venue. When Dwight moved to Oregon it was just Bill and he thrived, whilst Dwight continues to have a successful stand up career to this day. This is the comedic duo’s promotional headshot aged about 15, maybe younger.

Bill decided to avoid college and go it alone in LA when he was 18, where he started extending his craft for a year. Jokes about school and family were about his limit then but as you can see here in this rare footage, Bill was well and truly into his groove at having just turned 19 and back home in Houston, looking like a boy scout. Around the 8 x minute mark is Bill’s hilarious impression of his Dad.

 

The Houston Comics were known as the Outlaws and renowned for their partying. Bill, a staunch non-drinker, non-drug taker and non-smoker, was the antithesis of all 3 by the age of 21. In Booth’s biography, Agent of Evolution, there are numerous accounts of Bill’s exploits which, the second time around for me, an ex-addict, I frankly didn’t enjoy. Bill was someone who whenever he took on something he was passionate about, was 100% “in”. He was always searching for the next thing, continuously trying to improve, whether it was his comedy, reading about different religions, transcendental meditation or experimenting on psilocybin mushrooms. Unfortunately alcohol made him angry and cocaine enabled him to drink for longer. 

By the time Bill was 25 he was clean and working voraciously. I’ve heard it said that you need 10,000 hours of practice to attain mastery at something, well Bill averaged between 250-300 shows a year. It wouldn’t matter if there was 5 or 500 in the audience, the stage was his pulpit and he was the preacher. No need for a set list, he “winged it” having so much material to call on. If he heard someone comment on a particular subject that day he would build it into his set and test it out, knowing  it could likely develop into something else. 

Bill was a prolific reader and if he wasn’t working his 1 x hour a day, it’s most probably where you would find him when he was on the road, head buried in a book. This is one of his most infamous “bits” about taking a break in a waffle house.

 

American audiences didn’t understand him but the English did. From playing to a handful of hillbillies and a slot machine in Arkansas, Bill suddenly found himself performing to huge crowds in the UK in centuries old theatres. This bit is from the wonderful album Arizona Bay, where Bill describes the difference between crime in the USA and the UK.

 

Speaking of the LA riots, this is another brilliant piece about Reginald Denny, the poor guy who stopped driving his truck when confronted by a gang of thugs. 

 

There wasn’t much that was taboo for Bill to talk about. He was seen as a demon in some religious circles and cities in the US but he could gladly debate it because he was so well read and practiced.  I know little about religion but like Bill and many others, it’s the level of hypocrisy within the institutions that’s so frustrating. Whether its the wars or the people that commit grievous acts in the name of their God, nothing has changed or is willing to evolve.  Bill was particularly vicious in attacking fundamentalist Christians who in the US make up approx. 40% of the population and don’t stand for anything Bill read about and inspired him in the Bible. Here’s a good compilation of bits, including the hilarious Easter story:

 

There’s some things I didn’t agree with Bill on, namely pornography which in those days admittedly was still “under the counter” to a large extent. I think if he had settled down and had daughters he may have changed his tune a little! He did love Elvis and often did the full dress up on stage. As much as he loved Elvis he hated the “hangers on” that latched onto E’s payroll. This is a fantastic bit of Bill improvising Elvis introducing one of those leeches, Charlie Hodge:

 

Bill, with some help from Jay Leno got introduced to David Letterman and performed 12 times on his top rating tonight show. Unfortunately after filming the 12th on October 1st 1993, Bill was back in his hotel room in New York when he got a call from the show’s producer saying that his bit was cancelled due to the content not being in line with the sponsor’s taste. One of those sponsors was a donor of the pro- life movement. This was devastating for Bill as he only had 4 x months to live and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the set. 15 x years later, a guilt ridden Letterman dedicated over half of one of his shows to Bill, inviting his Mum Mary onto the show to give a formal apology, then played the original set. This is the final part (there are 3 parts on youtube) of the interview with Mary including Bill’s set:

 

Bill was no saint but I think you always knew where you stood with him. He adored his family and friends and passed away quietly holding Mary’s hand at their home in Little Rock Arkansas. He was 32. I’ve read a lot about the man over the years and there have been websites dedicated to him that were all about, “what would Bill say today”. I’ve had no interest in them but a couple of my nephews and I saw a British comic 10 years ago at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, doing a show as Bill Hicks, the Angel. He came out in a big pair of angel wings and delivered 50 minutes of “Bill-like” observations relating to 9/11, internet porn and reality TV in the style of Bill. 10/10 for effort but it wasn’t the same. 

Bill has left an enormous legacy and he was someone who crammed a lifetime of experiences into 32 years. In 2020 I spent a fair bit of time listening to US commentators discussing Trump and his disastrous reign. Commentators like Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Seth Myers and Bill Maher are satirists backed by a plethora of writers who do witty stuff. My issue with them is that Trump was easy fodder for a comic. What about the hundreds of thousands of citizens that were dying? I found their commentary lame, lazy and impotent in the face of a pandemic and an imbecilic, dangerous President. I honestly believe that if Bill were alive, something proactive to hold Trump to account would have been created much earlier, especially given the technology now available that was non-existent then. Bill Maher even admitted after the Jan 6 riot that he should have done more rather than taking the piss out of a clown President. Too late champ.

 I might finish with a few more “tit bits”.  One of my all- time favourite sketches was about the TV show Cops. I can’t help but think of the Qanon and Trump supporters in this, as Bill desperately pleads for the trailer trash to stop reproducing! :

 

This is perhaps my favourite sketch of Bill’s talking about his Dad and going on the family holiday:

 

Bill loved rock n roll and was utterly dismayed by the some of the music in the 80’s and the “corporate whores” who played it. He wanted authentic artists who played hard on and off the stage (I am available for children’s parties):

 

Advertising and marketing were high on Bill’s hate list as were celebrities selling their souls doing TV ads…….. unless you’re Willie Nelson:

 

Hard to believe but yes, Bill made it to Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Australia’s top rating family variety show for 20 years) during his 1993 trip to Melbourne (follow the link for this one):

 

 

Bill disliked marijuana but had these great arguments as to why it should be legalised:

 

Bill on relationships:

 

Bill’s famous positive LSD story as read on the 6 o’clock news and used by the band Tool on their first album:

 

This speech was usually a closer for Bill and often ended with a mock assassination!:

 

Bill left what money he had to the Bill Hicks Wildlife Foundation in Texas. Lovely people there and we hope to meet them one day. Back in 2006 I purchased some merch from them and I received in the mail a beautiful thankyou card from Mary Hicks, complete with lovely hand writing. The website is http://www.billhicks.org

If you’re interested in more Bill, a good place to start is the award winning 2009 documentary The American, ironically produced by 2 x Englishman.

Another terrific website with all sorts of great links is http://www.billhicksforever.org/wp/

I clearly do have a bit of an obsession with Bill and here is a collection of merch I’ve bought over the years, and thanks to Lynn at the Wildlife Foundation for the extra stickers 🙂

Bill was respected worldwide by his peers and many have been quoted but I like this one from English actor/writer Simon Pegg who said, “Bill Hicks wasn’t just a comic. He was a crusader against humanity’s relentless capacity to underachieve.” Nicely put. RIP Bill. Love ya mate.

“I left in love, laughter and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit” Bill Hicks 1994

Well for anyone still there, that’s the end of #27-#1 favourite comedies/comedians. If you have just found this and want to backtrack, the full list is under “reviews” in the menu at the top of the blog.

I hope you’ve found something a bit different to try. This isn’t a commercial venture but if you’d like to donate pls don’t hesitate to email me! Just kidding of course….Nah f…k that, cough up! 🙂

Cheers

Ian