{"id":76,"date":"2009-01-09T17:10:36","date_gmt":"2009-01-09T22:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/?p=76"},"modified":"2018-09-10T16:07:34","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T20:07:34","slug":"my-comedian-hero-richard-belzer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/video\/all-interviews\/my-comedian-hero-richard-belzer\/76\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Belzer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-76-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/14\/files\/richar2.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/14\/files\/richar2.mp4\">https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/14\/files\/richar2.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><strong>Richard Belzer<\/strong>: As time went on, he became more and more surreal and daring and esoteric and strange and provocative and not always funny, but certainly compelling. Like a for example, one night he came up on stage and (INAUDIBLE) a sleeping bag and went to sleep and you know, and you know and stayed there. Another time he had this boil on his neck and he invited people up from the audience to touch the boil. Another time he came up, he used to do this, he would read from Great Gatsby and you know and start reading it from Great Gatsby and you know the audience would laugh and but he !@%$ going and going&#8230;people started leaving, he just kept reading it. And it was like holy !@#$, this guy is amazing. And the thing about Mighty Mouse and all that, thats what he did in his basement literally for his friends and himself. He just brought that onto the stage and there was this kind of devilish innocence that he had. I mean he knew full well&#8230;(SNEEZE)\tHe knew full well what he was doing. He wanted to get the audience challenged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/14\/files\/richar2.mp4 Richard Belzer: As time went on, he became more and more surreal and daring and esoteric and strange and provocative and not always funny, but certainly compelling. Like a for example, one night he came up on stage and (INAUDIBLE) a sleeping bag and went to sleep and you know, and you know and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3494,3918],"tags":[4001,4003,4005,3407,4004,4002],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-interviews","category-my-comedian-hero","tag-andy-kaufman","tag-comedian","tag-groundbreakers","tag-hero","tag-raunchy-humor","tag-richard-belzer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Comedian Hero ~ Richard Belzer | Make &#039;Em Laugh | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/video\/all-interviews\/my-comedian-hero-richard-belzer\/76\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Comedian Hero ~ Richard Belzer | Make &#039;Em Laugh | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/makeemlaugh\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/14\/files\/richar2.mp4 Richard Belzer: As time went on, he became more and more surreal and daring and esoteric and strange and provocative and not always funny, but certainly compelling. 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