When I was a firefighter I responded to a fire in an electrical panel in a condo. So we get there and it burned out, no fire, so I said we'll stand by for the city electrician. I go back out into the spare bedroom the panel was in and there was Steven Wright pics and memorabilia all over the walls. I said to the woman "Oh, big Steven Wright fan?" she said oh, well yes he's my nephew. I was stunned. I asked I gotta know, is this an act or is it real? she said oh, he is the sweetest man but no, it's how he is. He is so much fun around the holiday dinner table!
When I started reading your story, I thought it was a Stephen Wright joke. I was looking for the punchline😂. Anyway, I made a joke up out of your setup: I used to be a firefighter. One day we got a call about a fire from a lady who worked as a clairvoyant. We got there but there was no fire. She said, well it hasn’t happened yet. So we waited.
I saw him live using my allowance money in about 1984. Sat in the front row. He was so, so, happy when people laughed at his jokes he would turn his back so we couldn't see his beaming smile. LEGEND.
One of the comedians on America's Got Talent had a quip that was VERY much in Steven Wright's style. "I went to the supermarket and a sign on the door said, 'No Food or Drinks Inside.' So, I didn't go in."
He started a whole new genre of comedy. True genius. I met him at the Gap in Harvard square when I was going to college. He set off the alarm, lol.. True story.
On his first Carson appearance, the TV audience in the studio was ten times bigger than any audience he had ever performed for not to mention the MILLIONS of TV audience. I don't know how he got through it.
I loooove this, I don’t know where Stephen Wright ranks on the rankings for stand up comedians, with the likes of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Sarah Silverman, Henny Goodman, Jackie Gleason, and the likes but his material is certainly the fullest of platitudes and intellectual anomalies.
I moved into a new apartment and there was a light switch that didn’t operate anything. Every once in a while I’d flick it up and down. Three months later I got a letter from a lady in Germany - “Cut it out”.
When I saw him way back when I had never even been to Boston. Now I live here and seeing this clip I thought, duh, of course he’s from Boston. He used to live on the median strip of the highway. It was nice but he had to leave his driveway going 60 miles an hour.
"If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you... Why are all the letters of the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?... I almost had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met... One time a cop pulled me over for running a stop sign. He said, 'Didn’t you see the stop sign?' I said, 'Yeah, but I don’t believe everything I read.'... My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted." - Steven Wright.
“I lived in an apartment that had a light switch that didn’t seem to work anything, but out of habit I would flip it on or off every time I would enter or leave the apartment. Then one day I got a letter from a woman in East Germany that said “quit it”. That’s effen funny!
"One time I stuck my car keys in my building's front door by mistake, and the building started up. So I drove it around for a while. I was yelling at people to get out of my driveway. A cop pulled me over. He asked, where do you live. I said, right here."
If you enjoy his stand-up, you'll probably get a kick out of Steven Wright's new book "Harold". It's every bit as unmoored and bizarre as his one-liners: 250-ish pages of thoughts running through the head of a seven-year-old kid sitting through a day of school. Really fun read.
I wasn't aware he had a book. I was just thinking it's been a while since I heard from Steven and wanted to watch a stand up special or something, then clicked on this video. I might need to check that out. Thanks for the recommendation.
I completely agree. The only modern comedian who I find anything like him is Demetri Martin. A different brand, but I very much enjoy each of them for what they do. Geniuses.
Steven blew Johnny's and the country's mind so much in his first appearance ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4GGyQNMPDkk.html that they brought him back the next week. Never happened before or since. He's one of a kind. And his book "Harold" that just came out is absolutely brilliant. Thanks for posting this appearance. More please!
I believe so. In Bill Burr's recent interview of Steven (Bill is appropriately a big fan), he talks about how after his first appearance the booker wanted to talk to him about the show. Steven thought he wanted to discuss his performance but instead he asked him to come back on next week. Steven said "I only have 15 minutes and I will have used up 10 of them." The booker said "I guess you're just going to have to write more." 😀
I just saw this in an interview on Conan's podcast, so I came to look at those two appearances. The bit in this video was three months after his debut on August 6, 1982. So it's not his second appearance, if he was invited back six days after his original introduction.
Late night talk shows today arent nearly as good as Carson show!! Todays shows are corporate sound bites. This weeks new TV star and that's about all! They don't have original people like Stephen Wright
One night when I was pregnant with my second child, I heard voices from downstairs, my husband was on a business trip so I knew it wasn’t him, I sneaked downstairs to find our two year old sitting on the couch( in his footie pajamas with his little toes pointed at the ceiling, I asked him what he was doing and in his sweet little voice he sighed and said “I’m just watching Mr. Carson” when Johnny died, Levi called me and sadly said “Momma, our Mr. Carson died” this still makes me misty eyed. We loved Johnny Carson and would sometimes watch it together when we couldn’t sleep, there will never again be an entertainer like him.
Wright is obviously one of the most original comics, but the joke about robbing the department store with a pricing gun reminded me of a fake ad from the original Saturday Night Live when they were selling a pricing gun for all the money you could save by marking things down.
I met him! He was flying out to NYC on the same plane as my mom. This was pre 9-11 so you could go out to the gates. So I see him and I was SO excited! I grabbed an AmEx application and walked up to him and said “Excuse me, Mr Wright, could I have your autograph? Please.” He seemed surprised I recognized him and/or I wanted his autograph. I told him how much I love his comedy and we talked for a bit. Then he asked if I was flying to NYC and I told him I wasn’t and he tried to convince me to buy a ticket. Offered to buy me one. But I told him I couldn’t as I had work the next day ( it was true, I was a nurse). So he wrote on the application ( which he raised an eyebrow ) “To Denise who broke my heart! Stay beautiful! Love, Steven Wright. He was so funny when talked. Not like the way he was talking to Johnny. Just every day wit. My only claim to fame and o wouldn’t trade it for anything.
@@sneakerfacevids441 he came in today and last Wednesday even talked about his Joe Rogan appearance believe me or don’t I don’t have to prove myself to a stranger 😂
