In the world of comedy, Richard Pryor carved out a niche with his raw humor and unfiltered language in what is known as ribaldry or blue comedy. Regarding television broadcasts, Pryor’s colorful language posed a problem under once-extremely strict FCC regulations in the 70s and 80s.
To circumvent these restrictions, studios often employed actors to dub over some of Pryor’s dialogue in his movies with sanitized versions suitable for TV audiences.
According to Studio Binder, this practice, known as language replacement or dubbing, involved replacing explicit language with more broadcast-friendly alternatives. Instead of “damn” the dubbing actor would say, “dang.” Instead of “hell” the person might say, “heck,” and the editors would punch it in on the audio of the film.
In the 1987 comedy “Critical Condition,” Pryor’s voice was dubbed by comedic impressionist Dave Coulier, best known for playing Uncle Joey Gladstone on “Full House.” Coulier’s talent for voice impersonation made him the perfect fit to replace Pryor’s hilariously foul-mouthed lines and adlibs with cleaner dialogue.
A resurfaced clip from the March 26, 1991, episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was shared on both Pryor and Coulier’s Instagram page and has brought renewed attention to this quirky bit of trivia.
Oprah asked, “Would you do Richard Pryor for me?”
Coulier responded, “I actually did Richard Pryor’s voice in a film. “Richard, when he does a film, will not go back and do the dubbing or looping, it’s called. So we have to take the words out that you can’t use on television and put nice clean words in.”
Coulier then shifted into character, mimicking Pryor’s voice and comedic timing, saying, “It was real weird because, like, no one knew that I was a guy with, like, blond hair and this face,” and causing Oprah to exclaim, “Very good.”
Fans were equally impressed when the Instagram page DidYouCatchThisTV posted about the trivia just days later.
“His Pryor impression OMG was spot on,” one fan wrote, while another added, “Wow, he sounds just like him.”
Someone else wrote, “Dave and Eddie Murphy are about the only two people I’ve heard impersonate Richard Pryor’s voice really well.”
However, not everyone agreed, with one commenter saying, “Richard Pryor would roll in his grave if he saw how many likes ur silly comment had. He sounds NOTHING like Richard.”
In response, a fan defended Coulier’s performance, blasting, “People saying the impression is bad are just mad he’s white. If he was black they’d be ok with it.”
Some praised Pryor for being too much of a star to bother with his own dubbing.
“I love that Richard Pryor couldn’t be bothered to give people a clean version,” one commenter wrote, while another added, “Right, he’s like, ‘Do it yourself, I got plans.’”
The clip also showed Jerry Seinfeld, another guest on the show, off to the side, perking up fans’ petty alerts as they wondered how he responded in real time.
One comment noted, “Knowing Seinfeld, he hated every single second of being on that stage,” while another added, “Seinfeld looked jelly.”
They weren’t wrong that he had something snide to say. In the full version on the OWN YouTube channel, Coulier was asked to do other impressions, including Popeye and Scooby-Doo, where Winfrey dared everyone not to laugh.
After he got into his Scooby voice, Seinfeld snickered, “That’s all it takes … and you’re a big star.”
But no one fed into that. Instead, Winfrey probed more into Coulier’s career and work with other cartoons and his other impersonations.
