Actor T.K. Kirkland has called out Cedric The Entertainer for stealing jokes from another comedian. Cedric made headlines earlier this month after Katt Williams claimed that “The Neighborhood” star stole one of his jokes for “The Kings of Comedy” special, and now he’s accused of stealing a joke from late actor and comedian Meshach Taylor.
Taylor starred in the 1987 film “Mannequin” and its sequel, “Mannequin Two: On the Move,” but he is best known for his role as the loveable character Anthony on the old CBS sitcom “Designing Women.”
He died in 2014 at the age of 67 from colorectal cancer, and during an appearance on “The Art Of Dialogue” podcast on Jan. 16, Kirkland reacted to footage of both Taylor and Cedric performing the same joke.
Kirkland was asked, “I want you to tell me if he stole this joke or not” before he watched a clip of Taylor on “Designing Women” in the 1980s telling a story about a white Mississippi woman who misunderstood her Black employee’s accent.
“The only way that I can answer that question is by telling the ‘Bomanicious story.’ It’s a true story. See, there was this white family that lived in Mississippi, and they had this man who worked for them occasionally named ‘Bomanicious.’ Now, he did various small jobs for them on and off for about a week,” said Taylor as his character, Anthony.
“One night he had just finished bartending the party and the lady of the house realized that she didn’t have any money, so she said to him, ‘Bomanicious, I want to write you a check but I don’t know how to spell Bomanicious.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. See, when I came to work for you I told you my name, and then I said, ‘but you can call me ‘by my initials.’”
Kirkland then watched a clip of Cedric the Entertainer telling a similar joke many years later.
“He going to walk up and introduce himself. ‘Charles Johnson. Man, everybody around here call me Bomanicious though. Everybody around here call me Bomanicious. It’s fine, you call me that. Don’t even worry about it. Everybody call me Bomanicious.”
‘I’m like ‘All right.’ So, all week long, my ass talking about ‘Bomanicious, what up, boy? Hey, Bomanicious, you going to run around come over watch the game with us later on? Hey Bomanicious run to the store grab some beer and come on back.’ My cousin said, ‘What you calling him?’ ‘Bomanicious. He said everybody call him Bomanicious. It’s all right for me to call him that.’ Like, ‘No, man, his name CJ. He said, ‘You can call me by my initials.'”
“Designing Women” ran from 86-93, but Taylor performed the joke during season 3 in 1988. Cedric performed the same joke during his Netflix special, “Cedric the Entertainer: Live from the Ville” which aired in 2016 — two years after Taylor had passed.
After watching both clips, Kirkland admitted, “That’s stealing. It is.”
“He saw a bit and took it and flipped it, but he was supposed to flip it, but he did it word-for-word, and that’s called laziness,” he continued.
Kirkland has been a victim of joke stealing himself. He accused Williams of stealing his “Who Raised You?” joke for his last comedy special. He said he didn’t care and wouldn’t have known unless people called and told him. Kirkland also alleged that “Coming to America” star Arsenio Hall stole his joke that got him a standing ovation at the Apollo.
Comedian T.K. Kirkland says Katt Williams and Arsenio Hall stole his joke.
— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) January 13, 2024
(🎥 The Art Of Dialogue/YouTube) pic.twitter.com/o7vKFCICgd
He believes it’s OK to draw inspiration from other comedians as long as you change it up.
“You can take a bit and flip it to your style, right?” Kirkland explained. “I’ll give an example. I can watch a football game, I can watch a basketball game and create a joke just like that. That’s the ability that I have. When people ask me, ‘T.K. when do you know you’re a good comedian?’ And I know this goes over people’s heads, but it’s like a monk telling another guy who’s teaching karate, kung fu, he’s going to be great one day. The day that you can look at a doorknob and make it hilarious, you know you’re funny.”
The 62-year-old added that Cedric knew that not many people watched “Designing Women” and he could get a laugh, not realizing technology would eventually catch up with him.
“He never thought a day like this would come,” said Kirkland. “If you’re gonna take something, at least change something to make it really you. Does that make Ced not a great comedian? Naw. It’s one joke.”
Kirkland added that a good comedian like Cedric can go on stage for about an hour, and the by-my-initials joke was only a few minutes long and not his entire set.
Fans reacted to a clip of Taylor and Cedric telling the jokes on X. One fan replied, “I’ve heard a lot of comedians tell that joke.” Another fan wrote, “Wow! Straight stole the joke from TV and figured what black people actually watch Designing Women.” A third replied, “One thing about Cedric, he will make the joke funnier.”
Cedric the Entertainer has yet to respond to Kirkland’s comments.
