Most people that remember Redd Foxx know him as Fred Stanford from the 1970's 80's sitcom "Stanford & Son" However back in the 1940's & 50's Redd was a black comedian who was considered to be cutting-edge and very risque. He had a series of "underground" record albums known as "Laff of the Party" Back in the late 50's my parents owned one of Foxx's "Laff of the Party" albums which they kept hidden on the top shelf of our hallway linen closet to keep me from listening to it.
My parents usually went out on Saturday evenings and left me with a sitter (who actually didn't watch me...but did watch a lot of TV) I was free to retrieve the Redd Foxx album from the hallway closet and play it on my record player in my room. Redd performed his stand-up routines in front of a live audience. His humor was full of euphemisms & innuendo...AND the humor was WAY over the head of an eight year old kid...but listening to the record I could tell from the audience laughing over the things he was saying that this was funny stuff. Redd wouldn't actually use any true dirty words, and by standards of today....his routines was pretty tame stuff...but back then, the F-word was never spoken in any medium. One routine was called "The Wonderful New Soap" and Redd performed as if he was a salesman pushing a new soap product spelled F-U-G-G...and it's related product called SUGG. The routine ended with Redd saying "So if you can't FUGG it....SUGG it" (The audience went wild when Redd delivered that punch line...so it was funny stuff...right?)
It was at this time when my third grade teacher asked for three volunteers who would like to be in a "talent show" for the upcoming PTA meeting. She asked us to prepair something for the show....you know.... sing a song, play a musical instrument, do a dance....or tell jokes. Heck...by this time I had Redd's "New Soap" act down pat...right down to his raspy black dialect...(you know where I'm going with this story) ...About 2 minutes into the routine....the part where I said... "Her can smelled so bad, he decided to FUGG it right there and then" (I thought I was talking about a garbage can getting soaped out)...my third grade teacher finally stood up, stepped in and stopped my act before I got any farther....But that was okay with me because I could tell I was bombing-out because there wasn't ANYONE laughing at the points where Redd had 'em all in stiches.
When I saw my mom's red face buried in her hands....and my schools principal frowning & giving me his stern stare....I knew I was in trouble.
It was a bad night at home that evening.
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