Today, we look at the future Emmy Winner who played a version of “Andrew Dice Clay” on Murphy Brown.
This is “My Name It is Nothin’,” a look at when movies and TV shows feature celebrities and/or famous people without featuring the actual celebrity/famous people. You know, changing the names so that you can tell the story without legal issues.
In Season 3 of Murphy Brown, the show decided to tackle the controversial comedy of Andrew Dice Clay. Here’s some of his 1987 comedy…
In 1990’s “Black and Blue,” Murphy wants to do a spotlight on Tony Rocket, a stand-in for Andrew Dice Clay, as she wants to talk about how he is being unfairly censored. She wants to do it as a thing about how everyone deserves free speech, even a vulgar comedian like Rocket.
The problem comes when she actually meets Rocket, played by a young Michael Chiklis (who later won a Best Actor Emmy for his starring role on The Shield), and he’s SUCH a dick that she doesn’t want to do the story anymore…
The interesting thing is that Chiklis was just coming off his big break playing John Belushi in the 1988 film, Wired, which not only was not a box office success, but because it was not exactly a flattering depiction of Belushi, Chiklis felt that he sort of alienated a lot of the industry with the film. So it is interesting to see him play a comedian again so soon afterwards.
In the end, Miles, the Executive Producer of Murphy’s news show, FYI, convinces Murphy to still do the interview. There is a five-second delay for the live interview in case Rocket curses. As it turns out, Murphy tears into Rocket and SHE ends up cursing on the show.
Funny stuff. There’s another interesting story about this episode that I’ll write about in a day or so.
If anyone else has a suggestion for a future My Name It Ain’t Nuthin’, drop me a line at brian@popculturereferences.com!
First time I heard the whole set. It’s actually funny, considering the character. Too bad, he is a talented guy, but doesn’t really connect.
He’s obviously talented, but so much of it was just based on being edgy by late 1980s standards, which mostly meant just making racist and sexist jokes…as “a character.”
He had a short-lived sitcom and also starred in Ford Fairlane. He was decent in both.
I only really liked his nursery rhymes.
Andrew “Dice” Clay/The Diceman became such an infamous comedian around this period that quite a few shows, both sitcoms and serious ones, had fake impersonator versions of him appear.
The original “NIGHT COURT” had their own episode regarding this the same year Murphy Brown did, 1990. It was in an episode from the 8th season (the second to last), and the final episode to air in 1990, titled, “It’s Just A Joke.” The episode features the emerging popular “shock” comedian, Monte “Pottyman” Potter (played by Louis Mustillo in one of his first roles; he’s best known as Vince Moranto from “MIKE & MOLLY”). From the gimmick suit to his “nursery rhyme” jokes, it is very very obvious he’s a stand-in for Clay. The show’s writers and producers actually go almost out of their way to discredit and humiliate the character in the episode, exposing him as a soft bigot, bully, and a con artist (since he’s teamed up with a corrupt reverend who publicly condemns his act, and this advertises for it). Once Pottyman loses the support of Dan Fielding, his most ardent fan, it’s over.
“NIGHT COURT” is a fascinating show. It ran for 9 seasons, yet the cast line-up which most fans avidly remember didn’t come together until season 4 (and was assembled piecemeal through seasons 2-3). Judge Stone, Dan, and Bull Shannon were the only constants from the pilot. Few sitcoms get 4 seasons to flip around before nabbing a focused cast, and fewer still last another 5 seasons beyond that. Considering that, it’s unsurprising it was relaunched.