
Looking for Lenny
[Radio tuning]
[Big band music plays]
December 7th, 1941...
A date which will live...
In infamy.
[Announcer]
This is the news
that electrified the world.
Unconditional surrender.
Thanks, Jean,
I'll be there.
[Martin Luther king]
Injustice anywhere
is a threat
to justice everywhere.
The most shocking comedian
of our time,
Lenny Bruce.
Here he is.
No, I promise, continuity,
I'll behave myself.
[Kennedy]
Ask not
what your country
can do for you...
Will Elizabeth Taylor
become bar mitzvahed?
[Audience laughs]
[Announcer]
There are a few
isolated flare-ups
between whites
and negroes.
By the way, are there
any niggers here tonight?
[Audience laughs]
That's what we're doing
in Vietnam.
[Audience laughs]
[Man]
The United States
of America
was suddenly
and deliberately attacked.
[Bruce]
The reason I got busted,
arrested,
There are words
that offend me.
Let's see,
governor faubus,
segregation offend me.
What has happened
to our moral values?
Don imus.
[Imus]
That's some nappy-headed
hoes, there.
You might be interested
in how
I became offensive.
[Piano music]
Lenny set the bar
for comedy, for everybody.
He pushed the envelope
at a time
when things
were tightening.
He opened the door for anybody
who ever stands in public
and speaks
and says anything.
The public
and their reputation
created the guy
that he became
and ultimately led
to his downfall.
People that paid to see
Lenny Bruce
came and they saw a man
starting to crumble.
Hold everything.
What's the matter?
It's all over.
What's all over?
The hair
on that man's head.
Oh, come on.
My grandfather knew Lincoln's
gettysburg address.
Well, what's so great
about that?
Everybody knows Lincoln's
gettysburg address.
Yeah, but he knew
his telephone number, too.
Ahhh.
Before Lenny Bruce,
comics were really people
who introduced strippers.
They would do ten jokes,
you know, and here's Sally,
and she's going
to show you her stuff.
When I first got into
stand up comedy on nbc,
you couldn't have
a cleavage
or your knees showing.
It's all different
than it was when we started
because, except for
a few comedians,
you couldn't use any
blue material.
You couldn't touch
on anything
that was controversial
in politics and religion.
What was I, 21
when I discovered Lenny Bruce,
and I started doing
stand-up at 17.
And the first few years
and I was like,
"who's this Lenny Bruce?
"Who cares? Some old guy,
he died, whatever,
heroin overdose."
And then I went
to the museum,
the museum
of radio and television,
and I started watching.
And again,
you're just in awe
the moment you
start watching the guy,
because he did have
his own style,
and, you know,
his whole hip thing, man,
you know, dig.
Lenny was discovered
by Paul Desmond,
the alto saxophonist
with brubeck.
Lenny was working
a strip joint
in the San Fernando valley
as the emcee.
'Cause I remember he started out
doing impressions.
So many of the great comedians
started out doing impressions,
you know.
Guys like Eddie Murphy
and Jim carrey. Me.
There were kids that,
eight and nine years old,
that were sniffing
airplane glue.
[Audience laughs]
To get high on, you know.
So I had sort of a fantasy
how it happened.
The kid is alone
in his room.
And it's Saturday.
The child is played
by George macready.
[Audience laughs]
[In a gruff voice]
Well, let's see now,
I'm all alone
in the room,
and it's Saturday.
Mother's away
and what'll I do
that's good
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
"Looking for Lenny" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2021. Web. 22 Jan. 2021. <https://www.scripts.com/script/looking_for_lenny_12800>.