The Joe Piscopo Special

This is another one of those little known classics. I do not consider myself to be a fan of Joe Piscopo material, but this one is really good.

The skits I remember from this are as follows-

In one skit, J.P. is portraying a homeless guy that lives in an alley who one day finds a pair of "magical drum sticks" in the trash and becomes a fabulous drummer. Eventually he joins a big rock band, gets hooked on cocaine, almost dies, and ends up back in the alley where he started, and where he seems to be happiest.

The whole skit is less than 10 minutes, with little or no dialog, and is very funny as well as insightful.

The highlight of this video is a fantastic parody on the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video. It begins just like the original one. J.P. is walking his girl friend through the woods. As the full moon rises, J.P. slowly turns in to---Jerry Lewis!

The dance scenes in this are great and hilarious. You will die laughing when you see it. I put this parody up there with Steve Martin's "Billie Jean" (also very hard to find).

Eddie Murphy's scenes are also good, and its easy to see that these guys were probably friends in real life. Good chemistry.

This should be on DVD! 8 out of 10 stars.

The Joe Piscopo Video was a solid piece of work when it first came out and upon re watching it I'd have to say that despite it's being dated, Joe's comic sensibilities are right on. The video moves at a relaxed pace but still delivers the laughs--Joe's impressions of then-current celebrities are pretty much spot-on and his Sinatra has never truly been equaled- must be an Italian thing. The Night of the Living Dead-Jerry's in his "Thriller" spoof is over the top and had me in stitches. The scenes with he and Eddie Murphy we're pretty cool--you could feel a real friendship there. All in all It's too bad Joe moved away from comedy and took to lifting weights and making beer commercials. He was a better comic than that.