Uncle Tom’s Fairy Tales

Years after his passing, Richard Pryor is still one of the most well-known figures in comedy. He is still regarded as a maverick and a genius for his work from the 1970s and 1980s. But it took him some time for his early career to take off, and in 1968, just as he was becoming well-known, he appeared in Uncle Tom's Fairy Tales: The Movie for Homosexuals.

In Uncle Tom's Fairy Tales, a wealthy white guy was kidnapped by militants resembling the Black Panther in order to be tried for racial crimes committed throughout US history. That would still set a lot of folks off even now. Who knows how the public would have responded in 1969?

After having an argument with his own wife, Pryor was believed to have destroyed the movie himself. She didn't like how much time he spent making the movie, so he destroyed it out of wrath. About 40 minutes were stitched back together by the director, but for many years it was believed that Pryor had taken and destroyed the material until 2005, when video provided by the director Penelope Spheeris was screened at an awards ceremony. Spheeris and Pryor's own daughter Rain were consequently sued by Pryor's widow.

Directed by: Penelope Spheeris
Written by: Richard Pryor
Produced by: Richard Pryor