Black Comedians on Black Comedy

"My Comic View run was actually so great for me. It was a very strategic move. I'd done a lot of the shows at that time that werre making stars and I'd got a little name recongitiion around doing the comedy circuit and was able to make a decent living doing stand-up and I wrote all this material and a lot of my contemporaries were telling me not to do BET. They were telling me that doing Comic View for me would have been a step in the wrong direction. They wanted me to wait and do my material on the next season of Def Comedy Jam. Don't give it away on BET and so I kind of went against the grain in the sense that I had all this great material and it was relevant and it was current and I had an opportunity to go on the show and perform and it just so happened that they were starting to look for a new host and so it was perfect timing. It was also a strategic choice. I knew that if I could get to host this show I could make myself a household name. That I would definitelyc change the game for myself and my squad and so that's what we did. we went on Comic View, competed, and then became the host and witht he host I was able to become a household name; especially among African-Americans and go into their house every night. Comic View was a nightly show back then. It came on five nights a week, so I knew it would give a lot of boost to my career. It was a great run. It put me on the map as far as one of the top comedians in the country and I was able to book myself that way and it just gave me a lot of recognition. It didn't give me a lot of recognition in the Hollywood community, though. So I was surprised by that because I was so hood famous. I was surprised that 'Joe Rothenberg' didn't know who i was." - Cedric the Entertainer

- an excerpt from Black Comedians on Black Comedy published by Applause. Available in stores, Dec. 6, 2006