Richard Lewis had the gift of making people laugh. It is a gift that gives physical pleasure. It resides in the realm of the id. You can see his gift on display in the brief exchange with Bob Costas on Costas’s old late-night show Later. By internal evidence, this clip must go back some 36 years, to 1988 or so. It’s not canned material. It wasn’t a routine. Lewis was just naturally funny and here he was on a roll with his audience of one.
RICHARD LEWIS: "I made Bob Costas laugh so hard, NBC refused to air it thinking it made him look silly. I went crazy and bugged the network so much they thankfully caved."
Rest in peace to a man who was literally too funny pic.twitter.com/9P4iYvewmj
— HarryHew (@harryhew) February 29, 2024
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