Totally Bill Hicks
A celebration of the comedy of Bill Hicks. The film is structured around the different strains of comedy in the Hicks stand-up, sampling the best of his confrontational performance.
Interviewees include two major American chat show hosts, David Letterman and Jay Leno, the actor Eric Bogosian and a wide range of comedians who admired his work including Sean Hughes and Eddie Izzard.
There are also anecdotal contributions from his high school friends and an interview with his parents.
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Hey, i had heard about bill hicks… but wasnt very familair with his material except for a few clips i had watched here in there of some of his stand up. thought it was a great documentary, and even better if you are a fan of his. really interesting story, peppered with some of his famous ‘controversial’ material that is quite funny at times. would recommend!
also wanted to add that just recently david letterman aired the segment that got cut way back when. they made a big deal about it and invited his mom to come on the show and sit next to dave while they broadcast it. im sure you could see it on youtube if you search for it.
Not watched the doc yet,there is a great clip on you tube when Bill really loses it with a female heckler.
I first heard of Bill Hicks through some clips of his material included in the album ‘Aenima’ by Tool. He is one of my favorites now. Look up ‘bill hicks and his dog’ on you tube, it is sidesplitting!
THEE best comic to grace a stage, period! The John Lennon of comedy. This was my first introduction to Bill about 10yrs ago now, and after reading 2 books and seeing nearly every piece of footage available online I realise how poor this documentary and especially the geusts were. I mean who thought Letterman or Leno would be good people to comment on Bill. He was surely rolling in his grave.
I strongly recommend (Vlatko if you could please link) the accompanying show in London as its one of his best.
For all you fans out there, start salivating as a true fan has made a documentary called American: The Bill Hicks Story due to be released in March ’10 :) WITH COMMENTS FROM HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS AND FAMILY, not that censoring corporate shill Letterman and “comics” who barely knew him.
Very informative and thoroughly entertaining. RIP Bill Hicks
Possibly the greatest comedian of all time. A truth teller, which is what kept him essentially unknown. The world needs more people like him. Wonderful.
Yah, yah… best comic ever.
Yah, yah… Most ingenious mind to grace the stage.
Yah, yah… Greatest comedic mind to ever live.
Except, of course… assuming you forget the fact that nothing he said was EVER funny, ever.
Not saying he’s not right. Not saying he didn’t have a point or didn’t have somethign to say, but c’mon… He’s just not ******* funny!
NOT! FUNNY!
He’s right. What he says is true… he’s just not funny.
Sorry…
P.S. And, by the way, having the last word be “And God opened himself up to Bill and said ‘Welcome home’…” and all that nonsense just goes to show how people fail to understand what this guy was all about, even the people who claim to know him best.
Funny or not, you got the message which is the main reason he did what he did.
It’s always interesting to see the different responses Mr. Hicks provokes. For those who think he was not funny, well then please go listen to someone on your own level and stop with your petty need to denigrate those you don’t understand. For the rest of us, we’ll continue to enjoy his work and mourn his all-too-short life. Rock on Bill.
Bill saw the grim reality of the troubled world’s state of being and said something about it. He took people’s controlled minds out of the closet dusted them off, and turned them inside out.
I can just imagine? What he thought or may have said about the corporate comedians like Lettermen…something like: F*** YOU DAVE…I am GOD! And I don’t kiss anyone’s ***… (can’t wait to view the Bill Hicks Story). Now if they could only find someone like Bill and get him into the White house.
? Did Hicks die of the same disease that killed John Lennon?
We laugh at the Irony of our stupidity. In that instance the laughter preserves our sanity in the face of terrible facts. That is what Hicks did he delivered the bad news that we would not see on the evening news and lets us laugh at him so that we would not go insane, knowing that we were powerless to do anything to save ourselves.
Milton Babb for president
Whenever I desire to hear someone, other than me talking to myself, accurately sum up the current status of various aspects of our Reality, I listen to the rants of truth by people like Bill Hicks. To all the h8ers, the truth doesn’t hurt when you let go of your brainwashed Point Of View. Moral: Don’t invest so much Time/Effort/Money/Emotion on sugar-coated jingoistic cover-ups. Take off the shades; you don’t look cool in them anyway.
RIP Bill Hicks. You were #1. #2 is barely good enough.
I’m gonna relax, wind down now, and listen to some Brian Regan comedy. “…what’s the plural of box? BOXEN…”
Bill Hicks was a great, great, great man that I loved and who spoke for me.
I am still sad, to this day, that he died at a young age. His story mirrors mine very closely.
DancingSpiderman? Guess you didn’t think of anything clever to say, too smoked up huh.
Bill hated Jay Leno and here he is, arse kissing.
Annie, maybe Jay Leno didn’t hate Bill Hicks; maybe Jay wasn’t so petty as to “hate” people who hated him.
Hate, a word that is often misused and used wayyy too often.
Would the word dislike be more apropos?
If Bill was here now he’d be really pissed off with all of us ‘cos it hasnt got any better. Everything he said is happening all the time. Little countries. Big Guns. Bullies. narrow minds. Jimi, janis, jim, Bob, John, Bill etc etc gone too soon. Anyone speaking the truth goes (very quickly) . funny that . . . not being a conspiracy theorist here, just my view. I’m going for a Ride. My girlfriend thinks people are essentially good and locks her car door – I think we’re essentially bad – but leave my car unlocked to give y’all a chance to shape up.
@Bob
You shoulod notice that it isnt a correlation between people speaking their mind, but what professions they all got into. The entertainment industry is a killer.
I dont think anyone spoke their mind anymore freely than the late great george carlin, and he was a wrinkly old nutsack when he stopped making us laugh for eternity. So there goes that theory!
@Christpuncher (fantastic name!)
I love Hicks, but I, too, am a follower of, my personal guru, The Great Philosopher- George Carlin!
My brother Irishman, Carlin, opened my eyes to so much, he was like my own personal jesus! (Boy, would he ever punch me for saying that!)
The day he died, whew… did I ever “tie one on” in his honor… I had my own Irish wake for him!
f**king brilliant, RIP hicks. I only wish he were alive today, would love to hear his take on the war on terror, global warming and the economical state. Too bad americans are so heavily dumbed down to dismiss this legend, he will always have a fond place in the hearts of so many brits…
@phil88
Absolutely! What would he have said about these times?
*sigh* What a great loss to us all…
R.I.P indeed, were I to believe in that sort of thing. When I first saw his stand up, I didnt realise he was dead. I thought he was talking about Bush Jnr until he mentioned Dan Quayle.
Hicks and John Peel are probably the only two famous people who would make my life considerably better were they to come back. We need more people like Hicks.
This is my kind of comedian. Bill told it like it is,and exposed the many incongruities in our reality and the status quo.One of the greats.
the greatest social critic / comedian ever…. even surpasses george carlin… never backed down, never went mainstream.
well damn this was a good bio… not great but good. Bill was by far the best part! People like these are great. A dying breed for sure. Why cant everybody be like this instead of bein pricks. RIP BILL YOUR IMPRESSION HAS BEEN MADE!!!!
I’m not Bill Hicks or George Carlin or Thomas Jefferson but I know what is wrong with our country, I would be able to fix it (USA) if I were President.
Milton Babb for president by public acclaim.
I miss that man :)
26m.26sec. look at those heroin eyes;)
26m.26sec. look at those heroin eyes;) /
Its good to see the majority here got Bill. I miss him so much, he was the street corner profit for my little gang of heads I guess you’d say. His humor was very often pessimistic but I think he was better summed up by the bit he did at the end of the show. He obviousely thought we could change, even if we wouldn’t. He obviousely held a deep honest love for mankind even though he was able to see our faults clearly- and for that i applaud him. The good ones always die sooner than we would like, we should honor them by trying to absorb their message and truly understand it in the context of our lives. Bill made it easy to listen and hard not to think about what you had heard, what a gift.
The Joe Strummer of Comedy.