When I came across the news that Bernie Mac passed away this past Saturday morning, I was immediately struck by a wave of ridiculously personal memories. Two specifically that led me to be a longtime Mac fan.
Nobody needs me to explain that Mac was far from an ordinary comedian. Emerging as one of the many aftershocks of Redd Foxx, the bug-eyed, sharply-dressed Mac trusted blunt force delivery, hitting his audience smack in the face with idiosyncratic punchlines before they could even consider revolt. His early film roles reflected that disarming, whirlwind intensity, eventually lost to his advancing years and glacial metamorphosis into a more acerbic Cosby – and that’s a compliment.
My first taste of Mac came in 1993’s hip-hop whodunit, “Who’s the Man?” Yes, I’ve seen it. Only an impressionable teenager at the time (with a weirdo Denis Leary fetish), Mac’s small role as a spastic barber grabbed me by the throat. “Who was that guy?” As if being underage and sitting in an empty St. Louis Park, MN mall theater watching an urban comedy wasn’t strange enough, Mac’s shotgun blast of performance peculiarity was enough to knock me out of my seat. I instantly craved more Mac.
Years later, the movie theater I worked for booked the unfortunate comedy “How to Be a Player.” A repulsive film, the experience was elevated to a certain degree by Mac, playing what would be his calling card of the 1990s: the insane man. It was a nothing role, but the response he received from audiences was enviable. As I often did while obscenely bored at work, I poked my head into “Player” to kill a few minutes, waltzing into the scene where Mac describes a certain smell in the air. I’ll let the crappy-looking clip here explain the rest:
A hilarious line, but during this specific screening an older African-American fellow stood up from his seat abruptly, walked to the aisle, knelt down and started slapping the floor in full hysterics. To this day I’ve never witnessed a comedic reaction quite like that. That full-bodied response could only be brought on by Mac.
Mac was the king. Lordy, he’ll be missed.
Comments