Bill Maher fancies himself the reincarnation of Lenny Bruce.
When I first started out, 'Time' magazine did an article on what it called 'the sick comics,' and they were myself, Shelley Berman, Nichols & May, Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Mort Sahl. We were considered 'sick.'
On the comedy side of what I love as a filmmaker are Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, and Eddie Murphy; those are my favorites.
My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.
Joan Rivers telling Lauren Bacall her dress is all wrong is like Carrot Top telling Lenny Bruce he needs to get an edge.
Lenny Bruce is a very moral man trying to improve the world and trying to make audiences think.
I mean, I was always interested in people like Lenny Bruce, people who are breaking the old rules and making new ones.
But the only comparison that I want to Lenny Bruce is that I'm funny. I'm Freddie Prinze, Puerto Rican all the way.
Lenny Bruce did clean TV. You have to be able to do that, I think, to succeed because if you want to promote something, you go on 'The Tonight Show' or 'Letterman' or whatever, you can't be dirty.
In my opinion, Lenny Bruce was more of an influence on Zappa's satirical lyric's than anyone that I know of.
