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Sam Kinison

Samuel Burl “Sam” Kinison (December 8, 1953 – April 10, 1992) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Kinison was known for his intense, harsh humor. A former revival-style preacher, he performed stand-up routines that were most often characterized by an intense style, similar to revival preachers, punctuated by his trademark scream.

Early life

Born in Yakima, Washington, Kinison was the son of Marie and Samuel Kinison, Pentecostal preachers. His father pastored several churches around the country, receiving little income. Sam later attended East Peoria Community High School in East Peoria, Illinois. He also lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a while with his parents. He followed in his father’s footsteps as a Pentecostal preacher before becoming a comedian. Recordings of his sermons reveal that he used a “fire and brimstone” style, punctuated with shouts similar to the ones he would later use in his stand-up routines. He attended Pinecrest Bible Training Center in Salisbury Center, New York. After he and his first wife were divorced, he abandoned preaching and took up comedy as a profession.

Career

Sam Kinison began his career in Houston, Texas, where he performed in small clubs. It was not until his appearance on HBO‘s Rodney Dangerfield‘s Ninth Annual Young Comedians Special in the summer of 1984 that he became a well known comic. His appearance on the special is widely considered to be his breakthrough performance. Later, during Kinison’s appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, Letterman’s introduction of Kinison warned his audience: “Brace yourselves. I’m not kidding. Please welcome Sam Kinison.”

Kinison played on his former role as a Bible-preaching evangelist, taking satirical and sacrilegious shots at The Bible, Christianity and famous Christian evangelist scandals of his day. Kinison’s daring comedy helped shoot him to stardom. On several videos of his stand-up routines, a shot of his personalized license plate reveals the words “EX REV”.

Kinison made his big screen debut in Rodney Dangerfield’s 1986 film Back to School, playing a short-tempered professor.

Kinison was associated with the Los Angeles rock music scene and was occasionally accompanied by a touring band. He also gained a reputation as having a prodigious appetite for drugs and alcohol.

In 1988, Kinison recorded a novelty version of The Troggs‘ “Wild Thing“, which appeared on his album Have You Seen Me Lately? The record did not make the Billboard Hot 100, but the video was a hit on MTV, as it featured cameos of Rodney Dangerfield, as well as many well-known rock musicians, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Slash, Billy Idol, Steve Vai, Dweezil Zappa, Richie Sambora, and Tommy Lee, and a raunchy “roll on the mat” dance with Jessica Hahn. Also in 1988, Kinison appeared in the music video for the Bon Jovi single “Bad Medicine“.

Kinison appeared in the memorable episode “It’s a Bundyful Life: Part 2″ (1989) of Married with Children, as Al Bundy’s guardian angel, who shows him what life would be like without him born (a take-off of It’s a Wonderful Life).

During one notable Tonight Show performance, he delivered what began as a straightforward version of Elvis Presley‘s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?“, which descended into angry ranting during the spoken breakdown, and then segueing back into a straightforward sung ending.

Some of Kinison’s most spontaneous moments came during his frequent appearances on The Howard Stern Show. He made an angry phone call on-air to Bobcat Goldthwait, and he embarrassed comedienne Judy Tenuta to the point of driving her off the show. His most notorious stunt resulted in an on-air feud with Stern: he made an on-air promise to bring to the show members of the band Bon Jovi, with whom Stern was feuding, but they did not show up, nor did Kinison. Stern’s reaction was swift and vindictive, and Kinison eventually apologized, but not before comedian Gilbert Gottfried and Stern savaged an emotionally charged phone call between Stern and Kinison, in which both stars used the words “man” and “dude” so often that the playback was used as a bit on the show.

Stern and Kinison eventually made up and paired on Stern’s pay-per-view special, U.S. Open Sores. In the early-1990s, Stern purchased the movie rights to Kinison’s biography ‘reported that HBO would make Brother Sam with Kinison being played by Dan Fogler.

In 1991, Kinison starred in the Fox Network TV show Charlie Hoover, in which he played the inner voice of the title character, appearing as a 12″ man. The show lasted only seven episodes before being canceled.



Death

On April 10, 1992, six days after he married his girlfriend Malika Souiri, Sam Kinison was killed when his white 1989 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am was struck on U.S. Route 95, four miles (6 km) north of Interstate 40 and several miles west of Needles, California, by a pickup truck driven by a 17-year-old male who had been drinking alcohol. His wife survived the accident. Kinison was later found to have traces of cocaine, prescription tranquilizers, and codeine in his bloodstream.

Kinison is interred with family members at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His grave marker includes an unattributed quote, “In another time and place he would have been called prophet.”

Cultural legacy

In music

  • Rapper Esham samples Kinison on the song “How Do I Plead to Homicide,” included on his album Judgement Day.
  • A rant from Sam Kinison is featured in the song “The Kid Goes Wild” from the band Babylon A.D. The song appears on the Robocop 2 movie soundtrack.
  • A rant from Sam Kinison is also featured in the song “Still Running’ from the band Chevelle, on the album This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In).
  • Heavy metal band Anthrax sampled one of Kinison’s famous screams in their 1987 song “I’m the Man“.
  • Toward the end of the Digable Planets‘ 1993 song “Time and Space (A New Refutation Of),” rapper Doodlebug (Craig Irving) remarks that “My throat doesn’t feel like Sam Kinison’s must have after a show,” a reference to the Planets’ smooth and restrained—that is, very un-Kinison-like—style of rapping.
  • Rap group Insane Clown Posse mentions Sam Kinison in their song “Fearless” stating “I’d let Sam Kinison borrow my car if he was still around”.
  • Rap group Twiztid mentions Sam Kinison in their song “Meat Cleaver” stating “The bottom line is we twisted like Sam Kinison’s back, after the car wreck”.
  • 90′s indie band The Wonder Stuff dedicated a song to Sam Kinison on their 1993 album ‘Construction for the Modern Idiot‘. The unlisted 13th track is called ‘Something for Sammy ‘. The song is mainly an instrumental apart for the lyric at the end “There are better necks to break and better cars to crash”.
  • Pop singer Kylie Minogue samples an act by Kinison on her single “What Do I Have To Do“.
  • He was also in Mötley Crüe’s “Kickstart My Heart” music video as the Dr. Feelgood car driver.
  • He was also featured in the beginning of Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” music video.

On film and television

Discography

Videography

Filmography

TV appearances

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