Comedy legend George Wallace is bringing a special guest to Helium Comedy Club for his four shows this weekend, and her name is not on the venue’s website.
The Blender by Kevin C. Johnson keeps you up to date with the latest concert news and more from the St. Louis music scene.
Fellow funny friend Marsha Warfield (bailiff Roz Russell from “Night Court,” “9-1-1”) will take the stage to open for Wallace.
“That’s the most important thing,” he says of his two nights at the club. “You’re gonna see Marsha Warfield. She’s with me. It’s gonna be great.”
They’ve been friends since the 1970s. “She hits the stage and then I hit the stage. It’s two headliners for the price of one.”
At his St. Louis shows, Wallace promises to acknowledge the city’s famous Black comedians.
“I’m gonna talk about a lot of funny stuff. There’s so much history there. I’ll talk about everyone who comes out of there,” says Wallace, name checking the likes of Redd Foxx, Cedric the Entertainer, Joe Torry and Guy Torry, and LaWanda Page (who got her start locally).
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His commentary on Black comedians will likely be far more positive than that of Katt Williams, who went viral earlier this year after ripping many of today’s Black comedians to shreds on Shannon Sharpe’s “Club Shay Shay” podcast.
Wallace wasn’t included, which surprised him since he paved the way for all of the comedians mentioned, he says.
“I wouldn’t have minded a little beef. There’s no such thing as bad press,” Wallace says. “It was good for everybody. Everyone wanted to see what Ced (Cedric the Entertainer) was going to say. Everyone wanted to see what Steve (Harvey) was going to say.”
Wallace, a veteran who has been doing stand-up for about five decades, calls stand-up “my life, my drug, my sex. I thank God every day for what I do. I love to get up there and do my thing.”
Now Wallace is on the road five days a week. Previously he had a 10-year residency at Flamingo Las Vegas that ended in 2014 and a second residency at Westgate Resort that started in 2018, leading him to adopt the title “The New Mr. Las Vegas.” He says the Westgate residency ended with COVID.
“I love to still go out there and hit it. I got to reinvent myself,” says Wallace, who was a longtime personality on radio’s “The Tom Joyner Morning Show.”
While continually touring, Wallace also stars in the upcoming Amazon Freevee dramedy “Clean Slate” with Laverne Cox. The late Norman Lear served as the show’s executive producer, and it’s believed to be his final producing credit.
Wallace portrays Henry, long estranged from his son who returns home after many years as his daughter, now named Desiree and portrayed by Cox.
“I’m an old Black man in Alabama, a Southerner taking care of my family and working at the car wash. I was married, my wife died, my son was 16 when he left. After 27 years of being away from Alabama, my son’s coming home. The next day there’s a knock at the door, and it’s the most beautiful woman in the world,” Wallace says, elaborating on the premise.
“I thought it was a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m not buying. She says, ‘Dad, it’s me.’ ‘Lady it’s time for you to go.’ Then I look into her eyes. ‘Ahhh.’”
Wallace calls the concept an updated version of Lear’s classic “Sanford and Son” but with a twist, in this case making it more like Sanford and daughter.
“It’s all about love. He has to learn how to live with her, and she has to learn to live with him. It’s a story that needs to be told. America is going to be educated. Let people live how they want to live and do what they want to do,” he says.
Additionally, “it’s gonna be controversial. Norman Lear never did anything that wasn’t controversial.”
Lear is known for classic sitcoms such as “All in the Family,” “Good Times,” “Maude,” “The Jeffersons” and “One Day at a Time.”
Wallace’s TV credits include “Atlanta,” “History of the World, Part II,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Seinfeld” and “Moesha.” He has also appeared on the big screen on “The Ladykillers,” “Funny People,” “Little Nicky,” “The Wash” and “Batman Forever.”
As for “Clean Slate,” Wallace is certain he’s “gonna catch hell from the Black church. I don’t care.”
The lightbulb to do the show went off when Wallace saw a friend of his with a child who transitioned, and he thought it was something he could explore.
Having Cox on board was the icing on the cake. He calls her a great screen partner.
“She’s fantastic,” he says of the Emmy winner and frequent red-carpet host. “She hadn’t worked in comedy before. She learned everything, and she got it. Me and her together is great.”
Wallace took the concept of “Clean Slate” to Lear because he was known for groundbreaking TV and they were friends. They worked together on the short-lived ’90s sitcom “704 Hauser,” starring John Amos, a spinoff of “All in the Family.”
“Everybody knows when he shows up, it’s something big. He made every meeting. It was awesome working with him,” Wallace says of Lear, who started work on the show pre-COVID when he was 97.
“This show is gonna be different and a lot of fun. It’s going to be great.”
The Blender by Kevin C. Johnson keeps you up to date with the latest concert news and more from the St. Louis music scene.