The Time Richard Pryor and the Partridge Family Teamed Up To Fight Mobsters
Richard Pryor was in the midst of a career transformation in the early 1970s. He abandoned the Bill Cosby-esque routines that earned him a shot on 1960s TV variety shows, recording albums like 1971’s Craps that “brought the language of the streets to stand-up,” according to the biography Becoming Richard Pryor. But while Pryor was shattering racial and sexual boundaries on stage, he was still taking showbiz jobs that required a more family-friendly style. None of those gigs was weirder than when he guested on The Partridge Family.
Even by sitcom standards, the plot of 1971's “Soul Club” episode was ridiculous. Pryor and future Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr. played A.E. and Sam Simon, two Detroit brothers who turned an old firehouse into a music club to uplift the “ghetto” community. Right on!
But the Soul Club is in trouble, owing big-time bucks to Black mobsters who want to take over the operation. The brothers hire the Temptations to perform a money-raising concert, but through some kind of promotional mix-up (curse you, Ruben Kincaid!), the Temptations end up in Tucson and the lily-white Partridge Family shows up instead. No offense to the Partridges, but they’re not the kind of act that fills seats in Detroit.
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But what would a 1970s sitcom be without a little white-savior complex? The Partridges suggest a block party to raise the cash, with Keith writing a Black-centric song for the occasion. “Sort of an Afro thing,” he says, hip to the brothers’ plight. The resulting song, “Bandala,” is way more calypso than Motown, but Keith did his best.
Things really get weird when Danny enlists the help of the local Afro-American Cultural Society, an obvious nod to the Black Panthers. It’s a scene you’d never see on the Brady Bunch, with smart-ass Danny marching in the streets with the militant Black men. After the loan sharks are dispatched, Danny even gets his own beret. “For your dedication and service in helping our community,” says the group’s leader, “I’m hereby making you an honorary member of the Afro-American Cultural Society.”
Danny shows off the beret to Mrs. Partridge: “Look, Mom, I’m official! Maybe I can start my own chapter back home.”
Progressive Shirley gets a little uncomfortable with the idea of bringing Black Power back home. “We’ll talk about that on the bus, Danny.”
Pryor doesn’t get a lot to do in his guest spot, although he’s pretty funny helping Keith write his Afrocentric song. “A raft of violins, you dig?” So why did Pryor take the job? The episode was a backdoor pilot for a sitcom in which Pryor and Gossett would have starred as owners of the Soul Club, a regular TV gig that the comedian likely would have welcomed in 1971.
Pryor would have needed to brush up on his kid-actor skills if the Partridge Family returned for another concert, however. Bonaduce proudly bragged that Pryor called him “motherfucker” at one point during production, according to IMDb. Pryor was quickly reprimanded by a producer: “You can’t call a 10-year-old kid a motherfucker.”
But if any kid ever deserved it, it was Danny Bonaduce.
