''Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling'' is a 1986 American

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

comedy-drama film Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

directed, produced by and starring

Richard Pryor Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as on ...

, who also wrote the screenplay with Paul Mooney and Rocco Urbisci. ''Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling'' was Richard Pryor's first and only directorial effort, although he is credited as such on the screen version of his 1983 stand-up comedy concert film.

Background

Pryor plays Jo Jo Dancer, a popular

stand-up comedian Stand-up comedy is a comedy, comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of One-line joke ...

, who has severely burned himself while freebasing

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...

. The film came out six years after Pryor had set himself on fire while freebasing.

Synopsis

As Dancer lies hospitalized in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

, his spiritual

alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...

revisits his life, from growing up in a

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

as a child and struggling to beat the long odds to become a top-rated comedian. However, his success leads to extensive drug use and womanizing that takes its toll on his life. It affects every relationship, including his marriages. Jo Jo's spirit watches and attempts to convince his past self to end the cycle of self-destruction.

Cast

Production

The earlier parts of the film were shot in Pryor's hometown of

Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria ...

Reception

''Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling'' received mixed reviews from critics. It currently has a 54% "Rotten" rating on the movie review aggregator site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 13 reviews.

In popular culture

The title of the film is mentioned in the lyrics to the 2013

Afrojack Nick Leonardus van de Wall (; born 9 September 1987), better known as Afrojack, is a Dutch DJ, music producer and remixer from Spijkenisse, South Holland. In 2007, he founded the record label Wall Recordings; his debut album '' Forget the World' ...

song " The Spark" and the 2016

Danny Brown Daniel Dewan Sewell (born March 16, 1981), better known by his stage name Danny Brown, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He has been described by MTV as "one of rap's most unique figures in recent memory". In 2010, after amassing s ...

song “Downward Spiral”. In the TV series ''Archer'', the movie was referenced in the 8th episode of

Season 7 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

, "Liquid Lunch", by Dr. Krieger as the one-man show, “Jo Jo Dancer - Ihr Leben Ruft”, he was performing. The implication being a German language version of the screenplay performed in black face. Although the German title for the film is actually '' Jo Jo Dancer – Dein Leben ruft''

References

External links

* * 1986 films 1986 comedy-drama films 1980s American films 1986 directorial debut films 1980s English-language films 1980s biographical drama films African-American biographical dramas African-American comedy-drama films American biographical drama films American comedy-drama films Biographical films about entertainers Columbia Pictures films Films about comedians Films about drugs Films about prostitution in the United States Films directed by Richard Pryor Films scored by Herbie Hancock Films set in Los Angeles Films set in Illinois Films set in Ohio Films with screenplays by Richard Pryor Mafia comedy films {{1980s-comedy-film-stub