Pryor's Place was one of Sid & Marty Krofft's more obscure series from The '80s. The series was heavily influenced by another educational television series featuring humans and puppets coexisting on an inner city street. However, the basic format of this series was that each episode, Richard Pryor would book-end the show - his opening monologue was reminiscing about a childhood experience of his, the ensuing story would follow "Little Richie" and his friends on whatever it was they had gotten themselves into, then Pryor's closing monologue would be whatever the lesson of the story was.
Pryor himself also would appear in the story, usually playing a different character who inhabited the street, such as Chills the street musician. Underneath the street in the sewers, lived Al and Marjorie, two rat puppets - Al was pretty much a lazy bum who always sat on the couch reading the paper (even though he couldn't really read), though Marjorie was more free-spirited and took interest in whatever the kids were doing above them.
This series provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Time Period: The show fell victim to this. The basic format of the show is Richard Pryor reminiscing about various childhood experiences, however his stories show his childhood friends in obviously 1980s attire, not to mention such things as breakdancing and video arcades. It could all be justified, however, in that his stories are fictionalized versions of his life.
- If you consider Pryor's actual real-life childhood....VERY fictionalized.
- Celebrity Star: Richard Pryor, obviously.
- Pat Morita made a guest appearance in "Voyage to the Planet of the Dumb" as the owner of a magical game arcade.
- Edutainment Show
- Laugh Track: And applause tracks, too.
- Muppet: The puppets in this series actually seemed like a departure from the Kroffts' usual life-sized, full-bodied rubber suit characters, and resembled more the Muppet style of puppetry.
- Short-Runner: Like most Krofft series. This one lasted only one season, with twelve episodes.
- Shout-Out: The whole series is basically a televisual nod to Sesame Street.
- Tuckerization: In one episode, two of Little Richie's classmates are named Sid and Marty.
- Whole Episode Flashback
