Can Someone Explain The 'Dice Clay Controversy'?
 

or 'DiceGate'

Just wondering... As a recent fan of his work, I was trying to find out what he did now, and found there was a time when he just disappeared.

What happened? I've seen been told there was some sort of trouble?

he was banned from mtv for doing one of his racy bits even though he said he wouldn't. He was on vh1 recently for the "I love the 80's" special. Since we are at mtv awards time, hopefully within the month, mtv will show its "history of the mtv vma's", and it'll have the clip.

His schtick just wore thin very quickly. It was funny at first, but got repetitive and boring. He is a fine comedic actor though, and I enjoy seeing him in smaller roles here and there.

A good, quick summary from:


His appearance on the 1989 MTV Video Awards contained so much profanity that he was banned from the network altogether. The controversy continued the following year when Dice's booking as guest host for Saturday Night Live caused cast member Nora Dunn to boycott the show in protest of his remarks about women. Dunn never returned to the cast.

Around the same time, he appeared on Arsenio Hall's show and nearly broke down into tears during his performance.

He sort of disappeared after that, making a few failed attempts at comedy tours and sitcom roles.

The fact that he kept rehashing the same routine over and over ad nauseum didn't help his career.

I saw him live in Vegas a couple of years ago and he was great. Back to his old self. I hope to see a DVD of his tour soon. He was quite good.

By the way, he now does serious theater on London's West Side under the name Sir Andrew Claymore.

I think Dennis Miller put it best:

"The Dice Man? He's like Fonzie with Tourette’s Syndrome. Come on! Nursery rhymes with the word '*******' it? I mean isn't his worst crime that he's just a tad bit innocuous?"

As Jackie Jokeman pointed out on Howard Stern, just before Howard fell out with Dice, sometimes Dice "played" a tough Italian...sometimes a tough Jew.

He couldn't make up his mind :lol:


I saw Dice live at the Forum and the show was ok. It was cool until he decided to do music for the rest of the show.

He also had an ongoing feud with Sam Kinnison at the time. Sam kept saying that Dice was ripping off his material and made no bones about it.

There is actually one comedy album by Dice that was released that there was NO laughter on. All of his material bombed that night and the label decided to release it anyway. If memory serves me, there was sticker on the front of the CD that said "This disc contains 40 minutes of jokes with no laughter" or words to that effect.

Quote:

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There is actually one comedy album by Dice that was released that there was NO laughter on. All of his material bombed that night and the label decided to release it anyway. If memory serves me, there was sticker on the front of the CD that said "This disc contains 40 minutes of jokes with no laughter" or words to that effect

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The cd was called, "Day the Laughter Died," It was very funny. He went to a club and started insulting the audience as he usually did, but (if I recall correctly) a family was sitting in front and he went into a 30 minute bit about the family f'ing each other. The audience was uncomfortable, but it still was a funny bit.

I saw him in concert last year and he was still funny and the place was sold out (probably around 2-3k)

Day the Laughter Died was genius... it was an experiment. He didn't bomb, he just went in and was funny... he didn't go in to do his stupid nursery rhyme crap. It's the real Dice comedy. The audience laughed, but not all that much. His goal was to see how many people he could get to leave before the show was over. It was like 2 hours. The bit where he accuses the family of having sex with each other wasn't quite 30 minutes, but it was hilarious. The longest bit was this "hour back" bit that always has me on the floor. This album was the closest Dice ever got to real art. There was a sequel to this album - Day the Laughter Died part 2 - not as funny though.

I've seen Dice at least 3 times... he's great.

I remember one of Kinison's shows where he spotted someone wearing a Diceman t-shirt and started screaming for the guy to get out. :-)

Dice was the man in the mid to late 80s, very funny stuff.

I saw it as a backlash against the political correctness that was overtaking newspapers, etc. Dice was, of course, anything but "politically correct".

You have to understand that "The Diceman" was just a character he did, kind of like William Shatner doing James T. Kirk. Except that The Diceman was a lot cruder and upset a lot of the politically correct set (normally women). Afterwards, he showed up as a supporting actor or guest actor in some sit-coms, and every once in a while the Diceman will make a reappearance, but yes, his hayday was in the mid to late 80s.

In it he said, "If I could stick my tongue up my own ***hole, I'd never leave the house."

Maybe he finally figured out how.

I think his last big thing was that st. valentine's day massacre show.

That was a loooong time ago.

I never really understood why women were so freaked up "Dice."

I mean, my God, he dressed like Fonzie and told dirty nursery rhymes. This was hardly the "he-man, woman-haters club."

He was like a little kid on a playground who never grew up. The ultimate man-child, still trying to shock people with dirty words and dressing like the "cool" idol he grew up with.

I can't believe that this went over people's heads. On second thought, I can.

I think the controversy began when he played The Gooch on Diff'rent Strokes.

heard he's working in europe

eastern europe supposedly

He did some really great impersonations of the nutty professer (Jerry Lewis), Al Pacino and John Travolta. I think he also did Elvis impersonation.

He was really funny back in the day, he just buckled under the media scrutiny and he lost his image in the public eye. He just wasn't thick skinned.

Saw him in Vegas 2 years ago. It was basically the same joke told 100 different ways for 90 minutes. Very lame.