The mother of stand up comedian Bill Hicks appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman last night (per Dave’s request) to show unaired Bill Hicks stand up footage from October 1, 1993. This would have been Bill’s 12th appearance on Letterman, but as Dave fully admits, he made a mistake and removed it from the broadcast.
According to the Bill Hicks entry in Wikipedia, Hicks expressed his feelings of betrayal in a hand-written, 39-page letter to John Lahr of The New Yorker. Although Letterman later expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled, he did not appear on the show again. The full account of this incident was featured in a New Yorker profile by Lahr.
This clip is the unaired stand up comedy set that would have appeared that night. The clips after the jump are an intro by Letterman and an explanation on why he removed the clip, along with an interview with Bill’s mother, Mary.
Bill would have been 57 next month but died on February 26th, 1994 of pancreatic cancer.
Letterman takes full responsibility for the original censorship, apologizing to Mary and declaring he didn’t know what he had been thinking when he pulled the routine from the original show.
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