But isn't that a hopeful thing? You watch the movie with this incredible parade of talents and part of the fun is that the audience has come to embrace them and share in the act -- literally when they join in with the comics' singing. It makes you feel that audiences don't have to be attracted with big studio or big network hype.

Well, nothing stopped their tour, which is the all-time top grossing comedy tour ever.

How conscious were you of these guys before you made "The Original Kings of Comedy"?

I knew about them. But every time they came to New York I was shooting so I didn't get to see them. The first time I saw them live was when we were taping them, in Charlotte, N.C.

Had you worked much with stand-up comedians?

"Do the Right Thing" was Martin Lawrence's first film, and [the late, great] Robin Harris was in that movie too.

When Paul Mooney appears in "Bamboozled" as the antihero's father, a nightclub comedian named Junebug, he seems to have stepped out of "The Original Kings of Comedy."

Well, to me, Paul Mooney is really playing himself. You know, he wrote a lot of Richard Pryor's standup material. He's a great talent who could've maybe had a much bigger career, but just wouldn't play along. He wouldn't play the Hollywood game. And that's who Junebug was.

And is he bitter about that?

He's not bitter; he's happy. He has his dignity. He has his self-esteem.

And the guys in "The Original Kings of Comedy" carry themselves like, well, kings.

But what's really interesting -- and I say this very respectfully -- is to look at what they do on television and then look at what they do in stand-up. It's like night and day. You know, they're not writing that TV stuff. You only get the real them when they do their own material and it's not filtered.

Do you relate to them when they talk about being from the "old school" in style and music, loving romantic songs from, say, Marvin Gaye, that get all the men and women in the audience to sing along?

Oh yeah. The funny thing about that was, the hip-hop kids thought it was funny too.

"The Original Kings of Comedy" gets you high and keeps you high; "Bamboozled" starts out in a comic mode then takes radical shifts.

Three-quarters of the way in, there is a tonal shift and it was deliberate. We wanted to change it up; we wanted the laughs to stop and get serious. And we felt it was time, you know, to pay the piper -- let's see what happens. What are the consequences going to be for the choices that people have made connected with this show?

And I have to say, I have a problem with that -- not just in this movie, but in "A Face in the Crowd" [the scorching 1957 Elia Kazan satire on TV stardom] and "Network" and other, similar films. I guess I feel that if you grab audiences with comedy, you take them to other places by modulating the comedy, not detouring into whole other dramatic or melodramatic areas.

But I love films where you mix it up -- where a film doesn't really even keep the same rhythm, the same tone all the way through. I mean, it's hard to do, but when it's successful I think it works very well.

You took on the subject of "Bamboozled" because it's become so woefully apparent that the African-American presence in the decision-making halls of network TV is minimal.

And it's the same for the studios. There is not one African-American executive in Hollywood that can green-light a picture. I'm not talking about Wesley [Snipes] or Will [Smith] or Denzel [Washington] or Chris Tucker or Chris Rock. I'm talking about suits. These are the people who are called the "gatekeepers." I think we have to gain access to those positions.

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