From his days at MTV to his comedy albums and appearances in popular films like Encino Man, Son In Law and Jury Duty, Pauly Shore had a great time as a rising star in the early ‘90s. His mother Mitzi Shore founded the world famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and his father Sammy was a touring comedian. Needless to say, inspiring laughter ran in the family.

While he did make a few appearances over the years, Pauly’s career quieted down considerably, and the media had a hell of a time poking fun at him. He showed that he had the ability to laugh at himself with his 2003 ‘mockumentary’ Pauly Shore Is Dead, reminding fans that he was still in the game.

He was determined to keep his career thriving through independent projects, and has succeeded in doing so – but not without his share of controversy.

Recently, Pauly began utilizing the internet to reach fans in a big way. From set-ups like getting punched in the face by a cowboy to his recent rant about Black comedians and their ability to get work, Pauly definitely knows how to make us look.

After Pauly noticed illseed’s impeccable reporting in AllHipHop Rumors, he agreed to give us the exclusive interview to explain his recent antics.

AllHipHop.com: You have a DVD that's out, Natural Born Komics, and obviously quite a bit of the video [with the rant about Black comedians] has been along the lines of promoting that. 

Pauly Shore: That was the whole reason I did that, there was no other reason why I did that.

AllHipHop.com: Were you having any concerns that fans were thinking otherwise [that you might really be serious]?

Pauly Shore: No, I wanted to create a response, and these days for people to buy things you gotta create some type of awareness. Everyone in my movie - you've got Vivica [Fox], T-Pain, Charlie [Murphy] - I had to get to the Hip-Hop community because they're all fans of those people. Hip-Hop people aren't my fans. I get approached all the time on the street from Black people that love me, they give me hugs and I've been in the game for a long time. But as far as them purchasing a Pauly Shore DVD, it's not gonna happen. You understand?

AllHipHop.com: A lot of people don't understand your history past your movies and MTV, with your mother, and the fact that Richard Pryor was a huge influence to you…

Pauly Shore: My dad actually opened for Elvis Presley as a comedian, his name is Sammy Shore. He opened for Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. in the '60s and '70s, met my mom, they moved to Miami Beach and then they drove together and got married before I was even born. Then they moved to California in the 1970s, 1972 they opened up this place called The Comedy Store on Sunset. That's where Redd Foxx, Pat McCormick and all of the early comics started out with my dad.

Then my mom won The Comedy Store in the divorce, and my mom is like the Mother Theresa of comedy. We've been supporting Black comedians our whole lives at The Comedy Store - my mom started the whole Black movement of comedy in Hollywood. Everyone from Paul Mooney to Richard [Pryor] started there, The Comedy Store is a college, and the only place you can go and develop from scratch. She started that in '72 and I grew up there my whole life since I was a baby.

Richard Pryor and Mitzi Shore

AllHipHop.com: How much of a challenge has it been for you to keep your career going in a way where you didn't feel like you were swimming upstream the whole time?

Pauly Shore: It's very difficult. It was just a wake up call. In my career, it's the old saying you look at the glass half full or half empty. I've made it, I've done some great movies, all of my movies continuously play on cable whether it's Son In Law, In The Army Now or Bio-Dome. All of my movies play constantly. I had an amazing run in the '90s, and then like anything you gotta go away to come back.

The Weasel, my persona, was so strong, and anything that strong is gonna die at some point. But underneath the hair and the dress code, there's this Jewish comic that was raised in this environment that won't stop. About five years ago I decided to take my career into my own hands and started doing my own projects, ever since then everything I've done [while I won’t say it's] gotten great reviews, they're honest. 

It's really hard for people to give it up to me, I'm cool with that, I don't care anymore. I really don't care anymore because internally I'm fulfilled. If I can sell DVDs and have a hit on something, that's icing on the cake. But no matter what happens with [Natural Born Komics] I got something else in the can that's coming out and I've got something else after that. I've continuously trudged on, I don't know if I got that from my mom or that's something that's in my system.

These days you've got the internet and other ways to get your creative spirit out there. We don't have to be greenlit by a $20 million studio film. I know it's gonna happen for me again. I already know that because it's inside of me. Honestly I don't care when people diss me, I'm over that. I cared about that a while ago and I'm over that. My skin is too thick now. Like I said, I'm an artist and I'm stimulating myself and I smile when I do crazy stuff, and in turn other people hopefully smile.

AllHipHop.com: There has been a handful of white and Jewish comedians in the past that have addressed race relations, but it's always been a very delicate balance…

Pauly Shore: My [whole thing] was done, planned as a promotional stunt, Michael Richards’ [rant] wasn't.

AllHipHop.com: Do you think it's more acceptable nowadays for non-Black comedians to address issues like the Don Imus case, and do you think in general that laughing about it opens up the discussion a little bit?

Pauly Shore:  I think it's out there in the world, we're about to have our first African-American president. If it's in the air as a comic, it's a freedom of speech, and as long as you don't go over the line… You go up to the line, but don't go over the line, and that's my thing. The Black and white thing will always be in the air and you have to address it. Black people talk about white people, white people should be able to talk about Black people.

It's like, if you look at Sarah Silverman on Comedy Central, she's always doing Black jokes. Bill Maher is going there, everyone is going there, but people see this stuff on the internet and all of a sudden they think "Oh my God!" The piece that I did was a produced piece, there's music and graphics behind it. To me it was like a sketch on Comedy Central or something, but people just bought into it because it was the internet. 

AllHipHop.com: The prank where the cowboy socked you… what kind of feedback did you get from that? We know that it was staged, we saw the production clips and everything. How was the reaction from fans?

Pauly Shore: The thing is, remember who you're talking to right now. It's Pauly Shore, I'm a f**king comedian. So try not to take what I say so serious, and that's what happens, because I'm a good actor. I was acting, just like all of the people in the clip were acting. I directed, produced and edited that clip, I was acting in these clips.

As far as people being duped, it's the same thing as Ashton Kutcher [on Punk'd] at a bigger level. You're messing with the internet and messing with people's minds. The only dumb thing that I did was with the thing with the cowboy, I didn't have a product coming out at the time. I didn't have a movie or something, I just did it because I was f***king bored. [laughs]

The funny thing behind this [Black comedian rant video] is, I didn't even come up with this whole thing. It came from a place called Element Nine which is a Hip-Hop marketing company. Don't you wanna know the story behind it and how the whole thing happened?

AllHipHop.com: Yes.

Pauly Shore: About 10 months ago I'm sitting in my office at The Comedy Store on the third floor, and I'm like, "How the hell am I gonna sell this DVD?" So I make a couple calls to some connections I have with Eminem and his management, and I get ahold of this guy Shawn Prez.  He's Puffy's marketing guy, I call him up and we become best friends on the phone.

We laugh and talk about different things, I send him the DVD and he really loves it, I say, "How am I gonna get involved with the Hip-Hop community? I think this DVD is really funny and I want people in the Hip-Hop world to see it and laugh because they deserve good comedy and I'm a funny comedian."

He was feeling me, so he goes, "You know rappers go after each other to sell DVDs or CDs, why don't you go after Black comedians?" He says, "Why don't you rap?" I said, "I don't f**king rap", and he says, "Well let's do a video." It wasn't even my idea. So he's the mastermind behind this whole thing, I followed his lead, he became a really good friend of mine and held my hand through the process, and it's all good. What we pulled off was remarkable and hysterical, and I got nothing but love.

AllHipHop.com: You [spoke] a few times in the past about your relationships with the Bboys in L.A.

Pauly Shore: Yeah I grew up pop-locking as a child, that's where I met Ice-T. I grew up and was fascinated with the Hip-Hop world as a kid. There was a club back in the early ‘80s called The Radio Club. That's where Ice-T started, and this guy named Oz Rock started, he was the first guy to do aerial windmills. He was f**king insane, that's where I met Sugar Pop who was in all of the Lionel Richie videos and we became really good friends. I became really good friends with his brother Jason and all of the Samoans and the Carson City boys.

All of those guys were Hawaiian and Samoan, they used to come over to my house as a kid and we would pop-lock and breakdance on the linoleum, and my mom would go, "Who the f**k are these people?" and I'd go, "Mom, they're teaching me how to spin on my head" and she'd just laugh and they'd all come swimming at my house. That's where it all started for me, and ever since then I've been involved with that and growing up at The Comedy Store.

I became friends with Dr. Dre because he'd always come in and watch the comedians. All of those people are in Pauly Shore Is Dead as well - if you look at that movie, you've got Snoop, Dre, B-Real. These are all guys that I grew up with.

AllHipHop.com: How did your relationships with rappers factor into [your work at] MTV?

Pauly Shore: Not at all. When I was on MTV it was just Yo! MTV Raps and that was basically it. I was on MTV from '90 to '96, so it was very broken up. Now if you watch MTV, it's mostly Hip-Hop and dance and stuff, but back then it was straight up rock and heavy metal, and I was a part of that wave as well. I'm friends with all of the heavy metal guys as well in that whole kind of era. The Motley Crue guys, I'm friends with Tommy [Lee] and all of those guys as well. I grew up on the Sunset strip.

AllHipHop.com: With you being a part of those worlds, did you ever foresee that Hip-Hop would be as big as it's become?

Pauly Shore: You know what? It's really f**king amazing, I'm so proud of everyone that is involved in the Hip-Hop world, because honestly it's like the best music that's out there. It's what everyone is buying, you walk in the clubs and it's what's on, it's what's on everyone's radio. Good rock is still good rock, but I remember when I was on MTV, it's hysterical [looking back at how] it was all rock, and then a Hip-Hop category. Now it's all Hip-Hop with a rock category and it's pretty funny.

Good music is good music and that's just my thought. Hip-Hop is the best music that's out there right now. It's what I listen to on my iPod when I'm driving. I live in L.A. and I turn on 105.9, and that's what I listen to.

AllHipHop.com: What are some of your favorite albums right now?

Pauly Shore: Tupac - I know he's been gone for a while but I still listen to [his albums] all of the time. I love obviously the Kanye album, the 50 album, all that Eminem stuff is still relevant.  All of Jay-Z's stuff is amazing, I saw a private show of his in Miami a couple of weeks ago and it was like, "F**k", I had never seen him live. He's so smooth, I mean he just f**king comes out there…

It was funny, because it was at the Fillmore and it was a private show, the first show on his tour and he didn't go on until late. People were getting pissed, like "F**k, come on dude. Let's do this." He went on past midnight and the second he went on stage all of a sudden the lights went down and it was like nobody really cared. It was like, "Holy s**t!" - and his songs are all his. He's just really good, a lot of rap is hard if the sound system's not right and the rapper's okay, you don't get it all. But he flies across the stage having a blast.

AllHipHop.com: Give us a little rundown of what you have coming up next.

Pauly Shore: I'm excited about the DVD Natural Born Komics, that just came out last week. I have a movie called Adopted which is pretty funny, I go to Africa to adopt a Black child. That's basically already shot, it's kind of the opposite of Borat, you know how Borat is this Middle Eastern guy who comes to America looking for Pam Anderson? I'm like this L.A. Hollywood guy, a single guy coming to Africa looking to adopt an African child.

I also honestly wanted to bring lightness to Africa. I think that after people see this movie they're not gonna think of Africa the way they did before. Everyone is smiling, I got the kids laughing and we're having a good time. Beautiful scenery… I showed some townships, but it wasn't heavy with the HIV and that world. I wanted to show Africa in a really fun kind of light where you watch the movie and go, "F**k, I wanna go to Africa. That looks fun."

So it's really cool, I went down there and did some shows, so I shot this movie while I was down there. I have that and this movie called Opposite Day which is a kids’ movie that's a studio film, and a couple of other things I'm working on. 

I want to tell everyone I have nothing but love. At the end of the day I'm a comedian that constantly tries to think of stuff that gets people's attention, and have a good time at the same time.

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